Erin Gavin in Marilyn and Sinatra at Jermyn Street Theatre, London
Marilyn and Sinatra continues at Jermyn Street Theatre, London until 21 August.
Star rating: three stars ★ ★ ★ ✩ ✩
This exploration of the relationship between Marilyn Monroe and Frank Sinatra is predicated on author Sandro Monetti’s discovery that Monroe played a stack of Sinatra’s records the night she died of a drugs overdose in 1962. His voice was therefore the last she heard. This bijoux piece – billed at one hour but actually coming in at 15 minutes less – imagines and explores their connections, some of them pretty intimate, between 1954 and 1962.
We are led to imagine that Monroe is reliving and acting out her meetings with him which often, of course, involves hearing him sing. Jeff Bratz, suitably suited and hatted, doesn’t quite have the charisma of Ol’ Blue Eyes, but he gets the clarity of Sinatra’s diction effectively and has an engaging knack of smiling attractively through the words. He sings – very tunefully and his intonation is spot on – several of Sinatra’s most famous numbers including ‘Some Enchanted Evening’ and ‘Love and Marriage’.
I suppose it isn’t difficult for a competent actor to mimic two characters as well known as these. Erin Gavin, all appropriate blonde hair and red lipstick, wiggles her slender body seductively and has that famous, rather irritating little girl voice perfectly. This is no shallow stereotype though. She also shows us Monroe’s pitiful vulnerability as her drink and drugs habit worsens and her life falls apart. Her rendering of ‘Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend’ is witty as well as poignant.
It’s quite a moving show. At the end , after Monroe’s death, Gavin rises, ghost like to sing the lovely I Love You duet, the two voices counterpointed in thirds, with Batz. Sung in this context it takes on a new level of meaning.
Not really a musical, this little piece is firmly a play with songs. And little is the operative word. It really is very short. Perhaps it would be better staged in a double bill with another short item.
Susan Elkin
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