Friday, November 30, 2007

Mae West: Sex Excerpt

Taking advantage of the West Coast revival of Mae West's play "Sex," a venerable publishing house in New York City has posted a book excerpt (from a title released in 2001) by an author whose name like Mae West is a duet of short, sweet, monosyllables: Jill Watts. Mae West meet Jill Watts, the biographer you deserve.
• • Controversial enough to be jailed, bawdy, talented, end endlessly quoted, Mae West is the pop archetype of sexual wantonness and ribald humor, notes the Oxford University Press flap copy for a juicy biography they published in 2001. In her book, Mae West: An Icon in Black and White, Jill Watts looks at the ways West borrowed from African-American culture and helps us understand this endlessly complicated woman.
• • In the telling excerpt below we learn about how West’s first Broadway play SEX came to fruition.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • • • One day, Mae West and some friends sat stuck in New York City traffic. In a rush, she ordered her driver to take a shortcut past the waterfront, and as her car rolled past the docks she spied a young woman with a sailor on each arm. West described her as attractive but with “blonde hair, over bleached and all frizzy . . . a lot of make-up on and a tight black satin coat that was all wrinkled and soiled. . . . She had runs in her stockings and she had this little turban on and a big beautiful bird of paradise.” Mae remarked to her companions, “You wonder this dame wouldn’t put half a bird of paradise on her head and the rest of the money into a coat and stockings.” But as her friends speculated that the bird of paradise was probably a seafaring John’s recompense and that this woman of the streets at best made only fifty cents to two dollars a trick, Mae grew enraged. Certainly she was worldly enough to know about prostitution, yet she recalled, “I was really upset about that.” She insisted it disturbed her to witness such exploitation of a woman — and also to realize that a woman could be so ignorant of her potential for exploiting her exploitation.
• • • • Mae continued to ponder the waterfront waif. “I kept thinking, ‘Fifty cents! How many guys would she have to have to pay her rent, buy her food?’ ” She claimed she dreamed of the woman that night, awakening the next morning still contemplating her hard luck. “And then I said,” she told Life magazine, “Is it possible? Is this the play I am going to write?” She realized that she had mentally “remade” this scarlet woman, envisioning her on a path that led out of the slums to a better life, a transformation easily achieved on stage. Inspired, she set out to write a new play.
• • • • For some time, West had searched for a vehicle for a Broadway comeback. She had spent several years reviewing scripts, rejecting them all as unsatisfactory. But in 1924, about the time she received her waterfront inspiration, a client of Timony’s, John J. Byrne, showed up with a one-act vaudeville skit called “Following the Fleet.” Hearing that West was searching for a scarlet-woman vehicle, something like Somerset Maugham’s Rain, he had composed a story of a Montreal strumpet who makes a living by seducing British sailors. On West’s behalf, Timony purchased Byrne’s sketch for $300. He then charged the writer $ 100 for acting as his agent and pressed him to invest the rest in a real estate deal.
• • • • In December 1925, working again with Adeline Leitzbach, West expanded Byrne’s sketch into a three act play that she called The Albatross. In it, she took a prostitute from Montreal’s red light district to the mansions of Westchester County, New York. Energized by her waterfront muse, West claimed ideas spilled forth on paper bags, stationery, envelopes, and old scraps of paper that she forwarded to Timony’s secretaries for transcription.
• • • • But Mae’s dedication wavered. To keep her on the task, Timony began locking her in her room, refusing to let her out until she had finished writing. It not only forced her to work but prevented her from seeing other men, demonstrating the great degree of control he maintained over her. Her acceptance of this treatment indicates that the private Mae West had yet to achieve the forcefulness and confidence of her fantasized stage presence.
• • • • After The Albatross was drafted, Jim Timony and Mae West set out to find backers. Their first choice was the Shuberts, and she sent them her script under a pseudonym, Jane Mast. She quickly received a curt rejection note. In fact, none of Broadway’s producers, big or small, were interested, so West and Timony decided to raise the money and produce the play themselves. Timony put in a share and later convinced Harry Cohen, a Manhattan clothier, to kick in a loan of almost $4,000. As producer, he recruited C. William Morganstern, the former proprietor of Pittsburgh’s Family Theater, where West had performed in 191 2; his most current endeavor involved producing Broadway’s Love’s Call, one of the biggest disasters of 1924. But funds still fell short, and Tillie, with the help of Owney Madden, supplied the balance. Timony then incorporated their endeavor as the Morals Production Corporation.
• • • • Recruiting a director proved difficult. Several candidates turned down the job outright, insisting that the script was too bawdy for legitimate theater. Another prospect demanded extensive revisions. West immediately rejected him. Finally, Timony arranged for a meeting with Edward Eisner, a small-time director whose most recent undertakings had been total flops, one a comedy rated by a reviewer as “monotony.” West presented her script by reading it out loud to him, since he had conveniently forgotten his glasses, and as she finished, she claimed he cried out, “By God! You’ve done it! You’ve got it! This is it!”
