Her doctor, Dr Ralph Greenson (David Calvito) had given Marilyn an injection of adrenaline but she died.  There are seven people gathered in Marilyn’s bungalow that night.  Eunice her housekeeper and Marilyn’s Press Secretary, Pat Newcomb (Susie Amy).  Dr Greenson, her psychiatrist is there with his wife Hildi (Angela Bull) and Marilyn’s physician Dr Hyman Engelberg (Maurey Richards).  Probably most significantly and with obvious connections to the Kennedy family are Peter Lawford (Declan Bennett) and his wife Patricia Kennedy-Lawford (Natasha Colenso). 

Just a few months earlier Marilyn had sung “Happy Birthday” to the President in Madison Square Gardens.  Just before her death on the Saturday, she had threatened to give a press conference the following Monday, divulging her Kennedy secrets.  This would have been very damaging to President Kennedy, his brother Bobby Kennedy, the Attorney General and the Democratic Party.  In the play, Marilyn tells us Bobby had promised he would leave his wife Ethel.

I wish I had seen more of Genevieve Gaunt’s first scene as Marilyn Monroe.  The stage is set on an almost imperceptibly slow revolve and for a quarter of an hour, on our side of the square, we could only see Marilyn’s back.  In the next scene she was blocked by party guests standing to drink their champagne.  I don’t know whether the row of extra chairs were there to help with demand after the cancelled press night the previous Monday, when Vicki McKellar was too ill to play Patricia Kennedy-Lawford.  I’m surprised at this direction faux pas when Guy Masterson directed my favourite play of 2021 The Shark is Broken.