INTERVIEW: Marlene Dietrich remembered in new one-woman show
The glamorous and memorable Hollywood actress Marlene Dietrich died approximately 25 years ago, yet she continues to impact the worlds of film, music, fashion and theater. For evidence of her lingering influence, one only has to look at Dietrich Rides Again, a new one-woman show starring Justyna Kostek.
Kostek co-authored the piece with Oliver Conant, and they are presenting the new show for a three-week run at the Medicine Show Theatre in Midtown Manhattan. Performances run through Sunday, Sept. 17.
In the play, Kostek portrays the actress through various stages in her life, including her time as a legendary Hollywood actress, fashion icon, United Service Organizations entertainer and international philanthropjist. The play also delves into the tumultuous times of World War II.
Audience members should expect to hear such iconic songs as “Puttin’ on the Ritz,” “The Laziest Gal in Town,” “You’re the Cream in My Coffee” and “Falling in Love Again,” among others.
“It’s basically a journey throughout her life, and we’re using a lot of facts that are not very, very much known to people, like the fact that she was a very good student of violin,” Kostek said in a recent phone interview. “Then she was playing Berlin cabarets, and we also talk about her very famous audition for the movie The Blue Angel. We talk about in the play how The Blue Angel made her famous and what she learned from Josef Von Sternberg in terms of technical aspects of making movies. We talk about how much against she was all the Nazism that was happening in Germany during the Second World War and why, and that’s also why she left Germany at that time. We talk about her career in Las Vegas. We talk about her concert career and also something that maybe is not very known to people, that she did go on the warfront with American soldiers, and she was entertaining them in a way that was very, very helpful to them.”
The idea for the show came earlier in 2017 when news stories came out about the 25th anniversary of Dietrich’s death. A few weeks after reading those stories, Kostek traveled across the United States with a friend. She eventually landed in Los Angeles and visited an entertainment museum, which had a lot of exhibits about Marilyn Monroe but little about Dietrich.
“I was very disappointed to see how little people speak about her even though it was the 25th anniversary of her death, and even though she was an extraordinary and talented person,” she said. “I felt like she needs to be spoken about, and I decided to write a play about her along with … Oliver Conant. So that’s what really pushed it, that we wanted her to be spoken about, and the play came about. And then I started hearing from people how I sort of look like her, how I really sound like her when I sing, so everything really came together.”
Kostek first performed the piece as a one-woman play with music, but she had aspirations that the show would become a musical with a full cast. However, after developing the piece, she realized that having Dietrich alone on stage lets the character shine even brighter.
“It was supposed to be a full cast, and then all of a sudden, just Marlene stayed,” she said. “We are open to doing different things with it in the future, so the subject of the full musical is still not closed. But, yes, things have changed since we have written it. We developed a lot of things in the rehearsal along with the music director, and the director, choreographer, lighting designer, and a lot of things are based on improvisation.”
When audience members walk away from Dietrich Rides Again, Kostek hopes they realize how extraordinary a person Dietrich was. She wants to stress the work ethic and moral principles of this memorable performer.
“[Adolf] Hitler wanted her to work for him and perform a lot of awful material, but she refused,” Kostek said. “That is what’s wonderful about Marlene Dietrich because a lot of people wouldn’t have refused. A lot of people would have just gone the easy way, but often being a good person is about taking the more difficult way and really achieving something by that.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Dietrich Rides Again, starring Justyna Kostek, plays through Sunday, Sept. 17 at the Medicine Show Theatre, 549 W. 52nd St. in Midtown Manhattan. Click here for more information and tickets.
