BREVIEW: The Late Marilyn Monroe @ The Blue Orange Theatre 30.01.02

The Late Marilyn Monroe @ The Blue Orange Theatre 30.01.02Words by Charlotte Heap

Premiering at The Blue Orange Theatre, Darren Haywood’s play, The Late Marilyn Monroe, tells the tale of the famous blonde bombshell’s untimely death in 1962. Arguably one of the world’s favourite film stars, Monroe’s shock demise at 36 combined with her high octane life (rumoured to include an affair with the president) immortalised her celebrity.

Like most, I’m familiar with Monroe’s image, life and the conspiracies around her death but The Late Marilyn Monroe and Taking Chances theatre group brought to voyeuristically vivid life Haywood’s version of her last hours. The audience is forced to watch Monroe, played with breathless confidence by Tania Staite, alternately vulnerable and raging as she consumes the huge quantities of barbiturates that ultimately lead to her overdose.

Set in Monroe’s bedroom, emphasising the claustrophobic chaos, Monroe is visited only by her housekeeper, paid assistant / friend, and her doctor in her last day. The staging is effective, although the shabby set is an issue: it may seem like a quibble but it rankled with me. Marilyn Monroe would not have had (badly) whitewashed walls.

Mrs Murray, charmingly played by Ellie Darvill, provides motherly care and much needed comic relief. Monroe’s loneliness is magnified through the use of the telephone (both lifeline and torturer) to frame the story of her last hours while Pat and Ralph (Dru Stephenson and Martin Rossen, friend and doctor respectively) offer little other than a soundboard for Marilyn’s monologues: both are ultimately ineffectual counsellors, and the doctor character in particular feels like a plot device, giving Monroe more sedatives before rushing out to dinner.

Haywood is a self-proclaimed fan of Monroe and the depth of his knowledge (and reverence) is shown through his script. Officially Monroe committed suicide, but Haywood nods to the best known theories (such as ‘Bobby’s’ – Robert Kennedy’s – involvement in Monroe’s evident mental distress) throughout the play: intelligently weaving references to fact and mythology to leave the audience asking whether Monroe was delusional or if dark forces were really out to get her. After all, just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean they’re not after you.

The many challenges that faced Norma Jeane are articulated clearly, if at times heavy-handedly. Her beginnings in an orphanage, a stint in a mental institute, two failed marriages, studio troubles, her ‘scandalous’ nude modelling past, her various affairs with stars such as Sinatra, her battles with drug addiction, ageing, plastic surgery, and her casting couch experiences are all alluded to. Monroe’s ‘suicide’ (although Haywood favours the more palatable accidental overdose narrative) makes sense to the audience: this was a very troubled woman.

Trying to include all of Monroe’s many issues though means that The Late Marilyn Monroe misses a trick: there’s modern meaning, as the promotion promised, particularly pertinent in the climate of Hollywood’s #MeToo Campaign, but it feels tokenist and unexplored.

To me though, it mattered little. The Late Marilyn Monroe is a well-written tragedy, it doesn’t need to be a cautionary tale for #MeToo. It’s a familiar tale that Haywood and Taking Chances bring fresh feeling to; you know that Monroe is going to die, but right till the end you can’t help hoping that Haywood might have rewritten history.

For more on The Late Marilyn Monroe, visit www.facebook.com/events/140065786793449

For more from Taking Chances, visit www.facebook.com/TakingChancesTheatre

For more from The Blue Orange Theatre, including full event listings and online ticket sales, visit www.blueorangetheatre.co.uk

BPREVIEW: The Late Marilyn Monroe @ The Blue Orange Theatre 30.01-02.02.18

The Late Marilyn Monroe @ The Blue Orange Theatre 30.01-02.02.18Words by Charlotte Heap

The Late Marilyn Monroe tells the tale of the last hours of Hollywood’s most famous bombshell, running at The Blue Orange Theatre from Tuesday 30th January to Saturday 3rd February.

The show is scheduled for 7:45pm each evening, with a matinee performance at 3pm on Saturday 3rd February. Tickets are priced at £12 (standard) and £10 (concessions) – for direct show information and links to online ticket sales, click here. 

