Mae West: April 1927

A West Coast feature "This Week in History" — — which mentions MAE WEST — — is glued together by the Santa Barbara Independent's news staff who, obviously, is a wee bit thick. Though reporters and fact-checkers have had eighty-one years to get their facts straight about what happened in 1927, here is the Santa Barbara Independent's inaccurate backwards glance on the date 19 April 1927.
• • To wit: Actress/ playwright Mae West is sentenced to 10 days in jail for writing Sex, a Broadway show about a gigolo, deemed “scandalous” by the courts. [Source for the incorrect info: Santa Barbara Independent: 122 West Figueroa St., Santa Barbara, CA 93101; T. (805) 965-5205. Send corrections to this weekly here: corrections (at) independent.com. Their excuse for getting facts wrong was explained by Rachel, a staffmember, who assembles this feature and whose explanation appears below. They only do a quick cut-and-paste from The History Channel — — even if that means passing errors along. So if you want a job as a fact-checker or proofreader, reconsider which companies might value this service. At the Santa Barbara Independent, a more suitable title might be "This Week in Mystery" — — with trinkets given to the first canny readers who can spot the mistakes. This would be an inexpensive way to get the copy proofread as well, eh?]
• • Since when was Mae West's play "Sex" referred to by the inaccurate, tea-party word "scandalous"? In New York City, actresses do not get arrested, fined, and imprisoned because they are "scandalous." In Jefferson Market Court and in the courtroom transcript, this was called "an obscenity trial." The actors were fined and charged with giving an offensive and indecent performance. Mae West's manager and her producer also went to jail.
• • Since when was "Sex" about a gigolo? Wrong plot and wrong-headed altogether.
• • Why? Well, since when would Mae West choose to star in a vehicle unless the narrative centered on the leading lady's role? She wouldn't and she didn't.
• • Too bad the Santa Barbara Independent staff was not aware of the Aurora Theatre Company's critically acclaimed revival of "Sex" (starring Delia MacDougall in the role of Margy LaMont) onstage in Berkeley, California in November and December of 2007 — — a production that was widely reviewed in the West Coast media.
• • Synopsis of the 1926 play Mae West wrote in order to give herself a starring role: "Sex" is the tale of Margy LaMont, an ambitious young prostitute in Montreal, who is determined to get out of the skin trade and marry well. Margy takes the advice of a British naval officer [played in 1926 by handsome Barry O'Neill] to ''follow the fleet.'' That takes her to Trinidad, where she meets Jimmy Stanton, a naive rich boy from a blue-blooded Connecticut family. Jimmy proposes to Margy and whisks her home to his parents' well-furnished mansion.
• • Well, there's no gigolo in that synopsis! Anyway this blog posting is set forth for all news media outlets who would like to have correct information [vs passing along the errors made by The History Channel].
• • On 5 April 1927 at Jefferson Market Court [on Sixth Avenue in Greenwich Village], the jury returned with a guilty verdict. As she left the courtroom, followed by reporters, photographers, and a mob of well-wishers, Mae told them, "You've got to fight in this world!" She added, "You've got to fight to get there — — and fight to stay there."
• • On 19 April 1927, actress MAE WEST was sentenced for her performance in "Sex," the Broadway play she wrote, cast, and starred in. She was given ten days in prison and the jail time seems to have done her good — — from a publicity standpoint. As she left the courtroom, followed by reporters, friends, fans, and gawkers, Mae predicted, "I expect this will be the making of me!"
• • Though Mae West was sentenced to 10 days, she actually only served 8 days. The actress received "time off for good behavior."
• • The History Channel does not know this information yet — — nor do they use fact-checkers — — but Mae-mavens and history buffs are encouraged to contact them and ask them to correct errors. [Contact The History Channel: A & E Television Networks, 235 East 45th Street, New York, NY 10017-3305; T. 212-210-1400.] And thank you to all who wrote to report other errors The History Channel has made.
• • Plan ahead. Get ready to come up and see Mae onstage in New York City when the Annual Fresh Fruit Festival presents "Courting Mae West: Sex, Censorship and Secrets" (based on true events 1926 — 1932 when Mae West was arrested and jailed) under the direction of Louis Lopardi at the Algonquin Theatre [123 East 24th Street, NYC 10010] July 19th — 22nd, 2008.
• • "COURTING MAE WEST" opens at 7 o'clock on Saturday night July 19, 2008 at the Algonquin Theatre [123 East 24th Street — — near Park Avenue South].
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • Jefferson Market Court • • 28 March 1927 • •
NYC
Mae West.

