Lothar Kittstein

Making of::Marilyn
Auftragsarbeit für das Schauspiel Frankfurt
UA: 01.06.2013 · Schauspiel Frankfurt · Directed by: Bernhard Mikeska
The last curtain was made of a heavy, dark material. The people in the audience had to pull it aside themselves. They looked into a spartanly furnished bedroom. On the bed was the body of a woman, naked and motionless. Her right hand was holding a telephone handset.

The audience, who arrived at a bungalow in Brentwood, California on August 5, 1962, saw the death scene of Marilyn Monroe. This scene was both the last and the first image of a production—one whose script has been rewritten and begun anew with every biography of Monroe, every film, every magazine full of rediscovered photos, every speculation about her death. The drama of Norma Jeane Mortenson does not promise salvation, only endless repetition. We will never be tired of telling the story of the meteoric rise of Marilyn Monroe, from unloved orphanage girl to glamorous Hollywood star.

One last visitor—we do not know for sure if there were others—was Ralph Greenson, Marilyn's psychoanalyst. He telephoned the police: "Marilyn Monroe died from an overdose. Probably suicide."

All the myths about her death—whether, for instance, it was a murder—unburden a whole nation which is dreaming of the happiness that Marilyn seemed to have had.. She embodied the American Dream. Making of: Marilyn does not create a new telling of the circumstances surrounding Monroe’s death, but seeks to give us a glimpse into her soul. The viewer enters an installation, where he becomes a part of Marilyn's story. It soon becomes unclear whether there is any clear boundary between reality and dream, between the viewer and the figure on stage. We meet Marilyn, and in so doing find ourselves again. Such intimate theater has never existed before, especially not one as pleasantly and unpleasantly touching as this, wrote the FAZ.