Mae West: Feeling Betrayed

Starring Australian actress Melita Jurisic as the American icon MAE WEST, a new play “Arbus and West” was onstage in Melbourne until March 30th. Naturally, Mae would have stipulated that her name was placed first in the title. Let’s enjoy a spirited review by drama critic Robert Reid. This is Part 9.
• • “Arbus and West” — — A one-way gladiatorial battle • •
• • Mae gives herself to Arbus’s camera • •
• • Robert Reid wrote: To keep Diane Arbus around, despite regularly telling her to go away, Mae West eventually, maybe inevitably, gives all of herself to the camera. Her pet monkey, her closet full of plaster cast penises (the audience finds this very funny) and even her true face, undisguised by makeup and artifice, photographed in her sacred bedroom. She gives to Arbus and her camera and so to everyone in the world a glimpse of the self she has revealed to no man.
• • Robert Reid wrote: We barely see the photograph at the end; it’s only a glimpse when West sees it for the first time and realises how much of herself she has given away. We can see very clearly in the slump of her shoulders her sense of betrayal, although it is not clear if she feels betrayed by Arbus or herself. In the flash forwards that preface each act, West pretends firstly that she doesn’t remember the photographer and secondly that she doesn’t care that she has died; but it is clear that this meeting cut deep.
• • The bigness of Mae West overbalances • •  . . . 
• • To be continued on the next post.
• • Source: Witness, stage review; published on Wednesday, 6 March 2019.
• • On Friday, 12 April 1929 in The N.Y. Daily News • •

• • In her popular syndicated column "Texas Guinan Says" Texas had playfully mentioned her friend: "Mae's a good girl at heart — — but she's got a bad heart." Source: The New York Daily News, on Friday, 12 April 1929.
• • Overheard in Hollywood • •
• • The three movie sets an outside photographer positively can't enter in Hollywood are those of Mae West, Shirley Temple and Greta Garbo.
• • In Her Own Words • •
• • Mae West said: "I'm still looking for the right man. My trouble is, I find so many right ones, it's hard to decide."
• • Quote, Unquote • •
• • A syndicated columnist interviewed Mae West.
• • Erskine Johnson wrote: The flair for writing her own plays, often raided by police, has brought Mae West to this point: preparing the galley proofs of the autobiography she wrote during the past two years and due for publication this fall. The title of it is "Empress of Sex." She says she wrote every word. And, she smiled, "I don't believe it will be banned in Boston." ...
• • Source: Article: "Mae West Still Ahead in Her Battle with Age" written by Erskine Johnson, syndicated columnist, printed in Racine Journal Times Bulletin; published on Sunday, 12 April 1959
• • The evolution of 2 Mae West plays that keep her memory alive • • 
• • A discussion with Mae West playwright LindaAnn LoSchiavo — — 
• • http://lideamagazine.com/renaissance-woman-new-york-city-interview-lindaann-loschiavo/

• • The Mae West Blog celebrates its 14th anniversary • •  

• • Thank you for reading, sending questions, and posting comments during these past fourteen years. Not long ago, we entertained 3,497 visitors. And we reached a milestone recently when we completed 4,100 blog posts. Wow!  

• • By the Numbers • •
• • The Mae West Blog was started fourteen years ago in July 2004. You are reading the 4190th blog post. Unlike many blogs, which draw upon reprinted content from a newspaper or a magazine and/ or summaries, links, or photos, the mainstay of this blog is its fresh material focused on the life and career of Mae West, herself an American original.

• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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• • Photo: • • Mae West • • in 1929 • •
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