Becoming Marilyn

Assembly @ George Street    6 - 31 August @ 15.10    Ronnie Dorsey Productions / Scamp Theatre

This one woman show by Issy Van Randwyck gives the Fascinating Aida star a chance to show her acting skills. This is not so much an impersonation as an inhabitation of Marilyn Monroe. Playing on her Gemini traits of being both Marilyn and Norma Jean, this performance charts the arc of events from the smothering of Norma Jean’s dreams to let Marilyn have the success she so desperately craved to her ultimate demise and fall.

The show boasts a host of Marilyn’s well-known songs, often creatively interpreted to fit with the narrative of what Marilyn was going through in her life at that time. The singing is beautifully under-stated; here is a Marilyn that genuinely sounds like Monroe: no piercing ‘shoop-oop-ee-doops’; instead we hear songs in the right key, delivered with an emotional resonance that haunts the very air.

A beautiful tribute, well directed by Gareth Armstrong.