• • • • Finding a cast was also a challenge, for West was attempting her Broadway comeback in the midst of controversy. For several seasons, the Great White Way had hosted a series of “sex plays,” including Lulu Belle, the story of a mixed-race prostitute who slept her way to Paris, and The Shanghai Gesture, the chronicle of a madam of a Chinese brothel and her rage against men. These productions stirred a call for a cleanup of the city’s stages. As a result, career-minded actors and actresses, fearful of negative backlash, steered ‘clear of Mae West and similar ventures. Beyond this, the Morals Production Corporation’s salaries were not competitive, forcing West to sign up a cast of unknowns. On a tight budget, she used Beverly as her understudy, acted as barber to male cast members, and borrowed old scenery from a former burlesque producer.
• • • • Securing a theater proved to be another problem. Booking space on Broadway was costly and competitive; shows had to demonstrate potential profitability. Disappointingly, all the venues in Manhattan’s theater district were either occupied, not interested, or too expensive. Finally, Timony discovered one possibility: Daly’s Sixty-third Street Theater, a small off-Broadway house. Daly’s had a reputation for experimentation; in 1921, it hosted the successful all-black revue Shuffle Along. Even more important, the management agreed to waive normal up-front charges in exchange for 40 percent of the show’s profits.
• • • • During rehearsals West’s play took final form. While she already had a completed script, at Eisner’s suggestion she retooled it, urging the cast to improvise and reshape their roles. For her part, she found Eisner a catalyst for the exploration of her full range of talents, making her more aware of her performance’s verbal and nonverbal nuances. As she remembered, he observed, “You have a quality — a strange amusing quality that I have never found in any of these other women. You have a definite sexual quality, gay, and unrepressed. It even mocks you personally.” While Eisner may have been a third-rate director, he understood West’s strongest asset, a style that rested in signification and communicated sensuality that was both serious and satirical. With his guidance, she further honed her ability to offer conflicting messages and double meanings.
• • • • West’s play continued to evolve until just before the curtain rang up on its first tryout performance in Waterbury, Connecticut. Just hours before opening, she had another inspiration. After listening for weeks to Eisner rave about her “sex quality, a low sex quality,” she had a revelation. She insisted that the manager replace The Albatross on his marquee with a new title — SEX. Her first night in Waterbury produced excellent box office, bringing in several thousand dollars.
• • • • Shortly afterward, the company traveled to New London, Connecticut, for more trial performances. Despite the play’s bold new title, the opening night’s audience numbered only eighty-five by curtain time. But, West insisted, the following day’s matinee was a great morale booster. That morning, the U.S. naval fleet arrived in port, and that afternoon sailors, lured by the sign reading SEX, lined up around the block for tickets. Their reception was more than enthusiastic. “Believe me,” West told a reporter later, “I’ll never forget the Navy.”
• • • • SEX returned to Manhattan and, promoted with ads reading “SEX with Mae West,” opened at Daly’s Theater on April 26, 1926. The premiere was well attended, but the production still had some rough spots. One actor’s collar kept springing up, a window shade refused to stay rolled down, and a loud bang offstage interrupted one scene. The sound effects for a champagne cork’s pop occurred several conspicuous seconds after the bottle had been opened. But the play’s blunders were minor in comparison to its “frankness.”
• • • • One reviewer complained, “We were shown not sex but lust — stark naked lust.” Early in the program, several patrons left in disgust, and by the third act, empty seats dotted the theater. Judging by the newspapers, the opening night audience’s reaction was mixed. Some sat quietly stunned, while others roared with laughter, shouting out their approval at choice moments.…
• • • • Early on, SEX’s future looked dim. The Morals Production Corporation had little money for a publicity campaign, and within the first week attendance lagged. The reviews were disappointing. The more stodgy New York dailies agreed to downplay SEX’s sensationalism and blast it as inept and amateurish. One of these, the New York Times, branded SEX as “feeble and disjointed,” declaring that Montreal, Trinidad, and Westchester possessed “ample cause for protest.” The New Yorker was far less kind, declaring it a “poor balderdash of street sweepings and cabaret sentimentality unexpurgated in tone.” Variety summed up the reaction of many, proclaiming SEX a “disgrace,” with “nasty, infantile, amateurish and vicious dialogue.” While the play was attributed to the mysterious Jane Mast, no one was fooled. All blamed Mae West for what one reviewer condemned “as bad a play as these inquiring eyes have gazed upon in three seasons.”
• • • • But with the help of word of mouth and several lurid reviews in the city’s tabloids, curiosity began to draw New Yorkers to Daly’s little off-Broadway theater. Before long, more and more came. When writer Robert Benchley attended, he noted that “at the corner of Central Park West and Sixty-Third Street we ran into a line of people which seemed to be extending in the general direction of Daly’s Theatre . . . and what was more, the people standing in line were clutching, not complimentary passes, but good, green dollar bills.” Within a few weeks, SEX was a hit, seats in the house went for top dollar, and it began to turn a nice profit. While it slipped during the hot summer, its low overhead helped SEX generate strong returns for the rest of the year. . . .
— Source:
• • "Speaking of the Influence of the Jook" [Chapter 4]
• • from Mae West: An Icon in Black and White
• • Author: Jill Watts
• • N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 2001
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml

• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1926 • •

Mae West.

Thursday, November 29, 2007

Mae West: Catherine

MAE WEST had been aiming to play Catherine II of Russia [Catherine the Great] for years. She got her chance in 1944.
• • The czarina, who was born on 2 May 1729 and died on 17 November 1796, reigned as Empress of Russia for 34 years, from 28 June 1762 until her death during the month of November.
• • Though the drama was not a big success on Broadway, it did last for 191 performances.
• • "Catherine Was Great" had its New York City premiere on 2 August 1944. The show closed on the Gay White Way on 13 January 1945.
• • Wouldn't it be something if, during November, Catherine's restless spirit hovered over the Royale Theatre [where the production was booked on West 45th Street from 2 October 1944 until the curtains came down shortly after the New Year in 1945].
• • In a 1993 article, film critic Molly Haskell observed this about Mae: For years she tried to promote a film about Catherine the Great, in which she would offer a warmer and more sensual alternative to what she described as Dietrich's "hollow-cheeked doll." Although West finally succeeded in launching an unfunny Broadway play on the subject of the czarina, for most of her career she was in fact playing a bawdy, carnivalesque version of Catherine, surrounded by an "honor guard" of admirers. See her as the lion-tamer in "I'm No Angel" entering atop an elephant, wearing a white spangled jumpsuit. Looking at her now, we can't but applaud this middle-aged woman (she was 40 when she made her first film), undisguisedly rotund, flaunting an unliposuctioned, unsiliconed body and demanding her sexual privileges! . . .
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml

• • Photo: • • Mae West and Rae Bourbon • • 1944 • •

Mae West.

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Mae West: Sex Extended

MAE WEST's 1926 play "Sex" has been extended at the Aurora Theatre, announced The San Francisco Chronicle.
• • Artistic Director Tom Ross and his notable theatre company have posted a two-week extension of its current blockbuster namely, Ross's cagey, appealing, fun-filled staging of Mae West's once-scandalous comedy "Sex."
• • "Sex" with a delightful Delia MacDougall in the role of prostitute Margy LaMont [a role Mae West wrote for herself] is serving as the Aurora's holiday treat, now running through 23 December 2007.
• • The Chronicle's chief drama critic Robert Hurwitt adds this: Susan G. Duncan, the new managing director of Berkeley's thriving Aurora Theatre, joins Artistic Director Tom Ross at a time when the West Coast theatre group is on a roll.
• • Inquire about tickets: (510) 843-4822.
• • Source:
• • The San Francisco Chronicle http://www.sfgate.com/
• • Drama Critic Robert Hurwitt
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml

• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1935 • •

Mae West.

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Mae West: George Rector

Restaurant and hotel owner George Rector, who died on 26 November 1947, co-starred with MAE WEST in the film "Every Day's a Holiday."
• • The motion picture opens on 31 December 1899 with the buzz that there will be the biggest New Year's Eve party ever at Rector's. The set featured a full scale version of Rector's in Times Square as it looked during its halcyon days.
• • "Every Day's a Holiday" was released on 18 December 1937.
• • When he wasn't busy appearing as himself in a Paramount film or running his famous eateries, George Rector penned cookbooks and guides to fine dining at home. Food critic Ruth Reichl once wrote, If George Rector, the author of the well-regarded ''Dining in New York'' in 1939, were to stroll through the restaurants of modern Manhattan, he would find very little to surprise him. Even then, the city had a lot to offer an adventurous appetite. The most glaring exception was Japanese food, which Mr. Rector dismissed as ''derivative of the Chinese.''
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml

• • Photo: • • Mae West • • none • •

Mae West.


