by Laura Kressly
When Denise was a young person in Southend, she was determined to change into a Hollywood star and prepared to do something to attain it. Now, a long time later, she’s dwelling in a caravan and dealing as a Marilyn Monroe impersonator in Las Vegas, far faraway from the life she dreamed of. Soap star Michelle Collins embraces the quirky and troubled Denise however the idea’s execution – an prolonged monologue to a pet snake – is contrived and dramaturgically flat.
Collins is credited with the concept’s conception, with the script by Ben Weatherill. Denise’s story is shared by way of sequences of prolonged narration which might be primarily a fictional character’s biography. It calls to thoughts the type of factor an actor would do as ‘homework’ to extra deeply embody a task, which isn’t shared with an viewers. Even although the monologue is damaged into shorter scenes with blackouts in between, it’s uniformly paced and all quite boring. This might work as a brief story or novella, however there’s a pronounced lack of dramatic motion. This begs the query as to why it’s a play in any respect. Though guidelines are supposed to be damaged, this isn’t a mannequin for disregarding one of many first guidelines of playwriting to point out quite than inform.
There are loads of resonant themes – damaged desires, escape from a small city, belief, adaptability, perseverance, and so forth – however these will not be sufficient to develop a plot. Indeed, there’s not a lot of a plot in any respect till the very finish. Even this reveal largely hinges on occasions in Denise’s previous. Whilst it’s evident the manufacturing has an enormous funds and Collins pulls a sizeable viewers, it is a prime instance of cash not shopping for high quality. There are much better, scrappier productions in much less glamorous venues which might be really compelling and make sense as items of dwell efficiency.
Motor Home Marilyn runs by way of 25 August.
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