Mae West: Love Triangles

When there is a revival or a staged reading of a controversial MAE WEST play, people flock to the venue. This is Part 2 of 7 segments.
• • “Banned 1927 Mae West Play Gets a Reading at Vermont Pride Theater” • •
• • “The Drag: A Homosexual Comedy in Three Acts” • •
• • Mae West in Randolph, Vermont • •
• • Dan Bolles wrote: On Saturday, 25 January 2020, local audiences got a taste of just how ahead of her time West was when the Vermont Pride Theater presented a staged reading of “The Drag” at the Chandler Center for the Arts in Randolph, VT.
• • Dan Bolles wrote: The play, which West wrote under the pen name Jane Mast, orbits Rolly Kingsbury, a closeted New York City socialite whose father is a homophobic judge and whose father-in-law, Dr. James Richmond, is a psychotherapist specializing in gay conversion therapy. Over the course of three acts, a tangle of increasingly thorny love triangles is revealed, most stemming from Kingsbury's sham marriage to Dr. Richmond's daughter, Clair.
• • "The Drag” by Mae West is about exploring one's own sexuality • • …
• • This seven-part article by Dan Bolles will be continued on the next post.  
• • Source: Seven Days Vermont; published on Wednesday, 22 January 2020.
• • On Sunday, 9 April 1916 in Pittsburgh • •
• • "Victoria Burlesquers" • •
• • The Pittsburgh Leader announced on Sunday, 9 April 1916 that Mae West would be appearing at Pittsburgh's Victoria Theatre.

• • Biographer Jill Watts noted: "Without Frank Bohm's careful attention, she had, in one year, gone from being a headliner in big-time vaudeville to performing in cheap, third-rate burlesque."
• • True, true, and without the partnership of her Italian accordionist husband Guido Deiro, who had developed a stage act with Mae but who was divorcing her in 1916. These were rough times for the firefly of vaudeville but she soldiered on. Mae West persisted.
• • Overheard in Hollywood • •
• • The dance scholar would be able to detect certain style mannerisms such as Mae West's induplicable swagger— — a sort of slow rhythmic counterpoint operating between her shoulders.
• • In Her Own Words • •
• • Mae West said: "My mother would sit out front and watch my performance, then come backstage and make suggestions — — never criticisms — — merely suggestions that my entrance might be improved this way or my exit bettered that way, that my inflection might be changed a little here and my intonation there. Sometimes my mother would come to my dressing room beaming over my performance that night, and those were the occasions that meant so much to me."
• • Quote, Unquote • •
• • The Beverly Hills Courier mentioned Mae West.
• • How did author Sloan De Forest decide on the criteria for choosing the women of power in film that she tallies in “Dynamic Dames: 50 Leading Ladies Who Made History”?  . . .
• • Sloan De Forest said: Mae West sparked our memory bank to an afternoon when we interviewed Mae at her Ravenswood apartment in Hollywood. She invited us to sit beside her. Usually interview subjects prefer a space apart. She gently took my hand in hers and led it to the naked left bosom inside her ivory satin gown [sic].
• • “Now you really know me,” was Mae West's comment [sic]. [Editor: For real?]
• • Sloan De Forest said: Mae was one of the world’s biggest stars during the mid-1930s and the highest paid woman in the United States. …
• • Source: The Beverly Hills Courier; published on Friday, 26 July 2019
• • 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 15th anniversary • • 
• • Thank you for reading, sending questions, and posting comments during these past fifteen years. Not long ago, we entertained 3,497 visitors. And we reached a milestone recently when we completed 4,400 blog posts. Wow! 
• • By the Numbers • •
• • The Mae West Blog was started fifteen years ago in July 2004. You are reading the 4,449th 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 1915 • •
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