Mae West: "Sex" Wanted

MAE WEST fan and drama critic Glenn Loney pens a fascinatin' column for New York Theatre Wire called "Glenn Loney's Show Notes."
• • The text below is a brief excerpt from Glenn Loney's in-depth article that appeared in the month of March eight years ago [on 1 March 2000].
• • Glenn Loney wrote: Over a decade ago, the trio of talents who run Glasgow's Citizens' Theatre asked me to get them a copy of "Sex." They wanted to produce it as part of their brilliantly eclectic repertory.
• • I found it impossible to get a copy of the script. Nor were performance rights available.
• • When I was advising Dr. Richard Helfer on his CUNY PhD Dissertation research for a study of Mae West and her banned plays we found it impossible even to quote lines from the plays.
• • The Mae West Estate must have had a recent change of heart. ...
— — Excerpt: — —
• • Article: "Sex" a Play by Mae West
• • Byline: Glenn Loney
• • Published on: www.nytheatre-wire.com/
• • Published on: 1 March 2000
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • Since that bleak black-out period, "Sex" has been performed by companies in New York City; by Icarus Falling in Lansing, Michigan during October 2005; and (most recently) by the Aurora Theatre Company in Berkeley, California, where the well-received production starring Delia MacDougall was held over until 23 December 2007.
• • Get ready to come up and see Mae onstage in New York City when the Annual Fresh Fruit Festival presents "Courting Mae West: Sex, Censorship and Secrets" (based on true events 1926 — 1932 when Mae West was arrested and jailed) under the direction of Louis Lopardi at the Algonquin Theatre [123 East 24th Street, NYC 10010] July 19th — 22nd, 2008.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1926 • •
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Mae West.

