History is full of conspiracy theories, myths, and speculated ideas. Some are harmless rumours, while others, like those explored in Torben Betts’s new work Speculations, might get you killed.
The production is an exploration of journalist Dorothy Kilgallen’s (Janie Dee) attempts to uncover whether the deaths of Marilyn Monroe, President John F. Kennedy, and Kennedy’s assassin Lee Harvey Oswald were in some way all connected. Betts’s script is partially based on real-life events, with Kilgallen working as an investigative crime journalist in the 1960s. While the play is heavily inspired by the areas Kilgallen was investigating at the time, the programme notes make clear that it is a fictionalised version of events. Betts’s script walks us through the various accusations and beliefs Kilgallen holds about Monroe (Natalie Dunne), JFK’s brother Robert (Jolyon Coy), Oswald (Joseph Potter), and the latter’s ties to criminal underworld boss Carlos Marcello (Ferdy Roberts), as the journalist reveals her suspicions in a frantic exchange with new babysitter Flo (Gloria Obianyo), paranoid about what the knowledge she holds might cost her and her family.
It is an intriguing premise, yet one that struggles to live up to the play’s political thriller billing. The production spins between Dorothy and Flo’s conversation and fictionalised interactions between Robert Kennedy and Monroe, as well as Oswald and Marcello. Utilising neat set design and stage revolves, Dorothy and Flo’s interactions serve as narrative junctions that move us from Kilgallen’s suspicions to depictions of what the journalist believed happened. The play’s nod to the idea that ‘the state did it, it is all a cover-up!’, which is so rampant today, is on the nose, but that said, it is a neat setup.
Unfortunately, though, it is also one that takes too long to get going, becoming a bit too repetitive across its 130-minute runtime. Scenes between Kilgallen’s accused often end in awkward cliffhanger final lines that attempt to build suspicion, but in contrast often cause the play to stutter, taking too long to get to what the characters are supposed to have done or exploring their rumoured motives.
As a one-act play, this could certainly work, but this piece luxuriates a bit too long in its setup to reach its thriller potential fully. The presentation, too, of what happens to Monroe and, eventually, Kilgallen, under Sir Trevor Nunn’s direction, feels a bit cheesy, as a man clad in black looms over both in scenes that feel more like Midsomer Murders than the horror it is trying to evoke. This is equally evident in some of the mystery tropes the play chucks in, such as the mysterious phone calls and the brick through the window, which add little subtlety and juxtapose the mature nature of Kilgallen’s suspicions.
Nevertheless, there are some tightly crafted performances here that do arrest some of the script’s stagnant wading. Dee’s portrayal of Kilgallen is rich and commanding, switching neatly from determined journalist to paranoid mother, fearful of the repercussions of her work upon her family as those she is accusing appear to be onto her. While here Kilgallen is reduced to a role more suited to a narrator, Dee seizes opportune moments to bring out the fear in her character and quickly establishes, through the grabbing of alcohol or frantic typewriting, her anxious state in believing her own life is at risk for the truths she believes she is about to unveil. Meanwhile, Obianyo’s Flo, an invented character for the play, works well as a sounding board for Dorothy’s ideas. An aspiring journalist held back by the racist oppression of 1960s America, Flo is intrigued and horrified by Dorothy’s accusations, presented well by Obianyo, who finds the right blend. The brief insight into Flo’s own family, scarred by the Vietnam War, is a deft moment and one that is acutely moving amid all the bluster of the big personalities seen elsewhere in this play.
As Monroe, Dunne captures the icon’s desperation to be taken seriously and to escape the world’s objectification of her. Her scenes with Robert are volatile, switching between passion and violence, with Dunne working effectively with Coy to demonstrate Kilgallen’s version of the events that preceded Monroe’s death. Dorothy’s belief that Monroe was killed, rather than taking her own life, is set up here to point towards Robert, hinging upon his desire to silence her for knowing too much about the political plans of both Kennedy brothers, with whom she was involved. Betts’s script labours most in these interactions, though, with the pair’s back-and-forth becoming repetitive and predictable.
Meanwhile, the play also switches to look at JFK’s killer Oswald and his immersion into the underworld by crime lord Marcello. Much like the scenes between Monroe and Kennedy, the interactions between this pair also struggle to get going, with Potter given little to get into as Oswald in a play that seems unsure how to position him, while Roberts’s mercurial Marcello tries to manipulate him into eventually pulling the trigger.
Undoubtedly, it is a play with grand ideas and a desire to spark curiosity about whether Monroe, Kennedy, and even Kilgallen’s deaths were as history says they are. Lee Newby’s clever set design utilises three revolving sets to shift quickly from Dorothy’s gorgeously decorated home to Monroe’s seedy-looking bedroom and Marcello’s alcohol den, attempting to bring a cinematic quality to the piece as we switch between timelines. Yet it is the bloating of the script that detracts from the thrilling potential of Kilgallen’s exposé, reducing what should be earth-shattering accusations into underwhelming moments.
