Deepest Red

Bonnie Greer is an award winning playwright, novelist and critic. Born in Chicago, she has lived in Britain since 1986. Her latest play Marilyn and Ella is a musical drama set in the mid-1950s, charting the true story of the friendship between icons of the time: Ella Fitzgerald and Marilyn Monroe.

Where did the idea for the play come from?
In about 2003 I was working on a novel and I remember one day I had the TV in the background. The Biography Channel was on and they were talking about Marilyn Monroe. In the Eighties, when I lived in New York City I was a member of the Actors Studio Playwright and Directors Unit, I remember the people around me at the time used to talk about the ‘real Marilyn Monroe’ and say she was not like the person we saw on the screen. Now on this TV documentary I was hearing how she helped get Ella Fitzgerald a job at a nightclub in Hollywood that usually wouldn’t allow black people to perform on stage. She was the biggest movie star in the world and she made this kind of stand for Ella Fitzgerald.This got me thinking about Marilyn and I wanted to find out more about her.

What else did you find out about her?
That she actually studied drama and took it very seriously from the moment she decided that was what she really wanted to do. I also found out how she helped people who were being harassed during the time of the McCarthy era of American politics. The more that I looked in to her the more I gained respect for her. I believe both she and Ella were ‘prisoners of the blonde’. Marilyn was a red head who died her hair blonde and then couldn’t get away from the image she had created. Ella, because she was not skinny and light skinned often found it hard to get gigs. Both in their own ways were trapped: prisoners of the blonde.

The first incarnation of this was a radio play, did you find it hard to get it performed?
Yes, mainly because people didn’t believe it. Theirs was a little known friendship and because it was not well documented some chose not to believe it. Even photographic evidence they thought was doctored. But one particular producer at the BBC really fought my corner and pushed for it to be made.

Though based over here it is clear that you still pay a lot of attention to what is going on in the country of your birth. Have you been following the Obama/Clinton race for the Democratic nomination for the Presidency?
I have, and first of all I think it needs to be stressed that this is just the primary stage of the campaign. There is still a long way to go yet. I know that Obama inspires a lot of people, especially black people. Obama is an extra-ordinary human being. Having said that I come from a working class background and I have a working class ethos. My personal problem with Obama is his link with Bupppie culture. I think that in a way negates from the history of the struggle of black people in America. Health care is a huge issue in America, on the issue of affordable health care being made available to everyone, Obama has said he wants time to think about it. Hilary Clinton has said affordable health care should be universal. That says a lot to me. It should be about the person not the colour.
MARILYN AND ELLA showing at Theatre Royal Stratford East
until 15th March 2008
Box Office: 020 8534 0310

posted by Andrea Enisuoh @ 2:12 PM