Mae West: Steady Supply of Sex

Eight years ago, Cintra Wilson wrote: "There has been a recent off-Broadway renaissance focused on Mae West."
• • With a new book on Mae West due to be released in April 2008 by Taschen, and a successful winter revival of "Sex" a sweet recent memory for the Aurora Theatre [and actress Delia MacDougall] in Berkeley, and an a-Mae-zing new Mae West play about to be staged at the Algonquin Theatre this summer in New York, it seems time to revist Wilson's essay for Salon Magazine that originally appeared in February 2000.
• • Here is an excerpt fom the engaging feature written by Cintra Wilson.
• • Smart young women are starting to figure out that the outrageous self-possession of West's sexual persona is rather a cool and isolated thing in the world of celebrity. This was especially true back when she was doing it. It is especially true today, when the most pervasive attribute of "attractive" women competing for male sexual attention is the way they passive-aggressively (or aggressively) abuse themselves in one way or another with weight loss, surgical enhancements and other severe physical renovations, in supplication to physiologically unlikely and generally ass-out beauty standards, i.e., they dislike what they are and chain-whip themselves into fitting the currently reigning beauty template.
• • Mae West liked the other kind of self-abuse better. She was an unstopping font of self-approval, who could justify any passion for herself, any look, any sensation, any sin; she was, in her way, truly liberated. When the fashion of the time shifted away from her body type, she adopted a different decade; West got herself up as an 1890s good-time girl in order to make the most of her womanly mounds instead of trying to bind herself into the no-hipped, no-breasted flapper look of the '20s. When she didn't like her lines, she rewrote them. When acting roles stopped coming her way, she wrote her own. When the cops came, she laughed. . . .
• • When people think of Mae West, if they aren't very familiar with her work, they generally think of a big woman in a huge hat, a Dolly Parton wig, and a hazardously plunging neckline who growled innuendo at men in a sexually threatening fashion until she was so old it was downright scary.
• • One doesn't generally think of West as a playwright, but she was indeed the author of six plays produced on Broadway between 1926 and 1931, and ended up doing time for it. In 1927, West spent eight days at Welfare Island Women's Workhouse (now Roosevelt Island) after being convicted of producing a work "calculated to excite in the spectator impure imagination." West was tried on obscenity charges after police shut down her play "Sex" (ironically, after it had been in full production for nearly a year) in order to prevent the impending opening of her second play, "The Drag" (subtitled "A Homosexual Comedy") which featured transvestites. A man in a dress was always a good sight gag, but not, in the '20s, if he actually liked it.
• • West thrived on the bad publicity, however, tenaciously wiggling even harder into the public eye, after one 1926 review bore the headline "Monstrosity Plucked From Garbage Can. Destined to Sewer." West knew exactly how hypocritically full of shit all the flak she was getting was, and lustily reveled in getting her name in the papers for good or ill; she knew that ultimately the notoriety was the best thing possible for her career. "I expect it will be the making of me," she gushed to all the New York papers when she was hauled off to jail. She was right.
• • David Thompson wrote of Mae West: "The real conclusion of her work is that sex is an idea, an obsession for the human being, and one of the most reliable distractions from the equally potent idea that life is tragic."
• • "Sex" is the tale of a Montreal prostitute who decides to "go straight" after a stint following the naval fleet to Trinidad. It's fairly dumb, but funny -- there's a shiny, red double-entendre in virtually every couplet. The play exults in the eternal question: Is class the only difference between prostitutes and women who marry for money? I like that theme, and have always wondered why whores get arrested while Georgette Mosbacher is still free to roam the streets.
• • "Ever since I knew what sex was I knew that men were hunters," hisses Margy LaMont, West's demimonde heroine. "I blame men for the way I am." The story, sadly, winds up like just another Whore With a Heart of Gold tale: Margy has a moral breakthrough, opts for dismissing what might be her true happiness and selflessly moves to (here we go again) Australia, to live out her days in vigorous self-improvement and modesty. Boo. Once again, even in West's world, the scarlet woman has to be a thousand times more morally responsible than anyone else in order to balance and/or justify her experiences.
• • I wanted the hooker to marry the rich boy and make him very happy by loving him and giving him a red-hot good time for the rest of his life, forcing everyone to forgive and forget her checkered past with a little sophisticated wink, brazenly charting her own moral universe.
• • "When I'm good, I'm very, very good, but when I'm bad, I'm better," said West, often. Too bad she never went all the way with that idea, to become a true sexual antihero. She shocked and scandalized, but always in a way that could be deemed charming by the randier average Joes and good-time Charlies; she never really scared anyone but the super-puritanical squares.
• • West did chart her own moral universe, but more in her life than in her art. She also never really knew when to quit, ignoring all signs of wear and playing the come-hither screen coquette until well into her 70s and eventually becoming a frightening joke, a symbol of overripe sexuality. While we'd all like to be raucously humping into advanced old age, none of us really wants to visualize it too graphically; sex in old age, ideally, becomes more demure and spiritual. Mae West was always a brazen tramp, a great tongue-in-cheek sexual bully, down hard to the end, but there's a lot to be said for that, too. . . .
— — Excerpt: — —
• • Article: "Sex" and Synanon onstage
• • Byline: Cintra Wilson
• • Published in: Salon.com
• • Published on: 17 February 2000
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • 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.

