Norma Jeane Baker of Troy is a "spoken and sung performance piece" written by the Canadian author and classicist Anne Carson, which debuted in New York City in 2019.
[1] On New Year's Eve, 1963, an unnamed screenwriter works with his female stenographer in an empty New York office in order to finish his ambitious screenwriting project (the text he is writing is the same as Norma Jeane Baker of Troy, which was published by Oberon Books) based on Euripides' Helen.
The screenwriter interrupts his own dictation frequently, distracted by the recent death of a similarly tragic and gorgeous woman, Marilyn Monroe.
Carson wrote the play with the actor Ben Whishaw in mind, having previously worked with him in a production of her translation of The Bakkhai in 2015.
"[3] The Telegraph instead criticized the excessive coldness and lack of humanity in the play and its characters, writing that the work was intelligent but difficult to appreciate.