Genevieve Gaunt is playing Marilyn Monroe in The Marilyn Conspiracy at the Park Theatre from 24th June – 27th July. For more go to parktheatre.co.uk/event/the-marilyn-conspiracy
Based on years of meticulous research, actress and writer Vicki McKellar and Olivier Award-winning director Guy Masterson’s thriller reconstructs the last four days and immediate aftermath of the death of Marilyn Monroe. In the official version of events, she was found nude in her bed holding a telephone, but before the police were called, her doctor, psychiatrist, publicist, housekeeper, and some close friends gathered to decide how to break the news. But what led to this tragic event? A tangled web of misinformation and lies unfold and the facts and myths of the case are exposed to reveal what really happened that fateful night and why.
1. This is the third time you’re playing Marilyn Monroe, why are you drawn to playing her?
I have played Marilyn Monroe in two one-off rehearsed readings, so this time doing The Marilyn Conspiracy at Park Theatre is the first proper time. The first was a two-hander called The Dame and the Showgirl by Simon Berry with Dame Harriet Walter as Edith Sitwell and House of the Wicked by Torben Betts which Trevor Nunn directed for a reading at the National Theatre.
As to ‘why play Marilyn?’ Well…as a character in our play says, ‘What’s not to love?’ and that’s how I feel about Marilyn. She’s full of sensation and sadness, she’s witty and vulnerable, tender, difficult, surrounded by people yet always alone.
We see a different side to Marilyn through her closest friends, most of whom are on the payroll, her housekeeper, Eunice Murray (played by Sally Mortemore), her psychiatrist Dr. Greenson (David Calvitto) and his wife Hildi (Angela Bull), her physician, Dr. Engelberg (Maurey Richards), the actor Peter Lawford (Declan Bennett) and his wife Patricia Kennedy-Lawford (Vicki McKellar) and her press aide and one of Marilyn’s best friends, Pat Newcomb (Susie Amy).
2. How do you approach playing one of the most famous women of all time?!
Well, exactly that, she’s a woman. She’s a flawed, fascinating, woman who behind all the allure had a lot of problems. Our play draws back the curtain and here we see Marilyn, not on the silver screen but in her own living room, often in her bathrobe. Marilyn once said that her best friend in the world was her telephone, especially late at night when she was lonely and couldn’t sleep. We also explore the effervescent Marilyn who has wit and verve, who drinks Dom Perignon like it’s orange juice and who likes to gossip with her friends and talk and laugh.
What helped was watching her movies, listening to her interviews and reading some excellent books- the best for me was the forensically researched, Goddess by Anthony Summers. The truth behind the scenes of Marilyn’s life is far more shocking, funny and wilder than I realised and these elements of truth helped to ground the decisions we made in rehearsals about what she would and would not do and say. I found some direct quotes of hers and our director Guy encouraged putting them into the script.
3. Tell us about working with Dame Harriet Walter
Really fun- she played Edith Sitwell- the intellectual, aristo-poet, who looked and spoke in an extraordinarily eccentric fashion. Sitwell interviewed Monroe in 1953 which at first glance is a paradox of personalities, looks, voices, everything. Harriet and I had fun playing two women who start poles apart but through conversation (and gin martinis) realise they have a lot more in common than they thought.
4. Marilyn would have been 98 this month if she was still with us, what do you think she would make of the fact she is still so popular and talked about years after she died?
For the little girl Norma Jean who had the most horrific, lonely upbringing (deserted by her father, neglected by her mentally ill mother who was sectioned and for the child who grew up in a series of foster homes and an orphanage) and for the woman she grew into who was doubted and doubted herself, I think Marilyn would be absolutely amazed and delighted by the fact that she continues to be adored and that her personality and work still enrapture people. Her fans and her public filled the void (however fleetingly) of love and affirmation she never received as a child. I think she’d also be thrilled by how many serious creatives nowadays talk about Marilyn’s intelligence, wit and acting magic. In her day she was, apart from by those who really knew her worth like Billy Wilder, labelled as a ‘dumb blonde’- she was anything but.
5. What can you tell us about the truths that The Marilyn Conspiracy reveals about her death?
Whether or not you think Marilyn died of accidental or intentional barbiturate overdose, it is undeniable that Marilyn Monroe’s death was overshadowed by the most powerful forces in America- both licit and illicit.
At the time, people thought Marilyn was paranoid when she left her house in Brentwood with a big bag of coins to talk on public telephones for fear of her lines being bugged, but it turns out she was right: Marilyn’s house was bugged- and three times over- by private detectives working as guns for hire and a third set planted by one of Marilyn’s possessive ex-husbands…
In addition to the bugs- the scene of her death was contaminated, medical information didn’t add up, a filing cabinet was forced open, witness testimony changed, her autopsy was bungled, and years later- the re-opened case was quashed by a judge. It’s fertile ground for whispers of foul play.
6. Can you tell us – without giving too much away – what you think happened the night Marilyn died?
Only the dead, and perhaps a few witnesses at the end of their lives, could tell us what really happened that night. But whatever did happen, there were 5 or so murky hours between when her body was found and when the police arrived- and our play, originated by Vicki McKellar and co-written and directed by Guy Masterson reconstructs with the evidence available what might have been discussed.