Mae West: Leaves the Building

"MAE WEST's work as a dramatist will never be confused with that of, say, Thornton Wilder," observed staff writer Pat Craig [12 November 2007] in the Contra Costa Times.
• • To that we say, while Mae West was willing to be thrilling, it's a good bet that Thornton Wilder couldn't shimmy if his freakin' life depended on it.
• • Anyway, in a year's end round-up that assesses Bay Area Theatre in 2007, Pat Craig ranks the Berkeley, California revival of "Sex" by Mae West at the Aurora Theatre in the top ten.
• • Even though it's a shame Pat Craig does not remember that the Brooklyn bombshell wrote her play in 1926 — — not 1923 — — let's do the old QUOTE/ UNQUOTE thing now.
• • In the somewhat misinformed West Coast words of Pat Craig:
• • "Sex," Aurora Theatre Company — — Mae West wasn't just another come-hither face. The '20s prototype sex-bomb was also a playwright and an expert at highlighting and exploiting her particular charms. She wrote this show in 1923 [sic], the vice squad closed it on Broadway, and Berkeley's Aurora Theatre revived it hilariously.
— — Source: — —
• • Bay Area News Group — Contra Costa Times — www.contracostatimes.com/
• • Byline: Pat Craig
• • Published on: 23 December 2007
• • Tonight's performance of "Sex" at the Aurora Theatre is the final show. Get some "Sex" before Christmas! See it tonight — — 23 December 2007!
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1926 • •
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Mae West.

Mae West: SEX 'til Dec. 23rd

How many remember MAE WEST in the Columbia film "The Heat's On"? Portraying an actress Fay Lawrence, Mae opens the film singing “I’m Just a Stranger in Town.” When Hubert Bainbridge — — a pathethic would-be lothario [actor Victor Moore] — — comes to pitch some woo with his bad toupee unhinged, Fay says, “Don’t look now, honey, but your hair’s skiddin’!” ["The Heat's On" was released 9 February 1944.]
• • Why mention an ill-conceived movie from the 1940s? Wait, there's a tie-in!
• • Don't look now, honey, but your chance to spend an evening with "Sex" is skiddin'!
• • The Aurora Theatre (Berkeley, California) extended your pleasure by keeping "Sex" onstage until 23 December 2007.
• • Don't be a stranger in town. Beauteous Delia McDougall portrays Margy LaMont — — the role Mae West scripted for herself. Come up and enjoy "Sex" before it goes skiddin' away down memory lane.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • none • •
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Mae West.

Mae West: Titivation

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Mae West: Sex Extended

MAE WEST's 1926 play "Sex" has been extended at the Aurora Theatre, announced The San Francisco Chronicle.
• • Artistic Director Tom Ross and his notable theatre company have posted a two-week extension of its current blockbuster — — namely, Ross's cagey, appealing, fun-filled staging of Mae West's once-scandalous comedy "Sex."
• • "Sex" — — with a delightful Delia MacDougall in the role of prostitute Margy LaMont [a role Mae West wrote for herself] — — is serving as the Aurora's holiday treat, now running through 23 December 2007.
• • The Chronicle's chief drama critic Robert Hurwitt adds this: Susan G. Duncan, the new managing director of Berkeley's thriving Aurora Theatre, joins Artistic Director Tom Ross at a time when the West Coast theatre group is on a roll.
• • Inquire about tickets: (510) 843-4822.
• • Source:
• • The San Francisco Chronicle — — http://www.sfgate.com/
• • Drama Critic Robert Hurwitt
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1935 • •
NYC
Mae West.

Mae West: Sex Positive

A-MAE-zing thanks go to the San Francisco Weekly who printed an intelligent salute to MAE WEST in their current issue. Drama critic Chloe Veltman paid the Brooklyn bombshell the supreme compliment of laughing at her lines — — and taking her seriously. Here is Veltman's insightful commentary on the revival of "Sex" [now playing at the Aurora Theatre in Berkeley, California through 9 December 2007].

