Marilyn Monroe is crossing the country to tell her rags-to-riches, obscurity-to-stardom life story in song, and since it’s triple-threat blonde bombshell Erin Sullivan doing the telling and the singing, With Love, Marilyn makes for a fabulously performed trip down memory lane.

 Looking sultry and stunning in black velvet and diamonds, lots of diamonds, Sullivan’s Marilyn sings up a storm in hit after hit after hit, from “I Wanna Be Loved By You” (accompanied by memories of Norma Jean Baker’s marriage to first husband James Dougherty) to “Bye Bye Baby” (because that first marriage, like Marilyn’s two others, ended in divorce), and more, many more.

 Imagining the final dress rehearsal of Monroe’s about-to-debut cabaret act, With Love, Marilyn has its star confronting stage fright with the help of pianist/music director Garrett Taylor while sprinkling in recollections of growing up Hollywood-adjacent (a trip to Grauman’s Chinese Theater had Norma Jean comparing her handprints with those of Jean Harlow), changing her name to Marilyn (in honor of 1920s Broadway star Marilyn Miller), and  signing a contract with Twentieth Century Fox (“My Heart Belongs To Daddy”) that soon made “Marilyn Monroe” synonymous with sex and glamour.

 Second and third husbands Joe DiMaggio and Arthur Miller figure prominently as well (“A Fine Romance,” “I’m Through With Love”), Marilyn celebrates her talent-validating Best Actress Golden Globe win with “Some Like It Hot,” and it wouldn’t be a Marilyn Monroe retrospective without “Happy Birthday (Mr. President)” or her signature “Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend.”

Having starred regionally as Legally Blonde’s Elle Woods and toured the country in Hairspray, The Wedding Singer, Grease, and Shrek, the New York-based Sullivan knows her bleached blondes backwards and forwards, and her Marilyn is no exception.

 Breathy-voiced as the screen goddess we’ve come to know and love, deeper-throated when not in the public eye, and never less than committed to the role, Sullivan may not be an absolute dead ringer for Marilyn, but gowned by Ryan Mollar, wigged by Tera Wills, made up by Jennifer Bishop, and choreographed by Sullivan herself, it doesn’t take long to believe yourself in the presence of the real thing, and Sullivan’s vocals are sultry and sensational.

 Conceived by Robin Milling and Sullivan and astutely directed by Sullivan’s co-writer Stephanie Rosenberg, With Love, Marilyn benefits enormously from Joe Beumer’s flashy lighting, Rico Corrubia and Dennis D’Amico’s crystal-clear sound design, Henry Aronson’s arrangements and orchestrations, and musicians Lyman Mediros on bass and Kevin Winard on drums.

 With Love, Marilyn is conceived by Rosenberg and Sullivan and produced by D’Amico, Milling, Rosenberg, Michael Rubenstein, and Sullivan. Samantha McLaughlin is historical consultant and Alex Muscaro is dramaturg.

With NBC’s Splash having returned Marilyn Monroe to the national public eye (not that she’d ever been gone) and Marilyn! The New Musical having just opened in Vegas, the time could not be riper for Erin Sullivan’s With Love, Marilyn to tour the land. If last night’s Rockwell Table + Stage show is any indication, future audiences are in for a platinum blonde treat.

Rockwell Table & Stage, 1714 N. Vermont, Los Angeles.
www.rockwell-la.com
www.withlovemarilyn.com

–Steven Stanley
June 4, 2018

Tags: Erin Sullivan, Los Angeles Theater Review, Marilyn Monroe, Rockwell Table & Stage