Monday, November 26, 2007

Mae West: Vincent Sardi

You can find Mae West at Sardi’s, a restaurant located in New York City's theater district [234 West 44th Street]. Known for the hundreds of caricatures of show-business celebrities that adorn its walls, Sardi’s opened at its current location on 5 March 1927.
• • After Mae's blockbuster Broadway hit "Diamond Lil" [1928
1929], the Brooklyn bombshell was installed on the wall of fame.
• • Established by Vincent Sardi, Sr. [23 December 1885
19 November 1969] and his wife, Sardi's was eventually operated by their son Vincent Sardi, Jr., nicknamed "Cino." Cino managed the theatre hang-out for half a century; he died on 4 January 2007 at the age of 91.
• • In 1979, Vincent Sardi, Jr. donated a collection of 227 caricatures from the restaurant to the Billy Rose Theatre Collection of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.
• • The humorous (and often unflattering) caricatures, originally drawn by artist Alex Gard [1900-1948], along with frequent mentions of the restaurant in newspaper columns by Walter Winchell and Ward Morehouse added to Sardi’s growing popularity.
• • Vincent Sardi Sr., founder of Sardi's restaurant, is buried in the Mount Hebron Cemetery [Flushing, New York]. In remembrance of his death in November 1969, let us toast in style.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

• • • • Mae West Cocktail • • • •
Yolk of 1 egg
1 tsp. Powdered Sugar
1 ounce Brandy
Shake well and strain into a medium sized glass. Top with a dash of cayenne pepper.
.
• • • • Sardi's Delight Cocktail • • • •
1/4 ounce Passionfruit Syrup
1/8 ounce Lime Juice
Dash of Grenadine & Absinthe
1 shot glass of Gin
Shake well.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml

• • Photo: • • Mae West • • none • •

Mae West.

Sunday, November 25, 2007

Mae West: Lucky Ducky


==================================
• • In this Max Fleischer Color Classic from the 1930s, the cartoonists created a sexpot DUCK modeled on the inimitable MAE WEST.
• • After you've had all that turkey, feast on these hens, roosters, and ducks.
• •
Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml

• • Photo: • • Mae West • • cartoon by Max Fleischer • •

Mae West.

Saturday, November 24, 2007

Mae West: Robert Benchley

MAE WEST got her share of negative reviews from critic Robert Benchley. However, he and Zora Neale Hurston were two of a very small group of writers who had favorable things to say about "Sex."
• • Benchley's comments about Mae's show at Daly's 63rd Street Theatre appeared in Life Magazine on 20 May I926 (the month after the premiere) though his byline during the 1920s is more commonly associated with The New Yorker.
• • Born in New England on 15 September 1889, Robert Charles Benchley was a humorist, journalist, and (briefly) a screen actor cast in minor roles in Hollywood. He attended Harvard and became part of the "vicious circle" presided over by Dorothy Parker at the Algonquin Hotel. Like Mrs. Parker, he was an alcoholic.
• • Cirrhosis of the liver aggravated by his drinking contributed to Robert Benchley's death at age 56 on 21 November 1945.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml

• • Photo: • • Mae West • • none • •

Mae West.

Friday, November 23, 2007

Mae West and "Nobody"

Stage star Lionel Perry [born in Key West, Florida in 1902] seems to have modeled his act on MAE WEST's favorite: the great black minstrel and vaudevillian Bert Williams [12 November 1874 – 4 March 1922].
• • In an interview with Charlotte Chandler, Mae described meeting the great Bert Williams when she was a child. Little Mae was so enchanted by him that she had learnt his theme song "Nobody" along with copying the superb timing and gestures that Bert Williams used to dramatize the sad words. This number was unusual for Mae, who never liked anything downbeat.
• • Knowing how much his daughter idolized the star, Mae's father made his acquaintance and invited him home in 1903. Unfortunately, Mae did not recognize the mocha-skinned West Indian entertainer without his blackface make-up and ran into her room crying, "It's not him!" To convince her, Bert Williams started to sing, whereupon Mae emerged from her bedroom and happily sat down to supper with Bert Williams and her family.
• • Bert Williams went on to star on Broadway in the Ziegfeld Follies and In Dahomey. Mae West remained a lifelong admirer of his comedic talents.
• • [Source: Charlotte Chandler, The Ultimate Seduction, Doubleday, 1984.]
• • Nobody: Since she sang the song for years in vaudeville as an amateur, Mae West would have known that Alex Rogers and Bert Williams co-wrote the song "Nobody" [New York: Attucks Publishing Co., 1905]. Though the cover of the song sheet shows Williams in blackface, it avoids the grotesque caricatures common in sheet music at the time. The song was published by the Attucks Publishing Co. (later Gotham-Attucks), the only notable black-owned music publishing company in New York before the 1920s. The firm was named for Crispus Attucks [c. 1723 – 5 March 1770], the martyred black sailor of the American Revolution. "Nobody" was the firm's biggest success.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml

• • Photo: • • Mae West's idol • • Bert Willaims • •

Mae West.

Thursday, November 22, 2007

Mae West: It's a flash


===================================
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • On Thanksgiving, we give thanks to Mae West for all the a-MAE-zing entertainment she gave us onstage and onscreen. Here's to you, Mae, our Empress of Sex!
• • Source: YouTube http://www.youtube.com/
• • "The Mae West Revue" 1957
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml

• • Photo: • • Mae West • • circa 1957 • •

Mae West.

