Hot Lips and Cold War, currently playing at London Theatre Workshop, is set during John F. Kennedy’s presidency in the White House. Writer, Lizzie Freeborn tells us more about this musical play.
What can you tell us Hot Lips and Cold War?
This musical play takes you back to a fascinatingly stylish period of history to a time when privacy in public life was starting to be lost. The story follows a genuine timeline and genuine incidents, but the romantic entanglements are the sensational what might have been. If there was a romance this is how it could have been. Who wouldn’t have enjoyed being a fly-on-the-wall at the White House? Each of the characters has a strong stake in the future. The masters and servants have an amazing intertwining journey relying on each other’s confidences, whilst trying to survive the slings and arrows of a challenging world at home with Civil Rights issues and the fear of the Russians and nuclear concerns abroad.
Maria, an Irish girl from JFK’s ancestral home town in The Irish Republic, is the unlikely confidante who takes us into the White House and gains Jackie’s trust which is how the story unfolds.
What first compelled you to write this fascinating love story between the President, First Lady Jackie Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe?
Newsreels frequently show us JFK’s stony face when he was dealing with the serial Cold War crisis, but in home movies JFK and his siblings were fun-loving extroverts, boisterous golden offspring living a charmed life socialising with the elite from every slice of American society. Rumours abounded of romantic attachments and a string of liaisons. So, I thought, ‘what if…?’ I thought when I rewound the film of Marilyn Monroe tiptoeing out onto the stage at Madison Square Garden to sing “Happy Birthday Mr President”, so what if there really was an affair going on between them….? This deserves imagining and deserves musicalising. Who wouldn’t want to write a duet for this legendary pair.
Hot Lips and Cold War is being staged over at London Theatre Workshop in their TheatreLab. How are you finding the workshop process?
Tremendously helpful and positive. There is no doubt one can become over involved in an idea and need other eyes and ears to bring clarity. It is too easy to get carried away and committed to too much material.
The characters in Hot Lips and Cold War are very strong and engaging. How hard was it to create these very well-known historical icons?
Whilst there is much film footage of JFK and Marilyn in their public roles there is less as private persons and little on Jackie. Home movies and television interviews helped a great deal but were not that plentiful. Biographies are numerous and present insights to add to the imagining of what their attitudes and feelings were in the positions I subjected them to. Each character is now an historical icon, so the full truth of their existences has long since been decorated with a confusion of truth and fancy. I’ve tried to create enough for most people to find the icon they remember.
The songs are beautiful, particularly “Day After Day”. Every song is written in a different but distinct style. What inspired you to write such contrasting melodies?
Thank you, that’s very kind! With regards to writing “Day After Day” I felt that JFK is passionately in love with life. He relished every minute of every day and felt the hand of history in his. I needed a warm, lyrical refrain for him to return to and dwell on. The feeling of nostalgia in the words “day after day” brought the tune to mind and when I envisaged him dancing with Jackie the romantic lilt of the beguine was a must. He wished to achieve as much as he could for the good of his countrymen and was optimistic about making a lasting difference; in “Day After Day” his love of life and the opportunity to do good are merged – his generosity of spirit and good humour are here and with his jovial charm his dreams float on a melody that may have come from an earlier era when JFK and Frank Sinatra, his friend, were perhaps fifteen or twenty years younger.
Regarding the other songs I wanted to write in styles which reflected the different origins, ages and tastes of each character. I gave them their true musical identity, something that was the case then, but now sixty years later is sadly disappearing as tastes become global and more homogenised. I felt I gave these characters their unique identity.
Tell our readers why they should go and see Hot Lips and Cold War?
Song lovers will enjoy ‘Hot Lips and Cold War’. I’ll eat my hat if audiences don’t leave with a few songs haunting their dreams! Do come to London Theatre Workshop and catch the show before it closes on 24th February. The set and the costumes are wonderful. I can’t thank Ray Rackham Productions and Don Cotter enough for their work together with the show’s Director, Tim McArthur, and Michelle Hutchings for the dream casting. Thanks to the whole team at London Theatre Workshop for making this a very enjoyable experience.
Hot Lips and Cold War is at London Theatre Workshop until Saturday 24th February.