• • • • THEATER REVIEW • • • •

• • Sex Sells Itself at the Aurora Theater in Berkeley
• • By Chloe Veltman

• • When she was released from jail for transgressing indecency laws with her 1926 play Sex, Mae West told reporters that her play about a street-smart prostitute's adventures in love was "a work of art." This was a bit of a stretch. West based her slapstick comedy on Following the Fleet, a melodrama by New Jersey author Jack Byrne. Mae West scholar Lillian Schlissel dubs Byrne's creation "a third-rate sex play set in a Montreal brothel" in her introduction to a collection of West's plays. Schlissel's backhanded description of Byrne's work could be applied to Sex as well. The plot, concerning hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold Margy LaMont's journey from the gutter to the stars via a Montreal flophouse, a Trinidad nightclub, and the mansion of a wealthy Connecticut family, is flimsy and farcical.
• • But the true creativity of Sex isn't in the aesthetics of its composition. Like other artists whose works have challenged censorship standards over the years, from D.H. Lawrence's novel Lady Chatterley's Lover to Kenneth Tynan's burlesque stage review Oh! Calcutta! to Madonna's photographic book Sex, the genius of West's theatrical effort lies in its notoriety. By the time West, who wrote the role of LaMont for herself and starred in the original production, emerged from her short stay in prison, she was well on her way to fame. Not only that. West's trailblazing portrayal of a prostitute who finds happiness and fortune instead of her moral comeuppance — — which up to that point had been the de facto ending to plays about loose women — — helped to break down contemporary pruderies, paving the way for more diverse characters on the legit Broadway stage. As West later told reporters, "Considering what Sex got me, a few days in the pen 'n' a $500 fine ain't too bad a deal."
• • What makes director Tom Ross' revival of West's comedy at Aurora Theatre so captivating is its sense of fun and its ability to connect what "Sex" meant to Mae West and her audiences with what the play means to us today. This is no small feat when you consider the essential badness of the play. Making a joke of the vaudeville shtick might seem the easiest route for a director. But instead of mocking West's artistic sensibility, Ross and his collaborators embrace every hokey one-liner as if she had written it just last week for The Daily Show, and go at each sentimental musical number like they mean it. The result makes for not only an entertaining night out at the theater, but also a provocative one.
• • Ross' production might appear garish on the surface, but it's subtle within.
Set designer Greg Dunham goes all out for chintz, flinging together an upright piano and a few sparse bits of bric-a-brac furniture in front of a tacky revolving backdrop, depicting an amateurishly painted street corner scene on one side and the inside wall of a parlor on the other. It suggests a hastily put together touring vaudeville show. But there's more to the scenic design than meets the eye. The remarkable similarity between the look of the opening scene, set in a low-class Montreal brothel, and the final scene, set in an upper-class Connecticut home, underscores the main moral point that West makes in her play: that circumstances rather than social position dictate a person's actions, and a society lady is just as capable of committing sin as a prostitute is of being virtuous.
