Marlene tells a true story. In May 1960, Marlene Dietrich returned to Germany to perform on stage for the first time since fleeing the Hitler regime in 1939. The play is set in Dietrich’s dressing room at Berlin’s Titania Palast theater, where she is trying to decide whether she should go through with the recital. Threats have been made on her life by Nazi sympathizers who still resent her for having spent much of World War II entertaining American soldiers on the front lines. In their eyes, she is a turncoat, a traitor, and should be killed.