Some Liked It Hot

Bernie Taupin, Elton John's longtime lyricist, doesn't particularly care for Marilyn Monroe. Fair enough, except it was Taupin who penned the elegiac words for "Candle in the Wind," which read like a love-struck schoolboy mash note. Not so. Taupin's on record as saying it was merely a cautionary tale about the perils and the piercing heartbreak of stardom.

Though not the bubblehead she so often portrayed, Monroe was a lovely, empty vessel who others -- both her keepers and admirers -- poured their dreams into, and playwright David Lewis' M.M.xx is the latest in a series of attempts to bring Marilyn's real life into focus. Katherine Stewart portrays the doomed diva in the one-woman show, a world-première presentation. Play dates vary.
Sept. 13-Oct. 6, 8 p.m., 2007