JENNY DE KLERK
SHE WAS beautiful, with sultry eyelashes, a flawless skin, eyes that promised and beckoned, a husky, sexy contralto and a belief in herself that transcended all.
Movie star Marlene Dietrich was the sex symbol of her time, notoriously bisexual, dressed one minute in glamour gowns and fur, the next in top hat and tails, taking lovers by the score.
Refusing to return to her native Germany at Hitler’s invitation, she took American citizenship and toured the frontlines during World War II, singing to the troops, “the young men who may not see another dawn”. She was adored by millions.
But beauty fades, the spotlight dims … we meet Dietrich in her 80s, bedridden in her apartment in Paris, refusing entry to visitors but still living out her legend, wrapping herself in the tattered remnants of her glory.
Fiona Ramsay is superb as Dietrich, moving from the sick, querulous old woman surrounded by pill bottles and whisky decanters and the ever-present telephone that links her to the world, to moments of mystique as the light softens. As she sings catches of her famous numbers, applause comes over the gramophone.
Her bed dominates the stage but around it is a film set, lights, directors’ chairs, wigs and costumes – it has an element of make-believe, illusion, delusion. Who is this woman, this paragon of beauty and kindness, always right, always desired? Does she exist outside her own mind?
The antagonist is her daughter Maria, a tough, controlled portrayal by Janna Ramos-Violante. At times she plays along with her mother’s illusions, at times she punctures them with a cruelly sharp scalpel.
“All I wanted was to be normal,” she cried, showing us vividly the child growing up in her mother’s shadow, hanging around the film set, having to make an appointment to catch a glimpse of her flamboyant, self-absorbed Mutti.
And now, turning her back on her own career, she is happily
PICTURE: PHILIP KUHN settled with her Bill and her children, finally catching up on all the childhood she missed – except for the constant, nagging phone calls ordering her back to Paris, to care for the mother she both loves and despises.
It is a bitter relationship at times, angry and vindictive, but through it comes the allure, the attraction of this remarkably larger-than-life woman and the helpless adoration to which Maria still succumbs.
It is fascinating theatre as the two play out their emotional mother-daughter duet.
Miss Dietrich Regrets is written by Gail Louw and directed by Sylvaine Strike.