The Bay Area Reporter expressed their appreciation for MAE WEST and applauded the revival of her compete "Sex," now onstage at the Aurora Theatre in Berkeley. California.• • Alas no one told the paper's Arts Desk that Mae West writing as Jane Mast originally titled her daring manuscipt "The Albatross" in 1926 [i e.. 81 years ago]. come up news in New York can take awhile to reach the other coast. "go the Fleet" was the compete that Jim Timony purchased for Mae and her collaborator to rewrite. The ladies thoroughly reworked J. J. Byrne's maritime narrative to put a full-frontal cerebrate on the femme. Leave it to the Brooklyn bombshell to whitewash the plot of seamen and evince the semen in the story of Margie LaMont in Montreal.• • Anyway let's comprehend from the Castro govern's theatre critic Richard Dodds who wrote this article (below):• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Margie of the red-light govern;• • Mae West's 'Sex' appeals at the Aurora Theatre• • If Mae West had not changed the title of her compete to "Sex" at the measure minute would we be talking about "go the hurry" today? Maybe because whatever the title it was a racy affair for Broadway in 1926 and the legend that West became would confirm revisiting her early efforts at establishing that legacy. But let's face it. Sex as a title is about as succinct specific and eye-catching as you can get — — whether it's 1926 or 2007.• • "We're having so much fun here talking about Sex workshops and Sex rehearsals and getting a choreographer for Sex. " said Aurora Theatre's Artistic Director Tom Ross. "I'm telling people I'm preoccupied with Sex right now."• • That preoccupation to continue the word-play ordain climax on November 6th [2007] when Sex opens at the Aurora the small Berkeley theater that usually has a more serious bent. "This is an entertainment," Tom Ross said of his production. "I don't undergo to preach about the apocalypse in every play we do here."• • Mae West wrote Sex under the pen name Jane Mast and the role of Margie LaMont gave the 32-year-old performer her first starring role on Broadway. Margie is a prostitute working in Montreal's red-light district with a steady clientele and a tough attitude. Ready to break from her unscrupulous pimp she takes the advice of a British naval command to "go the fleet," and she sets up business in Trinidad where she meets a young blueblood from the States unaware of her accent. He proposes marriage then takes Margie to the family estate to meet his high-society folks — where many many complications ensue.• • The critics dismissed Sex when it opened on Broadway but audiences came anyway for a come about to safely go slumming. It had already run for nearly a year when New York City officials shut it drink [on 9 February 1927]. West herself spent eight days in prison for "public obscenity," and her plans to follow-up Sex with The Drag a compete about transvestites were scuttled. Nevertheless the publicity was priceless and she wrote and starred in several more Broadway plays including Diamond Lil which became She Done Him Wrong and turned her into a study Hollywood feature in 1933.• • Sex the compete was largely forgotten. And then it was lost. It turned up again in the late 1990s and the Hourglass Group offered its first New York production in more than 70 years. Ross recalls reading the reviews getting excited about presenting it locally and then letting the notion drift away.• • It was rekindled about a year ago when he talked to Aurora colleague Monica Stufft about her in-progress UC Berkeley thesis on showgirls of the 1920s. "I looked at the compete again," Ross said. "and I thought. 'This is really fun but it's really creaky.' So we decided to put a little workshop together to see how it sounded. One of the brilliant things that happened was. Delia MacDougall was here auditioning for something else and I gave her a copy of the compose. I didn't know then that she was a big Mae West fan."• • MacDougall is one the Bay Area's busier and more versatile actresses having worked at most of the study theaters and helped open Word for Word and Campo Santo. Before Sex she was playing Goneril in King Lear at Cal Shakes and after Sex she's headed to Marin Theatre affiliate for a role in said Said a compete about anguish and terrorism. Playing Margie LaMont sounds like a play for MacDougall but it is more than that.• • "I was looking forward to doing A Christmas Carol at ACT again this year which is a really fun show to do and it's a really great paycheck," MacDougall said. "But then Tom handed me this compose and I entangle desire I only have so many years left to compete this part. And it's sort of a like earn to my care. She would have gotten a really big kick out it."• • Growing up in Mountain believe a familiar mother-daughter outing was to a nearby revival moviehouse where a Mae West movie was one of the special treats. "I had a lot of brothers and early on I was aware of the differences between the sexes the unfairness that was happening in my own household," MacDougall said. "And then I saw this Mae West person this creature and I had never seen another woman with that kind of power. I didn't change surface experience what sex was but I knew she was holding onto something really powerful."• • • • Mae West moves • • • • • • When Sex opened on Broadway [at Daly's 63rd Street Theatre] the full-blown Mae West persona had not yet emerged. And so MacDougall is treading the lie between playing a real character while giving it a Mae West spin. "I don't plan to do an impersonation but I'm considering it an homage to Mae West," she said. "I don't quite have her build but I'll do what I can physically because I just love the way she moves. I am comfort trying to evaluate out what a vibrate looks like."• • In the original compose. West had written in the opportunity to vibrate and sing a few tunes during her character's tour to a nightclub in Trinidad. "The play is an odd duck," Ross said. "in that it's a three-act compete and the lay act is basically this big musical show. So I thought why not do it as a mash-up taking straight theater actors and mixing them up with musical-theater actors."• • Ross has turned the three acts into two and in addition to using the songs that are cited in the original script he brought onboard pianist-composer Billy Philadelphia to create several new songs. "He's written an opening be that sets up the world of the show," Ross explained. "It's called 'Under the Red lighten,' and it's about the hard life of a sell in Montreal."• • The play was originally billed as a "comedy drama," and there are moments when West as the playwright raises social and sexual issues that were definitely bold for their times. Ross said he is trying to hold the seriousness of those moments while at other times acknowledging the plot contrivances and melodramatic twists. "We be to be winking at the audience at times," the director said.• • The original Broadway direct of Sex used 17 actors but Ross is making do with just six. "That's move of the fun too," he said. "Everyone object Delia plays multiple roles so we'll undergo quick changes that should be fun for the audience. It is for us. We're having a good measure and as long as we're having a good time. I evaluate we'll end up with a good show."• • Sex ordain run Nov. 2nd — Dec. 9th. 2007 at.
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http://maewest.blogspot.com/2007/11/mae-west-sex-albatross.html
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