• • The performances similarly balance flamboyance with depth. Aurora's expert cast doesn't shy away from portraying West's vaudeville types in a bravura style. Kristin Stokes plays her sad little prostitute, Agnes, like a Hollywood Golden Era ingénue with her Tweety Pie voice and wide, candid eyes. Steve Irish's British naval officer Lieutenant Gregg is the sort of handsome, beefy hero who would have made women swoon back in the day. The acting may be hammy by modern standards, but without exception, the actions and words come from a place of affection and are delivered with precision and control.
• • This approach is most obviously encapsulated in Delia MacDougall's portrayal of LaMont. MacDougall unapologetically channels West's persona throughout: Her performance is as much an homage to the American stage and screen's greatest sexual liberator as it is a portrait of an irresistible blonde hussy. MacDougall has all of West's legendary mannerisms down, from her loaded vocal purr and Jell-O swagger to her trademark "teapot" posture, with one arm crooked at the elbow, hand on hip, and the other swinging in the air freely. Yet the performance never feels like a caricature. Whether repelling the attentions of unwanted suitors, seducing millionaires, dispensing sensible advice to homesick young hookers, or resuscitating drugged society dames, MacDougall brings a range to her actions and reactions that goes beyond the clichés that have become associated with West's screen persona over the years.
• • Sex is a good-time show.
• • We can't help but laugh at the jokes. We even find ourselves won over each time the actors break into sweet old songs against musical director Billy Philadelphia's piano accompaniment about such lavender-tinged subjects as sailors' sweethearts, belles of the sea, and paradise waiting for people in their dreams. But even the most entertaining of scenes, such as when two male actors in full drag confront MacDougall about the whereabouts of their philandering boyfriends, hint at something more serious. The presence of the cross-dressers isn't simply another way of celebrating West's achievements: As the creator of the gay plays The Drag and The Pleasure Man, she was responsible for breaking taboos surrounding the depiction of homosexuals onstage. Just as the inclusion of newly written scenes at the beginning and end of the production narrate the story behind the play and provide some context for its legacy, the cross-dressing element also makes West's seemingly anachronistic exercise in theatrical titillation resonate sharply with our own times.
• • If the likes of Kiki & Herb can sell out Carnegie Hall and the Geary Theater today, it's partly thanks to West's groundbreaking efforts some 80 years ago. Yet as far as we've come on the sexual enlightenment front, Aurora's revival of Sex throws the recent resurgence of anti-smut campaigns and censorship laws into sharp relief. Sex was revolutionary when it first appeared because it used comedy to cut sin down to size, reducing it, as Schlissel points out, "from mortal transgression to misdemeanor." If only those who waste so much of the public's time and money trying to stamp out the word "fuck" from the radio and prevent the tiniest exposure of pop stars' nipples on TV had inherited West's sense of humor.
• • Then again, there's nothing like a bit of notoriety to draw attention to a cause and get a budding starlet noticed. Mae West truly knew what she was talking about when she famously said, "When I'm good I'm very good — — but when I'm bad I'm better."
— — Source: — —
• • San Francisco Weekly [Village Voice Media] — — http://www.sfweekly.com/
• • Byline: Chloe Veltman
• • Published on: 21 November 2007
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • Mae West was born on 17 August 1893 in Brooklyn, NY.
• • Mae West died on 22 November 1980 in Los Angeles, CA.
• • The Empress of Sex lives forever in our hearts.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1926 • •
NYC
Mae West.