Birmingham based writer/actor, Darren Haywood, promises ‘this will not be the Marilyn you’ve seen before’, premiering his new production at the Great Hampton Street theatre with the Taking Chances theatre group.

Previously penning shows including Role Play, Head Girl and The Morning After – all produced by Taking Chances – Heywood has not shied away from the more subversive issues, even playing the title role in Taking Chances‘ production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch at the Crescent Theatre back in 2011.

Monroe, arguably one of the world’s favourite film stars, died at just 36: her shock death combined with her high octane life (rumoured to include an affair with John F Kennedy) immortalised her celebrity, as well as creating a wealth of conspiracy theories. But despite the decades since her death in 1962 Monroe’s allure has persisted, even assisted by the mystery surrounding her premature demise.

The Late Marilyn Monroe presents the star’s final day, and an audience familiar only with Monroe’s glamorous persona may be surprised by the ‘reality’. Indeed the show’s promotion asks us ‘what really happened? And what was she like behind closed doors?’ But Haywood’s script seems certain to explore Monroe’s apparent battles with drug addiction, depression, and sexual exploitation, issues particularly pertinent in the climate of Hollywood’s #MeToo campaign.

And with such a well loved icon as the centre piece of the narrative, it will be interesting to see what fresh insight and modern meaning both Haywood and Taking Chances can bring to such a familiar tale.

The Late Marilyn Monroe runs at The Blue Orange Theatre from Tuesday 30th January to Saturday 3rd February – presented by Taking Chances. For direct show information and links to online ticket sales, visit www.blueorangetheatre.co.uk/project/the-late-marilyn-monroe-30th-january-3rd-february-2018                    

For more on The Late Marilyn Monroeclick here.

For more from Taking Chances, visit www.facebook.com/TakingChancesTheatre

For more from The Blue Orange Theatre, including full event listings and online ticket sales, visit www.blueorangetheatre.co.uk

BREVIEW: Dots & Loops #5 @ Rose Villa Tavern 19.12.17

Dots & Loops #5 @ The Rose Villa Tavern 19.12.17

Words by Ashleigh Goodwin 

It’s a Tuesday night, and a small crowd packs into the upstairs room of The Rose Villa Tavern in the Jewellery Quarter. A mismatched array of chairs fills most of the space, as well as a projector that hangs from the ceiling… and I am confused.

Director and animator Louis Hudson, alongside writer and producer Ian Ravenscroft, stand before the crowd and explain that they will be showing a mix of their own collaborations, along with shorts that have inspired and influenced their work. The duo make up Dice Productions – a company that boasts an extensive and award-winning body of work, with their comedy shorts and animations appearing on Nickelodeon (DuckManBoy), Channel 4 (Gregory is a Dancer) and the BBC.

The premise is simple enough and this is not what causes my confusion, but rather the eclectic content. The evening opens with Dice Production’s catalyst, Message in a Bottle (2009) – a one minute animated short based on a drawing that Hudson created when he was around sixteen. This, along with the next couple of shorts, did nothing to aid my journey of understanding. The confusion grew to bewilderment, as my brain struggled to catch up and make sense of what I was (admittedly, excitedly) watching.

I carried this dilemma with me until the fifth piece, entitled All Consuming Love (Man in a Cat), a nine-minute short, unsurprisingly about a little man named Yorkie (voiced by Kevin Eldon) navigating life stuck in the body of a household cat. At this point, I realised that I had to shove any preconceived notions aside. Usually when watching something I need time to process my thoughts, to establish an explanation before moving on. However, the format of the evening – showing shorts one after another in quick succession – just does not permit this. So, after battling with myself I surrender to the ‘just-go-with-it’ mentality, which is the point and made for an extremely entertaining evening.

Although all of the shorts’ comedy is uncontainable and indescribable, the first section is darker and more twisted, including Who I Am And What I Want (2005 – directed by Chris Shepherd and David Shirgley) and Myszochujek (2014 – directed by Kristof Babaski). Part two features assorted clips, starring Morecambe and Wise, Reeves and Mortimer and the cast of The Fast Show – creators who took a medium and distorted it to work against its predetermined rules. This is reflected in The Christmas Card (1968 – directed by Terry Gilliam), which played with the repetition of TV and its traditional conventions long before they were established, allowing a comedy format to be created; a short ahead of its time.