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Mae West: Sex Positive

A-MAE-zing thanks go to the San Francisco Weekly who printed an intelligent salute to MAE WEST in their current issue. Drama critic Chloe Veltman paid the Brooklyn bombshell the supreme compliment of laughing at her lines and taking her seriously. Here is Veltman's insightful commentary on the revival of "Sex" [now playing at the Aurora Theatre in Berkeley, California through 9 December 2007].

• • • • THEATER REVIEW • • • •

• • Sex Sells Itself at the Aurora Theater in Berkeley
• • By Chloe Veltman

• • When she was released from jail for transgressing indecency laws with her 1926 play Sex, Mae West told reporters that her play about a street-smart prostitute's adventures in love was "a work of art." This was a bit of a stretch. West based her slapstick comedy on Following the Fleet, a melodrama by New Jersey author Jack Byrne. Mae West scholar Lillian Schlissel dubs Byrne's creation "a third-rate sex play set in a Montreal brothel" in her introduction to a collection of West's plays. Schlissel's backhanded description of Byrne's work could be applied to Sex as well. The plot, concerning hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold Margy LaMont's journey from the gutter to the stars via a Montreal flophouse, a Trinidad nightclub, and the mansion of a wealthy Connecticut family, is flimsy and farcical.
• • But the true creativity of Sex isn't in the aesthetics of its composition. Like other artists whose works have challenged censorship standards over the years, from D.H. Lawrence's novel Lady Chatterley's Lover to Kenneth Tynan's burlesque stage review Oh! Calcutta! to Madonna's photographic book Sex, the genius of West's theatrical effort lies in its notoriety. By the time West, who wrote the role of LaMont for herself and starred in the original production, emerged from her short stay in prison, she was well on her way to fame. Not only that. West's trailblazing portrayal of a prostitute who finds happiness and fortune instead of her moral comeuppance —
which up to that point had been the de facto ending to plays about loose women — helped to break down contemporary pruderies, paving the way for more diverse characters on the legit Broadway stage. As West later told reporters, "Considering what Sex got me, a few days in the pen 'n' a $500 fine ain't too bad a deal."
• • What makes director Tom Ross' revival of West's comedy at Aurora Theatre so captivating is its sense of fun and its ability to connect what "Sex" meant to Mae West and her audiences with what the play means to us today. This is no small feat when you consider the essential badness of the play. Making a joke of the vaudeville shtick might seem the easiest route for a director. But instead of mocking West's artistic sensibility, Ross and his collaborators embrace every hokey one-liner as if she had written it just last week for The Daily Show, and go at each sentimental musical number like they mean it. The result makes for not only an entertaining night out at the theater, but also a provocative one.
• • Ross' production might appear garish on the surface, but it's subtle within.
Set designer Greg Dunham goes all out for chintz, flinging together an upright piano and a few sparse bits of bric-a-brac furniture in front of a tacky revolving backdrop, depicting an amateurishly painted street corner scene on one side and the inside wall of a parlor on the other. It suggests a hastily put together touring vaudeville show. But there's more to the scenic design than meets the eye. The remarkable similarity between the look of the opening scene, set in a low-class Montreal brothel, and the final scene, set in an upper-class Connecticut home, underscores the main moral point that West makes in her play: that circumstances rather than social position dictate a person's actions, and a society lady is just as capable of committing sin as a prostitute is of being virtuous.
• • The performances similarly balance flamboyance with depth. Aurora's expert cast doesn't shy away from portraying West's vaudeville types in a bravura style. Kristin Stokes plays her sad little prostitute, Agnes, like a Hollywood Golden Era ingénue with her Tweety Pie voice and wide, candid eyes. Steve Irish's British naval officer Lieutenant Gregg is the sort of handsome, beefy hero who would have made women swoon back in the day. The acting may be hammy by modern standards, but without exception, the actions and words come from a place of affection and are delivered with precision and control.
• • This approach is most obviously encapsulated in Delia MacDougall's portrayal of LaMont. MacDougall unapologetically channels West's persona throughout: Her performance is as much an homage to the American stage and screen's greatest sexual liberator as it is a portrait of an irresistible blonde hussy. MacDougall has all of West's legendary mannerisms down, from her loaded vocal purr and Jell-O swagger to her trademark "teapot" posture, with one arm crooked at the elbow, hand on hip, and the other swinging in the air freely. Yet the performance never feels like a caricature. Whether repelling the attentions of unwanted suitors, seducing millionaires, dispensing sensible advice to homesick young hookers, or resuscitating drugged society dames, MacDougall brings a range to her actions and reactions that goes beyond the clichés that have become associated with West's screen persona over the years.
• • Sex is a good-time show.
• • We can't help but laugh at the jokes. We even find ourselves won over each time the actors break into sweet old songs against musical director Billy Philadelphia's piano accompaniment about such lavender-tinged subjects as sailors' sweethearts, belles of the sea, and paradise waiting for people in their dreams. But even the most entertaining of scenes, such as when two male actors in full drag confront MacDougall about the whereabouts of their philandering boyfriends, hint at something more serious. The presence of the cross-dressers isn't simply another way of celebrating West's achievements: As the creator of the gay plays The Drag and The Pleasure Man, she was responsible for breaking taboos surrounding the depiction of homosexuals onstage. Just as the inclusion of newly written scenes at the beginning and end of the production narrate the story behind the play and provide some context for its legacy, the cross-dressing element also makes West's seemingly anachronistic exercise in theatrical titillation resonate sharply with our own times.
• • If the likes of Kiki & Herb can sell out Carnegie Hall and the Geary Theater today, it's partly thanks to West's groundbreaking efforts some 80 years ago. Yet as far as we've come on the sexual enlightenment front, Aurora's revival of Sex throws the recent resurgence of anti-smut campaigns and censorship laws into sharp relief. Sex was revolutionary when it first appeared because it used comedy to cut sin down to size, reducing it, as Schlissel points out, "from mortal transgression to misdemeanor." If only those who waste so much of the public's time and money trying to stamp out the word "fuck" from the radio and prevent the tiniest exposure of pop stars' nipples on TV had inherited West's sense of humor.
• • Then again, there's nothing like a bit of notoriety to draw attention to a cause and get a budding starlet noticed. Mae West truly knew what she was talking about when she famously said, "When I'm good I'm very good
but when I'm bad I'm better."
Source:
• • San Francisco Weekly [Village Voice Media] http://www.sfweekly.com/
• • Byline: Chloe Veltman
• • Published on: 21 November 2007
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • Mae West was born on 17 August 1893 in Brooklyn, NY.
• • Mae West died on 22 November 1980 in Los Angeles, CA.
• • The Empress of Sex lives forever in our hearts.

• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml

• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1926 • •

Mae West.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Mae West: Excess Sex

MAE WEST lives on despite leaving us on 22 November 1980 especially since the West Coast is now enjoying a refreshing interest in "Sex." Thanks to the Aurora Theatre's ability to spit-shine and polish a dusty 1926 script, a three-act melodrama written and staged by Mae West on Broadway at Daly's West 63rd Street Theatre fourscore and one year ago, audiences are realizing that nothing succeeds like SEX-cess. An excellent cast, under the effervescent direction of Tom Ross, is also helping to give the show the necessary SEX appeal.
• • Writing for the Marin Independent Journal, Charles Brousse pens this fun-filled theatre review.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • Ace casting of lead role sends 'Sex' into ecstacy • •

• • Sex ... in Berkeley? Well, why not? Just because there is a substantial population of pointy headed intellectuals there doesn't mean residents can't have fun.
• • But what if I were to add that it happens nightly in front of about 150 people gathered in the Aurora Theatre, a venue noted for productions of works by writers such as Harold Pinter, David Mamet, and Arthur Miller? Would you wonder if artistic director Tom Ross has lost his bloody mind?
• • OK, enough of a tease. The "Sex" we're talking about here isn't of the grunt and squeal variety. It's Mae West's 1926 play, the first of 13 that she used to showcase her considerable talents to live audiences and, not incidentally, promote a more profitable career on the silver screen.
• • After gathering dust in the Library of Congress for nearly three quarters of a century, the script was discovered by a persistent researcher and given a New York staging in 1999. Eventually, it found its way into Ross' hands and Aurora's leader confirmed that his producer's instincts were indeed in top form by recognizing that it works on two levels first, as an old-fashioned, somewhat (though not uncomfortably) bawdy entertainment and, second, as substantiation of the view that West's "strong woman" persona made her an important precursor of modern feminism. Top that off with the magic of its title and you have a hit in the making.
• • All of this might not have guaranteed a successful project if the right performer had not been available for the play's central role. Fortunately, just about the time when the "a-ha!" bulb was flashing in Ross' head, Bay Area actress Delia MacDougall, long known for her outstanding contributions to companies such as California Shakespeare, Berkeley Rep, and the Magic Theatre, was hanging around the Aurora auditioning for another show. On a whim, he gave her the "Sex" script to read; their shared enthusiasm grew, and she eventually passed up a higher-paying gig in this season's "A Christmas Carol" at ACT to take the part.
• • A good thing, too, because without MacDougall the evening could easily have degenerated into two hours of silliness. What distinguishes her performance is an ability to capture both the brassy and the vulnerable sides of her character's personality-contrasting qualities that are more evident in "Sex" than in West's subsequent plays and movies in which West's assertive, don't-mess-with-me public demeanor became so dominant that she was almost a caricature.
• • MacDougall plays Margy LaMont, a lithesome young Montreal prostitute. In the opening scene, she returns from "work" one night to discover Rocky (the appropriately sleazy Danny Wolohan), her pimp and occasional lover, about to force sex on a society woman named Clara (a fluttery Maureen McVerry), whom he has drugged after she comes to his club looking for excitement. Stung by the blame heaped on her by both the perpetrator and his victim, Margy decides she's had enough. On the advice of Lieutenant Gregg, a debonair naval officer and long time admirer (sympathetically portrayed by Steve Irish), she resolves to follow the fleet to Trinidad.
• • Scene 2, set in the Cafe Port au Prince, is essentially a series of loosely connected musical numbers (some vocal, including a pair of original songs by music director Billy Philadelphia, and some dance numbers nicely choreographed by Jayne Zaban) and comic bits that don't advance the plot very far but further illustrate her independent spirit.
