Speculations
Is this what the world needs right now: another conspiracy drama about how we were lied to over the Kennedys and Marilyn? Torben Betts' new play Speculations does at least have a fresh historical protagonist: Dorothy Kilgallen, the Pulitzer-nominated journalist who interviewed Jack Ruby in prison after he gunned down JFK's assassin Lee Harvey Oswald in public and was herself found dead, like Marilyn, from an overdose of booze and barbituates.
It also has the reliably luminous Janie Dee as Kilgallen, and heavyweight director Trevor Nunn at the helm. Kilgallen's a fascinating figure to disinter, and Nunn's production has gravitas, and a couple of outstanding performances, but ultimately I wasn't persuaded: by the speculations on whodunnit, or by the drama. Betts' play is subtitled On the Unexplained Deaths of Several American Icons - which is a lot of speculation to wrap up in a two hour stage play. There are three scenes, which unfold in instalments. First, Kilgallen's New York apartment where she types, swigs vodka and confides her theories to a fictional Black babysitter she's only just met; then Lee Newby's fantasic modular set swivels open to reveal an underworld bar where Lee Harvey Oswald (a nicely twitchy Joseph Potter) is being groomed by a crime boss; finally Marilyn's last night on earth, imagined as a deadly confrontation with Bobby Kennedy.
Betts' play is more of a whydunnit than a whodunnit: we know from the get go that Bobby, Marilyn, Dorothy, and Lee will...