October 28, 2007
Marilyn - Forever Blond
Howie Green READ TIME: 2 MIN.
I know that Marilyn Monroe died 45 years ago. I know that.
But...
No one is going to convince me that the woman that I spent two hours watching on stage last night was not Marilyn Monroe. I saw Marilyn Monroe!
Marilyn: Forever Blond is currently on stage at the Stoneham Theatre (through Nov. 11) and if you are even a casual fan of Marilyn then you simply must go see this extraordinary performance starring Sunny Thompson as the most famous woman of the 20th century. When the lights came up there was an audible gasp from several audience members because there on stage before you is Marilyn Monroe alive and well and looking exactly as she did at her last photo session in 1962.
Sunny Thompson doesn't act like Marilyn.
She doesn't do an impression of Marilyn.
She doesn't pretend to be Marilyn.
She simply IS Marilyn in a performance that is funny, touching, endearing and totally Marilyn.
The performance is staged in a photographer's studio while Marilyn is changing outfits and posting for pictures. Marilyn starts talking to the photographer (the audience) and telling her life story with the humor and pathos and fragility that made her such unique and unforgettable figure. Producer and writer Greg Thompson created this one-woman show using Marilyn's actual words that he gathered from interviews and newsreels and has woven the story together with many songs that are forever identified with Marilyn. Sunny Thompson, an accomplished singer, dancer and actress with a long list of credits and successes on her resume, inhabits Marilyn's persona not only with brilliant (and invisible) acting ability but she also sings and moves as the troubled angel that we are all familiar with from her films. Only a performer with the most highly developed skills could pull of a performance like this one and Ms. Thompson does it flawlessly with only some low key musical accompaniment.
For me the most amazing thing about this show is the fact that even though most of us know Marilyn's story inside out it is still spellbinding to have her live on stage recounting it in her own way. After the initial shock of recognition subsides you will totally forget that you are watching someone other than the actual Ms. Monroe. You will simply melt into your seat as Marilyn sings, changes clothes and chats with the audience about her rise to fame and fortune and her inability to ever find any true satisfaction or happiness in life. There is great humor here, lots of laughs and of course the seductive charm of Marilyn that to this day holds millions of fans around the world in her thrall. If Joe DiMaggio, Arthur Miller, John Kennedy and other major players married and/or were seduced by Marilyn, then the rest of us potatoes are just putty in her hands.
Go experience this intimate performance and like so many before you, fall in love with Marilyn all over again.
Howie Green is a Boston-based artist and painter whose portrait of rapper Biggie Smalls appears on the album "Incredible". He is winner of Absolut Vodka's 25th Anniversary art competition and he painted 3 of the cows in the Boston Cow Parade. He recently painted a series of Pop Art Murals at the Dimock Center in Boston, MA and completed large art and mural installations in Delray Beach and Jacksonville, FL. He also recently painted the front entrance to Boston City Hall. His a multi-media designer and author of several books including "Jazz Fish Zen: Adventures in Mamboland" - and he once sang back-up for the opening act at a Shaun Cassidy concert in Madison Square Garden.
