You may not get the chance to see ARTHUR AND MARILYN.  The creative team behind the show has ensured heavy bookings and much of the season is sold out but this is a show to watch out for.  It would be very disappointing if a wider audience did not get the chance to see these truly delightful performances.

Arthur speaks to us directly in a slightly self-deprecating way, he knows who we have come to see and using his journal as aide-memoire, he will guide us through his relationship with the star.   When we first meet her however, he has misread his diary and she corrects the remembrance.  As she is passively drawn into his little illusion, it will become evident that the journal is unreliable and simply will not provide the solace he seeks.

These performances touch the heart with a living truth that is nothing like impersonation or impression.  Arthur Miller is played by Alec Ebert with a charismatic matter of factness in his direct address to his audience.  He is warm and welcoming and using eye contact and a wry smile he draws one into his orbit.  Ebert’s Arthur is fully formed early and so the character growth, joys and disappointments,  are conveyed with emotional truth to an audience already in rapport with him.  He is terribly shy and cute on occasion, especially when he turns to speak to us after some telling event has just occurred.  Open in his emotions … yet. His sense of longing, desire and loss are masked in 1950s chivalry and self-protection despite an outward honesty about his feelings.

As Marilyn, Meg Hyeronimus has a much more difficult task given the weight of an audience’s expectation and scepticism.  It is the writing which mitigates that weight when Marilyn first arrives on stage.  Her initial scene begins in simplicity before Hieronymus, and Ebert,  deftly sweep us into the story.  Writer Jasper Lee-Lindsay gives Marilyn a puzzle, a problem, a misunderstanding straight off and Hyeronimus runs with it.  This is no blonde bimbo, this is a woman who simply doesn’t understand and who will question in her own way until she gets it.

I loved the way Hyeronimus has her character listen and the giggle, when it comes, takes you by surprise with a shock of recognition.  The voice is perfectly manifested without being highly technical.  At one stage, her line reads “Wouldn’t you like to dance … with Marilyn?” and that expression alone is worth the price of admission … pausing just right, perfect change of timbre and just a hint of the breathiness we associate. Allied with some very clever styling (Lyndal Tuckey) down to French manicure, clutch and earrings not just costume, the physical Marilyn is also well evoked without being overwhelming.

The audience is very close to these characters, yet the production does very well in the small space.  Director, Danen Young, has some poor sight lines to deal with, especially when characters sit, but he has negotiated these as well as possible.  Where his hand, and that of Lee-Lindsay, is very steady is in the pace of the show.  Lighter moments are nicely interspersed, well created to obfuscate unknowable events in places.  And toward the climax of the piece the emotional content is beautifully drawn as domestic not overly wrought.  These are people arguing, not with histrionics and drama but with long acquaintance.  It’s lovely writing brought alive by two stellar performances.

ARTHUR AND MARILYN is such a good show all round, with absolutely engrossing characters well portrayed and a script that neatly tackles the delicate material with engagement and vitality.  I hope it moves to a bigger stage but get a ticket to this intimate debut if you can.

Dinosaurus Productions’ [Facebook] ARTHUR AND MARILYN is playing at Blood Moon Theatre [Facebook]  until June 2.