Mae West: Excess Sex

MAE WEST lives on — — despite leaving us on 22 November 1980 — — especially since the West Coast is now enjoying a refreshing interest in "Sex." Thanks to the Aurora Theatre's ability to spit-shine and polish a dusty 1926 script, a three-act melodrama written and staged by Mae West on Broadway at Daly's West 63rd Street Theatre fourscore and one year ago, audiences are realizing that nothing succeeds like SEX-cess. An excellent cast, under the effervescent direction of Tom Ross, is also helping to give the show the necessary SEX appeal.
• • Writing for the Marin Independent Journal, Charles Brousse pens this fun-filled theatre review.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • Ace casting of lead role sends 'Sex' into ecstacy • •

• • Sex ... in Berkeley? Well, why not? Just because there is a substantial population of pointy headed intellectuals there doesn't mean residents can't have fun.
• • But what if I were to add that it happens nightly in front of about 150 people gathered in the Aurora Theatre, a venue noted for productions of works by writers such as Harold Pinter, David Mamet, and Arthur Miller? Would you wonder if artistic director Tom Ross has lost his bloody mind?
• • OK, enough of a tease. The "Sex" we're talking about here isn't of the grunt and squeal variety. It's Mae West's 1926 play, the first of 13 that she used to showcase her considerable talents to live audiences and, not incidentally, promote a more profitable career on the silver screen.
• • After gathering dust in the Library of Congress for nearly three quarters of a century, the script was discovered by a persistent researcher and given a New York staging in 1999. Eventually, it found its way into Ross' hands and Aurora's leader confirmed that his producer's instincts were indeed in top form by recognizing that it works on two levels — — first, as an old-fashioned, somewhat (though not uncomfortably) bawdy entertainment and, second, as substantiation of the view that West's "strong woman" persona made her an important precursor of modern feminism. Top that off with the magic of its title and you have a hit in the making.
• • All of this might not have guaranteed a successful project if the right performer had not been available for the play's central role. Fortunately, just about the time when the "a-ha!" bulb was flashing in Ross' head, Bay Area actress Delia MacDougall, long known for her outstanding contributions to companies such as California Shakespeare, Berkeley Rep, and the Magic Theatre, was hanging around the Aurora auditioning for another show. On a whim, he gave her the "Sex" script to read; their shared enthusiasm grew, and she eventually passed up a higher-paying gig in this season's "A Christmas Carol" at ACT to take the part.
• • A good thing, too, because without MacDougall the evening could easily have degenerated into two hours of silliness. What distinguishes her performance is an ability to capture both the brassy and the vulnerable sides of her character's personality-contrasting qualities that are more evident in "Sex" than in West's subsequent plays and movies in which West's assertive, don't-mess-with-me public demeanor became so dominant that she was almost a caricature.
• • MacDougall plays Margy LaMont, a lithesome young Montreal prostitute. In the opening scene, she returns from "work" one night to discover Rocky (the appropriately sleazy Danny Wolohan), her pimp and occasional lover, about to force sex on a society woman named Clara (a fluttery Maureen McVerry), whom he has drugged after she comes to his club looking for excitement. Stung by the blame heaped on her by both the perpetrator and his victim, Margy decides she's had enough. On the advice of Lieutenant Gregg, a debonair naval officer and long time admirer (sympathetically portrayed by Steve Irish), she resolves to follow the fleet to Trinidad.
• • Scene 2, set in the Cafe Port au Prince, is essentially a series of loosely connected musical numbers (some vocal, including a pair of original songs by music director Billy Philadelphia, and some dance numbers nicely choreographed by Jayne Zaban) and comic bits that don't advance the plot very far but further illustrate her independent spirit.
• • Then, in the scene's final minutes, Margy meets and is wooed by an earnest — — and very rich — — young man named Jimmy Stanton (Robert Brewer), who falls madly in love with a woman he assumes is a fellow tourist. While concerned about the discrepancy, she allows herself to believe that his passion will overcome any obstacle.
• • It is here that the vulnerability surfaces. In a lengthy exchange with a skeptical Lt. Gregg, Margy notes that until then her relationships have all been about sex. As a result, she came to hate both men and herself. Now, for once, she is free to let her heart rule, although the going will be dangerous because she won't be able to control the situation with a quick retort, a flash of bravado or a comic double entendre. However briefly, MacDougall and the author let us look behind the mask at the real Mae West.
• • Despite Margy's misgivings, Scene 3 finds her engaged to Stanton and, at his insistence, visiting his parents' home in upstate New York. There, a big surprise (which I won't reveal) shatters the couple's illusions, but West, ever the optimist, manages to have her surrogate stumble on to a happy ending.
• • As must be evident from even this meager outline, "Sex" isn't a great work of dramatic art. Yet, it boasts an assemblage of vivid characters, sparkling repartee, and the kind of zestful anarchy that is infectious if properly done. By allowing MacDougall and the rest of the ensemble (including Kristin Stokes as Agnes, Margy's ingenuous acolyte, and Craig Jessup in a variety of minor roles) to engage in a joyful free-for-all that feels like a self-mocking spoof of itself, Ross takes us for a ride in the comic equivalent of a hot air balloon. It makes Margy's observation about herself (one of West's famous witticisms) seem just as apt when applied to the play as a whole: "When I'm good, I'm very very good. When I'm bad, I'm better!"
• • REVIEW — — "Sex," by Mae West
• • Where: Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison St., Berkeley, Calif.
• • When: Through Dec. 9th, 2007; 510-843-4822
— — Source — —
• • Marin Independent Journal — — http://www.marinij.com/
• • Byline: Charles Brousse
• • Published on: 19 November 2007
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • Mae West was born on 17 August 1893 in Brooklyn, NY.
• • Mae West died on 20 November 1980 in Los Angeles, CA.
• • The Empress of Sex lives forever in our hearts.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1926 • •
NYC
Mae West.

Mae West: SEX-cellent Sex

Robert Hurwitt, the San Francisco Chronicle Theater Critic, went up to see Mae at the Aurora Theatre in Berkeley, California. Let's hear how it feels to devote one entire night to excellent "Sex" — — and Mae West.

