The unseen but mesmerising spectre of Marilyn Monroe looms large over Tryst’s entry in the annual Welwyn Drama Festival next week.

Some Kind of Love Story by Arthur Miller is an erotically-charged game of cat and mouse. In the play, Angela (Rhona Law), a schizophrenic prostitute who has multiple personality disorder, is visited by Tom O’Toole (Brian Paterson), a private detective and a former lover who is convinced that she is withholding information about a murder case which has resulted in a miscarriage of justice.

It’s said the piece is about Miller justifying the ending of his disastrous marriage to the doomed sex symbol, explains Director Alan Clark.

“Married in 1956, they were called "The Egghead and The Hourglass" – he the acclaimed intellectual playwright, she the dizzy screen goddess. They divorced five years later.

“In Angela, we see all these sides of Monroe’s fractured personality – exasperating, maddening, selfish, manipulative, distraught, abused, fragile, unstable.

“It’s a wonderfully absorbing play in which Rhona and Brian are totally convincing and at the very top of their game.”

The critic Felix Epstein wrote: “Drowning in submerged and unexplained baggage, Angela must range from tenderness to an urgent body hunger that leaves her shaking with an unsatisfied desire to a sexual staleness. She must bring a raw ferocity to the part, shifting from waif-like vulnerability to sexual aggression.”

Alan added: “Tryst are delighted to go to Welwyn, one of our favourite destinations. The Campus West theatre is great, the crew first-class, our ladies enjoy looking at the hats in John Lewis and there is an excellent late-night Chinese restaurant with fine house red – what more do you need?”

Some Kind of Love Story will be staged at Welwyn on Saturday June 11.