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. The first version of The Marilyn Conspiracy, which focused on the conspiracy elements of the story, was a hit at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2018 and this updated version, which adds more around the build-up to Monroe’s death, is making its world premiere in London.
On Wednesday August 1st 1962, seven people gathered at Marilyn Monroe’s home to celebrate her new $1m two-picture deal with 20th Century Fox. At 04:30 the following Sunday 5 August, her “sudden and unexplained death” was called in to the police and was reported as a drugs overdose. But she was found unconscious by her housekeeper the night before at 22:35 and subsequently died at 23:40, all after a late visit from a very important guest… when the same seven people regathered in her home on Saturday night in the five hours before calling the police, they had to decide on the version of the truth that would pervade for years after.
The cast is made up of a number of actors reprising their roles from 2018 as well as new additions. Returning to the show in the roles they played in 2018 are Susie Amy as Pat Newcomb (Footballers Wives, Hotel Babylon), Sally Mortemore as Eunice Murray (Game of Thrones, Doctors), Angela Bull as Hildi Greenson (Coronation Street) and co-writer of the show, Vicky McKellar as Patricia Kennedy-Lawford.
New for the London run are Declan Bennett as Peter Lawford, (Moulin Rogue, Hirschfield Broadway New York), David Calvitto as Dr Ralph Greenson (12 Angry Men, Garrick Theatre and UK tour) and Genevieve Gaunt as Marilyn Monroe, who returns to Park Theatre following Ghosts of the Titanic. Genevieve has played Marilyn Monroe twice before in readings of The Dame and the Showgirl at The Criterion with Dame Harriet Walter and House of the Wicked at the National Theatre.
Guy Masterson said ‘’When you go deeper, there were so many forces at play, it’s just too easy to take the official version of Marilyn’s death as gospel. We may never know the full truth, but this ‘whodunnit’ lays it all out for the audience to make their own judgment. It’s likely that the alternative storyline – the probable truth – could not bear thinking about. It was that big. But when you put it into context, it becomes a tragedy.”
