Oregon Ballet Theatre’s contemporary world premiere Marilyn, created and choreographed by Artistic Director Dani Rowe, promises an untold look at the life of Hollywood icon Marilyn Monroe through the lens of the actress.

A co-production with BalletMet and Tulsa Ballet, it opened April 4 at downtown Portland’s Newmark Theater, continues through April 13, and features an original music score by OBT composer and former San Francisco Ballet dancer Shannon Rugani.

After a video introduction of OBT’s programming and community impact, the curtains rose at the Saturday, April 5, performance to a young dancer sitting on the floor, arms wrapped around her knees. Isla Ferreira played the child version of Marilyn Monroe, Norma Jeane (as her middle name was spelled when she was born), in a pale drop-waist dress and blue headband. She danced and interacted with her mother, performed beautifully by Eva Burton, depicting a troubled relationship due to mental health issues and an absent father.

As the child version of Norma Jeane explored the world and the set designed by Emma Kingsbury and David Finn, she grew older and was eventually replaced by Hannah Davis as the adult Norma Jeane.

In a collage version of the telling, she then danced with James Dougherty, performed nicely by Benjamin Simoens, before Dougherty’s character was called away to war, leaving Norma Jeane devastated. Throughout the dance, she then flitted from man to man, moving down the timeline of known and alleged lovers. We met Joe DiMaggio, the retired baseball star, who appeared with ball in hand. Then came playwright Arthur Miller carrying a script, who Monroe was depicted as meeting in an acting class setting, before a pas de deux with John F. Kennedy, to whom she sang the infamous “Happy Birthday Mr. President” on May 19, 1962.

The work also incorporated depictions of paparazzi hounding Monroe, her desire to have a child, and abuse by her psychoanalyst. Later, as women with baby prams trotted about and mysterious men swarmed her, Monroe fell from a swing and appeared to mime a miscarriage. At the end of the work, a man dressed in a dark film-noirish trench coat represented the missing father figure in her life, dancing with her child self later while large fabric photograph portraits of Monroe by American photographer and eventual business partner Milton H. Greene were lowered from the ceiling.

The core cast of Marilyn was small, featuring Jessica Lind as Marilyn Monroe, performing gracefully while taking on a doe-eyed and bewildered portrayal. Benjamin Simoens, Brian Simcoe, John-Paul Simoens, and Bailey Shaw represented the men in her life, with roughly 18 other dancers filling in roles of extras, paparazzi, backup dancers, actors, and directors. The dancers performed the dramatic contemporary style well and with clarity, appearing to have fun while depicting Marilyn’s well-known imagery.

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A particularly satisfying moment included Monroe resting in a bubble bath, perhaps drawing from her 1955 movie The Seven Year Itch, while dancers in bubble-adorned gold costumes, designed by Emma Kingsbury, moved in unison.

The choreography here was sweet and simple, drawing on Hollywood’s beloved chorus girls circa Monroe’s 1948 Ladies of the Chorus and other early ‘50s films — originating in ‘20s silent film shorts like Larry Caballos’ 1929 The Roof Garden Review and dating even further back to the Parisian music halls and cabarets of the late 1800s, including the Moulin Rouge and Folies Bergère (branching off to become showgirls made popular in Las Vegas with the El Rancho Vegas casino acts in the ‘40s.)

Rowe’s Marilyn, which takes us through many of the high and low points of Monroe’s life, revolves around the men she interacted with and offers a voyeuristic take on the star’s short life. Through period costumes and a large, spacious set, Rowe presents Monroe’s familiar story for the American audience to consider once again.

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Like any depiction of Marilyn, on stage or elsewhere, OBT’s Marilyn must be seen through the lens of her actual life in addition to the legend that has grown around her. How well that actuality is reflected or matched in Marilyn will inevitably be decided by each audience member and their prior knowledge of the star.

Marilyn Monroe was born Norma Jeane Mortenson on June 1, 1926, in Los Angeles, and spent a majority of her childhood in foster homes. Her mother, Gladys Pearl Baker, was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and spent a large portion of Monroe’s youth in a mental health facility. Monroe met a man named James Dougherty while attending Van Nuys High School and married him at the age of 16.

In 1944, Dougherty joined the Merchant Navy and was posted in the South Pacific to teach sea safety. While he was gone, Monroe signed a contract with 20th Century Fox and the Blue Book Model agency, who required Monroe to be unmarried. She filed for divorce from Dougherty in 1946 despite his protests. After going by the name Mona Monroe during a series of modeling jobs, she changed her first name to Marilyn and began her acting career.

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Since the 1970s, at least 20 actresses have portrayed Monroe in movies and TV adaptations, with seven books about her life currently in circulation, in addition to countless other productions both large and small, many promising to expose Monroe’s life as never before.

The 2022 release of Blonde, Andrew Dominik’s film adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates’ 2000 novel of the same name, has recently brought to mainstream consciousness a few poignant questions: How much humanity remains behind the icon, and what is our responsibility when telling a story that has become pop-cultural lore? Where is the line when determining whether we are empathizing with and accurately portraying a figure’s tragedy versus gorging on scandal?