Rejected (2000 – directed by Don Hertzfeldt), is also in this section and demonstrates the deeper, more emotional side of comedic shorts. Rejected is a fictional frame story, where Hertzfeldt is commissioned to animate different commercial and television network segments, all of which are ultimately met with rejection. His characters run amuck, and when the intertitle states that the animator has suffered a mental breakdown his work begins to fall in on itself whilst he kills his characters. This could be described as black comedy at a glance, but once you explore the serious implications it demonstrates how much effort, time and dedication go into these works.

The final section of the evening focuses on a more child-friendly narrative, comprising of clips from children’s shows such as Danger Mouse (1982), Brillso Brothers (2008) and Hudson and Ravenscroft’s own work, DuckManBoy (2015). Despite the child-like qualities of these works, they still contain absurdities. I have seen a handful of these clips before, but never thought to analyse or breakdown their comedic properties. This is echoed by Ravenscroft, who states that we often don’t think about how much work goes into shorts and may dismiss them as “throwaway comedy”.

A great example of this is the side-splittingly funny Morecambe and Wise: The Breakfast Sketch. Hudson points out that someone will have taken the upmost time and care creating bizarre props, including a bespoke fridge that mimics the lights in a cabaret, all for a short clip.

This is reflected in their own work, Croissant (2015), which Hudson explains took around five months to make, to ensure that everything was in place to land the desired comedic effect. And the short is only two minutes long. He explains this could have been done easily over a weekend using animation, but stresses the importance of picking the correct format to convey comedy – hence the choice of a ‘live’ short, despite the laborious hours. This particular discussion is nothing short of inspiring in itself, really opening my eyes to each clip and making me appreciate how much effort goes into each frame.

My personal highlight of the evening is the segment about English comedian Rik Mayall, who is one of the first comedians I was introduced to growing up. In part two, they show a clip from Bottom (1992) and this preludes Dice’s own work Don’t Fear Death (2013) also starring Mayall as the main voice over, with Ed Bye (director of Red Dwarf 1988-91, 1997-99) as Associate Producer. The duo agree they felt they had successfully captured all sides of Mayall in the three-minute short, released three months before his death. Hearing Hudson and Ravenscroft talk so candidly about the actor, his mannerisms and genuine character, is uplifting and makes the short so much more enjoyable.

As well as feeling inspired, I come away from Dots & Loops #5 feeling educated by Louis Hudson and Ian Ravenscroft’s reflective, personal knowledge of the clips and the comedy world in general. For example, the Dice Production duo’s discussion of how repetition in comedy affects its audience is perfectly demonstrated through the four-minute Lesley the Pony Has an A+ Day! (2014). And their thoughts on the changing landscape of comedy shorts is fascinating; Ravenscroft explains that the third clip shown, A Heap of Trouble (2001 – directed by Steven Sullivan), was commissioned and aired on Channel 4 but suggested that today it wouldn’t fit a late-night slot, although may achieve millions of hits online. They discuss the changes in YouTube algorithms which make it harder to find new and inspiring content, raising interesting questions regarding the changes in formats and mediums in which comedy shorts operate and are distributed.

So, in an attempt to summarise the immensely enjoyable and eye-opening event… I was expecting to passively observe the shorts shown, as I felt I wouldn’t be able to appreciate them individually in such a short time. However, once I had wrapped my head around the unrelated narratives, it was an interesting event to be part of for many reasons – I learnt something new, was exposed to new content, and felt the importance of creativity reaffirmed.

Dots & Loops’ fifth edition also demonstrated that whilst there are absurdities and idiosyncrasies, no work is completely original; you will be able to relate it to something prior or see where the artist’s influence has come from. It also showed how genres develop and modify over time, adjusting to modern factors.

Shows like Bottom may look dated these days, but you can still break down work to see what it is that makes it entertaining. It’s then up to artists to take and develop this into something new and exciting that works within their own ideologies. And that’s exactly what Dice Productions does.

All Consuming Love (Man In A Cat) – Dice Productions 

 

For more from Flatpack, including full event listings and project information, visit www.flatpackfestival.org.uk

For more on Dice Productions, visit www.diceproductions.co.uk

For more on The Rose Villa Tavern, visit www.therosevillatavern.co.uk