Who Killed Marilyn? is a new show about an old subject. Sharleen Cooper Cohen’s play examines the circumstances surrounding Marilyn’s suspicious death in 1962.
Three possible culprits emerge. The mob, the Feds and the Kennedys. Bobby and Jack were desperate to hide any trace of their romantic links with Marilyn. The mob may have rubbed her out by order of the Feds whose boss, J. Edgar Hoover, paid gangsters to conduct irregular assassinations. Hoover hated JFK, we’re told. And Marilyn kept a secret diary that might have ruined JKF’s career. But that gives Hoover a reason to protect Marilyn and to use her testimony against the Kennedys. The mob also hated JFK because he failed to oust Fidel Castro from Cuba. So they had a powerful motive to keep her alive as well. Two out of the three possible suspects seem to be innocent. Never mind.
The star, Pixie Lott, sports Marylin’s famous hairdo but doesn’t trouble to impersonate her drawling, breathy voice. Lott has a lean, watchful, intelligent face, like an architect or a banker, and she can’t capture the blithe and limitless abundance of Marilyn’s sexuality. She plays it straight, almost like an understudy. She favours a simple white blouse and a pair of cargo pants cut off at the knee. Hardly a classic Marilyn look.
