Mae West; Good "Sex"

Mae West deserves a better columnist than anyone on the staff at The Mercury News.
• • Half-right history from the pen of reporter Karen D'Souza provides an itchy discomfort for theatre fans who know better.
• • Listen in as she hacks her way, inexpertly, through a partial autopsy of "Sex."
• • Alas, the photo of Delia MacDougall in a platinum blonde wig that looks like a Hallowe'en nightmare is not worth reprinting. Mae West never wore her hair like that during the 1920s — — nor onstage in "Sex." [See the photo of Mae West and Lyons Wickland in the Broadway production, 1926 — 1927.]
• • Ssssh. Not a word to the silly West Coasters.
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• • GOOD SEX !?! • •
• • By Karen D'Souza

• • When she was good, she was very good, but when she was bad, she was better…
• • Indeed, Mae West was so naughty in the 1926 Broadway smash “Sex,’’ that she got tossed into the slammer on indecency charges. Her first full-length play got her nabbed by the coppers but it also established her reputation as a bon-mot spewing bombshell with a wit as sparkling as her diamonds. As she once famously quipped: “A hard man is good to find.” That notorious sense of the lascivious paved the way for her breakthrough film “She Done Him Wrong’’ and set her on the path to becoming the highest paid star in Hollywood.
• • With a backstory that sizzling, you’d expect a play hot and bothered enough not just to raise eyebrows but to singe them right off your face. Alas, while West laced this creaky melodrama with scads of her legendary one-liner gems, the play never really reaches a climax. Despite Delia MacDougall’s come-hither tour-de-fierce as the first lady of risque and some delish vintage double entendres, “Sex’’ blows hot and cold at Berkeley’s Aurora Theatre.
• • It’s a pity because Delia MacDougall here plays against type and proves herself to be a superb shimmier.
• • She nails the signature seismic sashay and gimlet-eyed stare that made West an icon.
• • Decked out in a platinum blonde bob, MacDougall’s exacting replication of West is uncanny. This sex goddess didn’t just wiggle, she swayed from stem to stern. She didn’t so much talk as purr, caressing the ear with a velvety voice full-bodied enough to scratch.
• • Yearn to come up and see her some time?
• • Pick up the paper [The Mercury News] Wednesday for a full review of the show’s prowess but know this now: this “Sex’’ doesn’t entirely satisfy. Sigh.
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• • Source: The Mercury News — mercurynews.com
• • Byline: Karen D'Souza
• • Published on: 9 November 2007
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1927 • •
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Mae West.