Mae West: Intimate Embrace

A cunning cartoon showed MAE WEST yanking G.B. Shaw's beard. If only the two controversial writers could chat during Shaw Fest, which is presenting “Sex” in Canada. Toronto drama critic Karen Fricker has critiqued the play. This is Part 6 of 9 segments.
• • Shaw Festival gives Mae West’s 1926 play “Sex” a thrillingly modern sensibility • •
• • Is Margy LaMont an early feminist? • •
• • Karen Fricker wrote: Is Margy a societally marginal prostitute or an early feminist superhero, forging her way as a resilient businesswoman and supporting those weaker than herself? Both are true; it all depends on how you look at it.
• • Karen Fricker wrote: The production’s major gesture toward fluidity is in the casting of several crucial roles, most significantly that of Margy’s wealthy young suitor Jimmy, whom Julia Course plays as male, with an affecting combination of swagger and vulnerability. While there are other instances of intimate embrace in the production (sensitively directed by Siobhan Richardson), none are foregrounded nor sustained as much as those between Margy and Jimmy, and the effects of this are complex. The play scandalized viewers back in the 1920s because West’s Margy took her young swain to bed.
• • whether this is scandalous today • •  . . .
• • This review by Karen Fricker will be continued on the next post.
• • Source: Opinion, Toronto Star; published on Monday, 8 July 2019.
• • On Thursday, 17 October 1968 in The N.Y. Times • •

• • Mae West had plans for a cinema version of the stage play "Sextet" back in 1968.
• • Writing for The New York Times, Motion Picture Editor A.H. Weiler announced on Thursday, 17 October 1968: Mae West, who has not appeared in movies for a quarter of a century, will return to the screen early next year in a film version of her play — — "Sextet" — — in which she starred in Florida in 1961.
• • Overheard in Hollywood • •
• • “Too Sexy?: CBS Cancels Mae West's TV Interview.” That was the headline on several Los Angeles daily newspapers.
• • In Her Own Words • •
• • Mae West said: "I consider myself above changing.  I haven't had time to change."
• • Quote, Unquote • •
• • An article on Hollywood’s leading men mentioned Mae West.
• • Pamela Hutchinson wrote: It is true that it has never been that easy to be a leading man. Actors have always felt just as pigeonholed by playing a classic romantic lead as actresses do when relegated to 'love-interest' roles that define them only in relation to their male co-star.
• • Pamela Hutchinson wrote: Cary Grant tired of playing the seducer early in his career — — he preferred to be the wooed rather than the wooer, a fact he discovered after playing opposite Mae West in 1933. From that point on, he took the idea of a leading man and began bending it into his own creation.  …
• • Source: The New European; published on Saturday, 28 September 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 4,300 blog posts. Wow!  

• • By the Numbers • •
• • The Mae West Blog was started fifteen years ago in July 2004. You are reading the 4325th 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 1968 • •
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