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Beer and Chanel No. 5 perfumed the Newmark Theatre on Friday, April 11. Oregon Ballet Theatre’s LGBTQ+ affinity night for its production of Marilyn, a Marilyn Monroe biography told through dance that closed Sunday. Monroe is The Beatles of beauty: It’s hard to imagine a world where she’s not one of the all-time most beautiful women, but staging scenes like her iconic Gentleman Prefer Blondes routine offered a new way to connect to America’s most glamorous cautionary tale.
Was the story as untold as advertised? Hardly. Monroe’s mother Gladys (Eva Burton) dances free of the grip of little Norma Jean (Charlotte Zogas) in the first act, broad-stroking her rough upbringing and early life as shadowy men in suits chase her across her marriages: James Dougherty (Benjamin Simoens) as the too-simple war hero, Joe DiMaggio (John-Paul Simoens) as jealous brawn, and Arthur Miller (Brian Simcoe) as a condescending intellect, all of whom fumbled the past century’s biggest sex symbol without understanding the woman they held.
The costuming is easily digestible—DiMaggio tosses a baseball, John F. Kennedy (Bailey Shaw) wears the fanciest suit, and Miller stares at Monroe through glasses like a nerd. Jessica Lind as Monroe is delicate yet agile in a surprisingly acrobatic ballet. A sequence in the second act sees Monroe pursue the monochromatic, uniformed march of motherhood that Lind performs with both pure glee and utterly crushing disappointment after miscarriage. Company dancers realize Monroe’s Champagne and quaalude bubble dreams, closing with a full-cast dance with every character from her too-short life. Passing the merch booth’s pink Champagne bottle Christmas ornaments was a little weird, yet Marilyn succeeded in its mission of finding a new medium to reinterpret Monroe’s legacy.