Marilyn Monroe is considered one of the most famous and recognizable figures, not only in American history but across the world. Her status as a singer and actress in some of the major motion pictures coming out of post-World War II Hollywood, and her overwhelming identification as a sex symbol character developed for the male gaze — paired with her highly publicized romances — cast her image far and wide into cultural consciousness.

The likeness of Monroe has influenced fashion, cinema, and art (ie. Andy Warhol’s 1962 Marilyn Diptych and 1964 Shot Marilyns) and continues to be a point of creation and marketability today. From stationery companies and t-shirt manufacturers to production companies and magazines like Glamour writing pieces on how to do a skincare routine like the star, Monroe’s distribution as monument has seemingly permeated time.

No one, however, can exist without context, and the perpetuation of Monroe as monolith often eliminates the factors that exemplify her humanity. Simon Curtis’ 2011 film My Week with Marilyn, starring Eddie Redmayne and Michelle Williams, faced criticism for just that.

Other renditions of Marilyn’s double-edged life, vowing unseen moments, opt to focus on her image within a few single events, while erasing their surroundings — dissecting Monroe into major life events or plot points, minimizing her into a confused girl dictated by her ailments or a damaged woman seeking validation from an absent father.

Artistically, famous musical scenes are commonly recreated without Monroe’s quintessential songs, or incorrectly attributing movie moments to real life. The most notable example involves Monroe’s iconic billowing white dress moment, where she stands over a subway grate in the 1955 film The Seven Year Itch, not on the street in front of paparazzi as the cultural game of telephone through the last 70 years has led many to believe.

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When either creating or witnessing a production based on retelling the life story of arguably the most recognizable icon in the world, we mustn’t elevate iconography to the point of dehumanization. It is all the more important not to lose the nuance of humanity and the multifaceted nature of experience from a lens that cannot truly be known.

With Monroe in particular (whose very stage name acts as a severance from the personal), her life story is pieced together from biographies, journal entries, television appearances, tabloid news, letters, hearsay, and personal bias, creating a situation in which we must ask, “Why are we attached to a likely incomplete and portioned picture of this woman, and what inspires the continued familiar retelling?”

The disunion of Monroe from self to image is not so different from the common detachment of Monroe as actress from Hollywood itself. The neutralization of Hollywood and Los Angeles from the ties to her iconic identity defies a complete picture of her, as well as her later global effect deriving from the reach of the studio scene.

One cannot erase Hollywood when talking about a Hollywood star, just as one cannot erase the sound of the voice that perpetuated Monroe’s fame, nor the normalized victimization of women when considering mental health treatment during Monroe’s life. For someone like Monroe, whose childhood was plagued with destabilization and difficulty, the draw of Hollywood was likely that of opportunity. For many others, Los Angeles and the cinema scene of the ‘40s may have represented the escapism of an arts and culture boom in a recovering America.

Los Angeles, which in this context cannot be separated from Hollywood, Monroe, or the picture companies, is partially, if not completely, responsible for influencing and molding our American culture at large. Hand in hand with Monroe, films like 1953’s Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and 1959’s Some Like It Hot entered the perpetual zeitgeist (many of us remember the first time we saw those films, or at least, heard of them).

The Golden Age of Hollywood, which saw the success of major studios including Paramount, Warner Brothers, 20th Century Fox, RKO, and MGM between 1930 and 1960, paved a creative path that was seen as attainable in a time of post-war reawakening. Creative people flocked to Southern California and its system of access points to the industry. Los Angeles became a cultural contact zone, despite its initial destiny to remain a small town secondary to the West Coast port city of San Francisco (until William Mulholland arrived to construct the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1907, allowing for L.A.’s unfathomable expansion.)

The late ‘40s draw to Hollywood by Monroe may be, to this day, mimicked by the draw to Monroe by the public, paralleled by the draw to cinema by the masses — exemplified by the record-crushing blockbuster hits that roll out each summer. This, when considered in a positive light, can be considered the Los Angeles long game — the long history and continuity of influence emanating from a creative center that, for a decade, held Monroe at its core.

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Marilyn Monroe died on August 4, 1962, in her Brentwood, Los Angeles home, though many allege she passed in an ambulance on the way to the hospital. Monroe was discovered in her bedroom by her housekeeper, Eunice Murray, and psychiatrist, Dr. Ralph Greenson, having overdosed on barbiturates.

Despite conspiracy theories, Los Angeles deputy coroner Thomas Noguchi classified her death as a probable suicide. A funeral was arranged by Joe DiMaggio and attended by a few close friends and colleagues. He was the only one of her ex-husbands to attend. On August 8, 1962, Monroe was buried at the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery.

Though no longer at the center of Hollywood’s spotlight, the likeness of Marilyn Monroe seems to visit in waves. Whether in another movie adaptation, a new makeup collection, or a new ballet about the actress, Monroe’s name remains relevant and her story continues to be told, 63 years after her death.

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Oregon Ballet Theatre is offering five more opportunities to see Marilyn. Tickets are still available for Thursday, April 10 through Sunday, April 13 at the Newmark Theater in Portland. Visit the OBT website for more details.