Mae West: Old Suitcases

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 4 of 9 segments.
• • Shaw Festival gives Mae West’s 1926 play “Sex” a thrillingly modern sensibility • •
• • the cast invests in their characters instead of camping it up • • 
• • Karen Fricker wrote: Rather, director Peter Hinton-Davis has encouraged performances from the excellent 12-person cast, including Donnelly, that invest in their characters’ situations and feelings rather than camping things up and playing them at a remove.
• • Karen Fricker wrote: As directorial moves go, this is risky, because while a significant one, Sex is not a great play, full of coincidences and plot twists that are from a 21st-century perspective implausible if not downright silly. Countering this, Hinton-Davis and designer Eo Sharp place the action in a non-naturalistic frame: as the audience enters, there are dozens of old suitcases stacked onstage between four mug shot poles, and four clocks at the corners of the playing area, one set to the accurate local time, the others at successive hour removes (7:00, 6:00, 5:00).
• • when the actors clear the suitcases away • •  . . .
• • This review by Karen Fricker will be continued on the next post.
• • Source: Opinion, Toronto Star; published on Monday, 8 July 2019.
• • On Friday, 15 October 1948 • •
• • Mae West wrote a check on Friday, 15 October 1948, made payable to Fred Dempsey Florist. In 1948, the sum of $20.60 would have purchased quite a splendid floral display.
• • Overheard in Hollywood • •
• • When her first husband Frank Wallace died on Saturday, 15 October 1966, Mae was asked to comment. Mae West told the Hollywood newsmen:  "He'll always remain in the wastebasket of my memories." 
• • In Her Own Words • •
• • Mae West said: "I top 'em all.  I always have."
• • Mae West said: “To err is human, but it feels divine.”
• • Quote, Unquote • •
• • United Press mentioned Mae West.
• • Mae West’s Latest Stunt Blows Up • •

• • By United Press — Hollywood, Oct. 10 — — The task of a dramatic hunt for an extortionist, who was alleged to have threatened Mae West film actress, was without a principal today. George Janios, the bus boy in a studio cafe, arrested when he fumbled with a dummy package planted in a vacant lot, was released.
• • Photo: Dressed like the movie queen, wearing a long white coat, was Los Angeles Detective Harry Dean, who was waiting to cuff the full-time Greek bus boy and part-time extortionist George Janios. He nabbed him in front of a radio station. Harry Dean is seen here with Mae West in October 1935.
• • Three other men. questioned by Blaney Matthews, chief investigator for Buron Fitts, district attorney, also were released.  …
• • Source: United Press coverage rpt by Healdsburg Tribune; published on Thursday, 10 October 1935
• • 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 4323rd 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 • • with Harry Dean in 1935 • •
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