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• • Polite Applause for 'Sex'
• • By Robert Hurwitt, Chronicle Theater Critic

• • Mae West wasn't the first to discover that sex sells, but she was the first to put it on a Broadway marquee. As she was being hauled off to jail with her cast, she told a reporter she thought it would be the making of her. It was. Within a few years of the 1926 opening of "Sex," which ran for almost a year before it was busted, she was in Hollywood and one of America's best-known and highest-paid stars.
• • Not bad for a former child entertainer from a rough part of Brooklyn — — daughter of a boxer and a corsetmaker — — who had pretty much worn out her welcome in vaudeville by her early 30s. And not too shabby for the Aurora Theatre, which looks as if it's having a great time having "Sex" for what may be a local premiere (the script was long believed lost until rediscovered and published about 10 years ago). With the invaluable Delia MacDougall playing an irresistible vamp on the West persona,

"Sex" is an entertaining romp on the naughtier edge of the Jazz Age.

• • The script holds up surprisingly well given that it isn't very good. West, who'd just started writing plays (she'd written her own vaudeville material and would later write most of her screenplays), bought a fallen-woman-meets-sad-end melodrama by Jack Byrne called "Following the Fleet" and rewrote it (under the name Jane Mast). She stuffed its second act with songs for herself, which made the hackneyed plot even more awkward. But she also infused it with her brand of bawdy wit and street slang, turned its moralism on its head and gave its now savvy hooker, Margy LaMont, a happy ending on her own terms.
• • Aurora Artistic Director Tom Ross and his crew have pared the script well and reduced its large cast to eight, with everyone but MacDougall playing many parts (in playful quick changes of Cassandra Carpenter's eye-catching flapper costumes). They've added material, ranging from context-setting reviews and narrative to some immortal West quips. More important, Ross and sure-fingered accompanist-music director Billy Philadelphia have spread the songs — — witty period numbers and Philadelphia originals — — throughout the show.
• • The cast handles the singing with varying degrees of success (Kristin Stokes, Craig Jessup, Robert Brewer and MacDougall sell their numbers well), aided by Jayne Zaban's engaging Charleston-and-shimmy choreography. The characters are sketched in aptly broad strokes, from Danny Wolohan's sinisterly cocky, vicious Rocky, Margy's pimp, to Stokes' piteously girlie hooker Agnes, Steve Irish's suburbanite businessman and worldly, steadfast English seaman, and Jessup's various cops and johns.
• • Margy is the center of the show, with MacDougall delivering Mae West's lines in the familiar Brooklyn drawl as she faces down not only cops, johns and the dangerous Rocky but also the wealthy socialite Clara Stanton (a hilarious portrait of guilty self-righteousness by Maureen McVerry). Clara, on a slumming expedition into Montreal's red-light district, ends up drugged (by Rocky) in Margy's bed, then blames Margy, who'd rescued her, to avoid a scandal.
• • The story (and Greg Dunham's clever revolving Deco set) follows Margy (and the fleet) to Trinidad, where a rich kid named Jimmy (Brewer) falls for her, proposes and takes her home to Connecticut to meet his parents. Mom, no surprise (to us), turns out to be Clara. Margy gets some revenge, exposes hypocrisy and gets her man as well.
• • No, the transvestite hookers weren't in West's script. They're director Tom Ross' tribute to West's next play, "The Drag," which she was about to open as Broadway's first showcase of gay drag entertainers when "Sex" was busted — — which was probably one reason for the timing of the police raid. Another was the censors' horror at the large numbers of women flocking to "Sex" to revel in a strong, sexually up-front woman making her own way in a world of controlling men and moralistic hypocrites. That element isn't dated at all. So it's nice to report that, even in its 80s, "Sex" is still a pleasure.
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• • Source: San Francisco Chronicle — — http://www.sfchronicle.com/
• • Byline: Robert Hurwitt, Chronicle Theater Critic
• • Published on: 13 November 2007
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• • Mae West was born on 17 August 1893 in Brooklyn, NY.
• • Mae West died on 20 November 1980 in Los Angeles, CA.
• • The Empress of Sex lives forever in our hearts.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • none • •
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Mae West.