Reviews

The play is very clearly about Marni Nixon, the Hollywood backstage “secret” dubbing artiste who was the singing voice of Deborah Kerr in The King And I; Natalie Wood in West Side Story; and Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady. It explores her opinions of the famous, her experiences of the industry, and most of all her uniquely frustrating situation of being such a vital and talented ingredient, and yet remaining unknown, largely unappreciated, and unable to secure “face work” in the industry through having to keep her achievements secret. This, tangled with her unbridled admiration for the stars she helped reach stardom, but was hardly ever allowed to meet, makes for a fascinating story – “she’s everywhere and she’s nowhere”.

The big failings for me in this production however, are purely technical. The set for the first scene I can only describe as an eyesore, which in no way conjured up an image of a Hollywood recording booth. It looked like exactly what it was – two big screens on wheels, one covered in pale wallpaper and the other just ugly white. Onto the larger white screen was occasionally projected some beautifully subtle abstract movie footage of the period – but the image was half the size of the screen, and provided by a projector incapable of fully blacking out, so scene changes and subtle lighting were frequently spoiled by the shaft of light permanently cast across the stage. And why block the actor’s very first entrance, in blackout, to walk directly through this beam? Awful.

Thankfully the setting in act two, whilst still spoiled by the projector-spill, was much more effective, and nicely lit, allowing me to at last become properly absorbed by the performance.