Marilyn: My Secret is a new play, opening at the Macha Theatre in West Hollywood and running until April 21st.
The drama focuses on Marilyn’s rumoured sexual escapades (mostly unproven.) James Spada, author of the 1982 book, Monroe: Her Life in Pictures, has reviewed Marilyn: My Secret for Broadway World.
“The play, co-written by its producer/director Odalys Nanin and Willard Manus, is a short (eighty minutes) and mostly enjoyable two acts that take place in Marilyn’s Brentwood home after her death in 1962. (We’re seeing Marilyn reminisce in heaven, apparently.) The writers have done their research about Monroe, but several times they succumb to the understandable temptation to run with the most sensationalistic assertions about the woman - twenty abortions, a baby at 14, a long and meaningful lesbian relationship with a drama coach, flings with Marlene Dietrich, Elizabeth Taylor, and the most celebrated stripper of the late forties, Lili St. Cyr, who teaches Marilyn how to be sexy. None of these rumors has come close to being proved…
[Kelly Mullis] gives us a multi-layered sexy symbol, conveying Marilyn’s highs and lows, her sweetness and her guile, with equal sympathy. She sings a number of Marilyn’s songs, using her own voice, and it’s close enough…
This is a multi-media show, with the stage backdrop being a screen that frequently shows us clips and photos of the real Marilyn, as well as one Photoshopped image of Marilyn with JFK, something else that will displease some.”