• • Then, in the scene's final minutes, Margy meets and is wooed by an earnest and very rich young man named Jimmy Stanton (Robert Brewer), who falls madly in love with a woman he assumes is a fellow tourist. While concerned about the discrepancy, she allows herself to believe that his passion will overcome any obstacle.
• • It is here that the vulnerability surfaces. In a lengthy exchange with a skeptical Lt. Gregg, Margy notes that until then her relationships have all been about sex. As a result, she came to hate both men and herself. Now, for once, she is free to let her heart rule, although the going will be dangerous because she won't be able to control the situation with a quick retort, a flash of bravado or a comic double entendre. However briefly, MacDougall and the author let us look behind the mask at the real Mae West.
• • Despite Margy's misgivings, Scene 3 finds her engaged to Stanton and, at his insistence, visiting his parents' home in upstate New York. There, a big surprise (which I won't reveal) shatters the couple's illusions, but West, ever the optimist, manages to have her surrogate stumble on to a happy ending.
• • As must be evident from even this meager outline, "Sex" isn't a great work of dramatic art. Yet, it boasts an assemblage of vivid characters, sparkling repartee, and the kind of zestful anarchy that is infectious if properly done. By allowing MacDougall and the rest of the ensemble (including Kristin Stokes as Agnes, Margy's ingenuous acolyte, and Craig Jessup in a variety of minor roles) to engage in a joyful free-for-all that feels like a self-mocking spoof of itself, Ross takes us for a ride in the comic equivalent of a hot air balloon. It makes Margy's observation about herself (one of West's famous witticisms) seem just as apt when applied to the play as a whole: "When I'm good, I'm very very good. When I'm bad, I'm better!"
• • REVIEW "Sex," by Mae West
• • Where: Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison St., Berkeley, Calif.
• • When: Through Dec. 9th, 2007; 510-843-4822
Source
• • Marin Independent Journal http://www.marinij.com/
• • Byline: Charles Brousse
• • Published on: 19 November 2007
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • Mae West was born on 17 August 1893 in Brooklyn, NY.
• • Mae West died on 20 November 1980 in Los Angeles, CA.
• • The Empress of Sex lives forever in our hearts.

• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
________
Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml

• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1926 • •

Mae West.

Friday, November 16, 2007

Mae West: 22 November 1980

Mae West, whose 1926 Broadway play "SEX" is having a revival in a West Coast theatre this season, breathed her last on 22 November 1980. 

• • These somber moments are described by her biographer Jill Watts: 
• • Soon [Mae West's] personal physician arrived. He announced that nothing more could be done. [Paul] Novak summoned a priest from the church just down the block, who gave Mae a blessing. Only a few minutes later, at 10:30 A.M., Mae West passed away [at the age of 87 years old].
• • ... At [Stanley] Musgrove's urging, Paul Novak organized a private service. On the afternoon of November 25, 1980, one hundred of Mae's family, friends, and acquaintance gathered at Forest Lawn's Old North Church to memorialize Mae West.
• • ... That night Mae's body was flown home to Brooklyn, New York and the following morning Paul Novak and Dolly Dempsey arrived at Cypress Hills for the interment. Two priests and a bishop offered short prayers and blessed the casket.
 • • [Source: Mae West: An Icon in Black and White. Author: Jill Watts. NY: Oxford University Press, 2001.]

• • Her funeral was invitation only, at the Old North Church in Forest Lawn, Hollywood Hills, California. 100 mourners attended. Mae was laid out in a white negligee in an open casket. The lower half was covered in white roses. A Presbyterian minister characterized her as a "good woman," and that "goodness had everything to do with it," a play on her famous line. As mourners left, "Frankie and Johnny," the song she sang in Diamond Lil, was being played on the organ. 
• • [Source: Mae West page on "Find a Death" website.]

 • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • Mae West was born on 17 August 1893 in Brooklyn, NY.
• • Mae West died on 22 November 1980 in Los Angeles, CA. 
• • The Empress of Sex lives forever in our hearts.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/________ Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml


• • Photo: • • Mae West • • none • • 


Mae West.

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Mae West: SEX-cellent Sex

Robert Hurwitt, the San Francisco Chronicle Theater Critic, went up to see Mae at the Aurora Theatre in Berkeley, California. Let's hear how it feels to devote one entire night to excellent "Sex" and Mae West.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • Polite Applause for 'Sex'
• • By Robert Hurwitt, Chronicle Theater Critic

• • Mae West wasn't the first to discover that sex sells, but she was the first to put it on a Broadway marquee. As she was being hauled off to jail with her cast, she told a reporter she thought it would be the making of her. It was. Within a few years of the 1926 opening of "Sex," which ran for almost a year before it was busted, she was in Hollywood and one of America's best-known and highest-paid stars.
• • Not bad for a former child entertainer from a rough part of Brooklyn daughter of a boxer and a corsetmaker who had pretty much worn out her welcome in vaudeville by her early 30s. And not too shabby for the Aurora Theatre, which looks as if it's having a great time having "Sex" for what may be a local premiere (the script was long believed lost until rediscovered and published about 10 years ago). With the invaluable Delia MacDougall playing an irresistible vamp on the West persona,
"Sex" is an entertaining romp on the naughtier edge of the Jazz Age.

• • The script holds up surprisingly well given that it isn't very good. West, who'd just started writing plays (she'd written her own vaudeville material and would later write most of her screenplays), bought a fallen-woman-meets-sad-end melodrama by Jack Byrne called "Following the Fleet" and rewrote it (under the name Jane Mast). She stuffed its second act with songs for herself, which made the hackneyed plot even more awkward. But she also infused it with her brand of bawdy wit and street slang, turned its moralism on its head and gave its now savvy hooker, Margy LaMont, a happy ending on her own terms.
• • Aurora Artistic Director Tom Ross and his crew have pared the script well and reduced its large cast to eight, with everyone but MacDougall playing many parts (in playful quick changes of Cassandra Carpenter's eye-catching flapper costumes). They've added material, ranging from context-setting reviews and narrative to some immortal West quips. More important, Ross and sure-fingered accompanist-music director Billy Philadelphia have spread the songs witty period numbers and Philadelphia originals throughout the show.
• • The cast handles the singing with varying degrees of success (Kristin Stokes, Craig Jessup, Robert Brewer and MacDougall sell their numbers well), aided by Jayne Zaban's engaging Charleston-and-shimmy choreography. The characters are sketched in aptly broad strokes, from Danny Wolohan's sinisterly cocky, vicious Rocky, Margy's pimp, to Stokes' piteously girlie hooker Agnes, Steve Irish's suburbanite businessman and worldly, steadfast English seaman, and Jessup's various cops and johns.
• • Margy is the center of the show, with MacDougall delivering Mae West's lines in the familiar Brooklyn drawl as she faces down not only cops, johns and the dangerous Rocky but also the wealthy socialite Clara Stanton (a hilarious portrait of guilty self-righteousness by Maureen McVerry). Clara, on a slumming expedition into Montreal's red-light district, ends up drugged (by Rocky) in Margy's bed, then blames Margy, who'd rescued her, to avoid a scandal.
• • The story (and Greg Dunham's clever revolving Deco set) follows Margy (and the fleet) to Trinidad, where a rich kid named Jimmy (Brewer) falls for her, proposes and takes her home to Connecticut to meet his parents. Mom, no surprise (to us), turns out to be Clara. Margy gets some revenge, exposes hypocrisy and gets her man as well.
• • No, the transvestite hookers weren't in West's script. They're director Tom Ross' tribute to West's next play, "The Drag," which she was about to open as Broadway's first showcase of gay drag entertainers when "Sex" was busted which was probably one reason for the timing of the police raid. Another was the censors' horror at the large numbers of women flocking to "Sex" to revel in a strong, sexually up-front woman making her own way in a world of controlling men and moralistic hypocrites. That element isn't dated at all. So it's nice to report that, even in its 80s, "Sex" is still a pleasure.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • Source: San Francisco Chronicle http://www.sfchronicle.com/
• • Byline: Robert Hurwitt, Chronicle Theater Critic
• • Published on: 13 November 2007
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • Mae West was born on 17 August 1893 in Brooklyn, NY.
• • Mae West died on 20 November 1980 in Los Angeles, CA.
• • The Empress of Sex lives forever in our hearts.

• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
________
Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml

• • Photo: • • Mae West • • none • •

Mae West.