From the golden era of Hollywood back to the dark side of a Victorian Christmas, a theatre company is taking audiences on a journey through time this winter.
Award-winning Dyad Productions will be steering their TARDIS to Old Town Hall, Hemel Hempstead to present their critically acclaimed plays The Unremarkable Death of Marilyn Monroe and Christmas Gothic.
The first, performed on November 20, presents Monroe as we’ve never seen her before: alone in her bedroom in a dressing gown and underwear; no glitz, no glamour, no masks.
Overdosed on pills, the woman behind the icon unravels her remarkable life and travels back through the memories of her closest relationships.
Repeatedly stalked by a mysterious caller, the Hollywood icon tells all (Joe DiMaggio, Clark Gable, Arthur Miller, her mother – it’s all here), revealing a biting intelligence and an imperfect body, and leads us in real time to the very moment of her death.
The play uses Marilyn’s life and death to explore our modern ideas of love; love of family, of friends, of career, of partners and sexual and spiritual love.
Whilst the subject matter takes in the golden age of Hollywood, it uncovers the core of what it is to be an emotional being in a busy and often uncaring world. There are also topical resonances to the MeToo movement and issues facing women in the workplace and broader society to this day.
Dyad Productions creates, produces and tours classic theatre with an innovative and contemporary emphasis. This radical interpretation of one of the world’s most famous women, although a work of fiction, exposes the truth behind the legend.
Following the international touring success that was Female Gothic, Dyad resurrects a Victorian tradition by presenting three seasonal tales of terror to scintillate the gooseflesh on dark Christmas nights, coming to Old Town Hall on November 29.
Christmas: a time to remember the past, celebrate the present, and look to the future; a time of feasts and festivities, of holly and mistletoe; a time of visits and visitations. A time of ghosts.
Come in from the cold and enter the Christmas spirit as a dark, spectral woman tells haunting tales of the festive season, lighting a candle to the frailties of human nature and illuminating the icy, chilling depths of the bleak, wintry dark…
The Unremarkable Death of Marilyn Monroe is written and directed by Elton Townend-Jones and performed by Lizzie Wort, while Christmas Gothic is written and performed by Rebecca Vaughan and directed by Elton.
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