Marilyn- An American Fable

Did anyone ever see this show? I wanted to see it so badly when I was in high school but it closed before I could get down to NYC

Ah, with Stephanie Lawrence... I have looked. You can find the songs. She recorded a few from the show.. they are strange but she nails them. here's one... you can find more on youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRJSNDUNvlI

Interesting. Have to take a look

Chris Jones who did Rockabye Hamlet did an all sung thru musical of her life called Hello Marilyn. A CD was released I have it but I cannot remember how or where I got it.

Updated On: 11/12/15 at 08:41 PM

I've always known this existed, and I'd always been interested, but there was never any quality recording (video or otherwise) that could help me sink my teeth into it. That 13 minutes is a GEM. It looked fabulous. The only thing that seemed weird was the champagne number with the kick line of plumbers (WTF). In addition to the wonderful Alison Reed, I had forgotten that Mary Testa was in this as Hedda Hopper. I have an audio bootleg if anyone wants to indulge themselves, it's very muddy though. A question for those who saw it: What went wrong? Bad reviews? No advance on ticket sales? Bad word of mouth? What made it so short lived?

Found the Times review... sounds like a train wreck...

STAGE: 'MARILYN,' MUSICAL ABOUT MONROE'S MAGIC

By FRANK RICH
Published: November 21, 1983, Monday

IF you read all the fine print in the Playbill for ''Marilyn: An American Fable,'' you'll discover that the new musical at the Minskoff has 16 producers and 10 songwriters. If you mistakenly look up from the Playbill to watch the show itself, you may wonder whether those 26 persons were ever in the same rehearsal room - or even the same city - at the same time. On top of its many other failings, ''Marilyn'' is incoherent to the point of being loony. I defy anyone to explain - just for starters - why 10 chorus boys dressed in pink plumbers' costumes sing a song about bubble baths at the climax of Act II.

The woman who summons the plumbers is supposed to be Marilyn Monroe, and it can be said without fear of contradiction that ''Marilyn'' is meant to be the story of the ill- starred actress's life. But even this fact is occasionally in doubt. Patricia Michaels's libretto makes only scant mention of Monroe's movies (no mention at all of ''Some Like It Hot'' or ''The Misfits'' and vastly abridges the story of the actress's tempestuous personal life. If ''Marilyn'' is to be believed, Monroe's biggest problem was insomnia - an ailment soon rectified when she takes to tap dancing through the streets of New York with fellow classmates from the Actors Studio.

We do, however, hear about Marilyn's various husbands. Husband No. 1, Jim Dougherty, pops up in a high- school jitterbug number, then pops up again in a World War II soldiers' number, then disappears without a trace. Husband No. 2, Joe DiMaggio, is a moony juvenile who is first seen carrying a baseball bat and later discovered daintily clutching a red rose. He and Marilyn break up when she refuses to eat every meal at his restaurant on San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf. Husband No. 3 is Arthur Miller, who lives in a New York penthouse and always speaks with a pipe in his mouth. Marilyn leaves him shortly after delivering the line, ''But you're Arthur Miller - how can you be so boring?''

Still, most of ''Marilyn'' is not about Marilyn or her famous husbands. This show has more symbolic figures and narrators than it does characters with recognizable proper names. A fey trio of singers known collectively as Destiny forever weaves in and out of the action, tossing glittery stardust on one and all. Two of Marilyn's fans periodically wander on to declare their devotion with lyrics like, ''My knees are weak/And I can't even speak.'' A pair of chorus girls campily outfitted as ''Hedda'' and ''Louella'' are dragged in at intervals to dish the ''gossip'' about Monroe - but their gossip is so bowdlerized that they might as well be describing the private life of Shirley Temple.

Alyson Reed, the professional and hard-working performer cast in the title role, has precious little to do under the circumstances. In Act I, she must deliver most of her characterization with her chest and derri ere. Monroe she's not, but, when she's stuffed into the famous costumes, you can squint your eyes and accept her as a Madame Tussaud's replica. Miss Reed also mimics Monroe's voice effectively - until she takes to delivering her Act II songs in a standard Broadway belt.

The production surrounding the star looks as if it suffered a bombing raid during previews. Tom H. John's gloomy scenery, built around a sound-stage motif, is a gutted retread of Robin Wagner's design for Jerry Herman's Hollywood musical, ''Mack and Mabel.'' Joseph G. Aulisi's costumes, Marilyn's excepted, look as if they were picked up at a fire sale. The dance numbers are often thinly populated, and the pit band sounds decimated. The disposable songs, some of them joltingly out of period, also seem to have been radically cut: A few mercifully give up the ghost in less than a minute.

The amateur direction and choreography are attributed to Kenny Ortega; the Playbill also thanks another director, Thommie Walsh. Perhaps someday one of these men or their several dozen collaborators will reveal what they had in mind. ''Marilyn: An American Fable'' is so confused that it never gets around to its heroine's death. If nothing else, it must be the first exploitation of the Monroe legend that even denies necrophiliacs a good time.

Im sure its a long shot, but does anyone have any connection to where I could find a copy of the script for this? I know it was floating around eBay for some time and have been dying to read it

Would love to find out what MaryTesta thought about the show! What a body on Allyson Reed.

It seems the person that posted this on YouTube was one of the many original investors. So glad he did! Looks like he also posted all the songs from the show too.

A poster above said "awful mess". When I hear those 2 words the title "Rachel Lily Rosenbloom" comes to mind. I saw it and to this day I still have no idea what went on during that show. If you were drunk you might have made sense out of it. Anyone who wasn't - good luck.

I forgot about the Pink Plumbers.

This show was eminently forgettable.

Looked and sounded like a classic FLOP.that must have been painful to sit through. Alyson always had a nice figure-until she got fat. She was also a terrific dancer-before she got fat. Willy's number was a groaner. Mary was always fat.

^ Yeah, charming!

Back to the show, it's also charming that the 11 O'Clock number (the Champagne Bubble Bath) according to that clip was inspired by how much Marilyn loved her booze. Which is great since her substance abuse is (partly anyway,) what led to her early death. But of course, in An American Fable she doesn't die, instead walking off with her younger self, happy.