Mae West: November 1927

MAE WEST could not have been thrilled during November 1927. The New York Times planted a bitter raspberry with their review of her latest play (published on Saturday the 5th of November 1927). Written by Mae West, age 34, and her long-time collaborator, the production opened on Friday evening 4 November 1927 — — and lasted for merely nineteen performances. Mae West appeared in a bathing suit, a sight which brought out the spite and malice in her longtime detractors. In other words, this project was a turkey that never made it as far as Thanksgiving.
• • "THE WICKED AGE" TAME — —
• • Mae West Wins a Bathing Beauty Contest in Her New Play.
• • Although it is milder than "Sex" and will probably not cause Mr. Banton and the gendarmes to come on the run, Mae West's newest contribution to dramatic art, staged last night at Daly's Sixty-third Street Theatre, will doubtless stand as the low point of the theatrical season of 1927-28.
• • "The Wicked Age" is the name Miss West has given it, and according to its own admission it is a satirical comedy, in which case "Bringing Up Father" is simply mordant and biting irony. [Ouch!]
• • Dragging through the evening until nearly midnight, "The Wicked Age" seemed at its first New York performance incredible cheap and vulgar trash, with only such minor amusement as was to be derived from watching the exhibitionistic antics of Miss West as a faintly redeeming feature.
• • The bathing beauty contest as practiced along the Jersey Coast was the pressing sociological matter upon which the author-actress had her say.
• • This permitted her to introduce a contest scene in the second act in which, a blithe spirit of the younger generation, she captured first honors. The third act, up to 11:35, was devoted to . . .
— — Excerpt: — —
• • Drama Review: "The Wicked Age" Tame
• • Published in: The New York Times
• • Published on: 5 November 1927 — — Saturday
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• • "Courting Mae West" is based on true events in the life of Mae West during the Prohibition Era. The first scene is set in a Greenwich Village speakeasy during December 1926; the finale is set in Hollywood during December 1932.
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Courting Mae West
Mae West
• • Photo: Mae West • • 1927 • •
NYC
Mae West.

Moral Turpitude & Mae

Moral turpitude is back in the news — — but this time MAE WEST had passed the scepter.
• • The New York Times, in an article called "What Moral Turpitude Looks Like" [30 March 2008], was citing a U.S. Customs spokeswoman's objections when she refused to admit "the infamously debauched writer Sebastian Horsley" to this country, citing concerns of "moral turpitude." Apparently, the Englishman celebrated his past arrests in Britain for drug possession and prostitution in his book Dandy in the Underworld [NY: Harper Perennial]. Modeling a custom-made stovepipe, Horsley posed at home for The Times opposite a row of skulls.
• • Of the dramatic black Lincoln-esque headgear, Sebastian Horsley admitted, "It makes me almost pointlessly tall." But the dandy summed it up: "Dandyism, you know, you do it for yourself, but it requires a reaction or it wouldn't exist."
• • No doubt Mae West would have agreed. When writing her plays, she was counting on a certain reaction — — and without it "Sex" would not have gone so far.
• • "Sex" wins high marks for depravity
• • In April 1926, Mae West opened in "Sex," which Variety described as a "nasty red-light district show." That must have been fine fuel for an over-heated rush on advance ticket sales.
• • During the 1920s, there was an ongoing debate about what was morally acceptable in the public venue of theater and who was responsible to arbitrate that question. This was hardly a new question in the entertainment world; theater had long been considered a cauldron of unabashed and unacceptable moral turpitude.
• • Here's what some critics said about "Sex" at Daly's 63rd Street Theatre in New York City.
• • The cheapest, most vulgar, low "show" to have dared to open in New York this year — — Billboard
• • "Sex" wins high marks for depravity, dullness — — Herald Tribune
• • "Sex" is a crude drama — — The New York Times
• • "Sex" an offensive play, a monstrosity plucked from the garbage can — — New York Daily Mirror
• • Fumigation needed — — Milwaukee Sentinel
• • A sink of moral turpitude — — Variety
• • "Courting Mae West" pokes fun at the media's attempt to blackball Mae. In Act I, Scene 1, Mae tries to inveigle a newsman to give her some sugar-frosted coverage by suggesting that an article on her "could be a trampoline for your career, see?"
• • In Act I, Scene 2 — — set in the Arcade Hotel, Bridgeport, Connecticut — — intoxicated Beverly taunts her overbearing sister, mangling the phrase as she jeers: "The critics said your play stinks of turpentine!" Equally drunk, Edward Elsner corrects Beverly, repeating the phrase "a sink of moral turpitude" pompously. To which Mae rejoins, "Thanks, Shakespeare!"
• • Come up and see Mae during July in New York City!
• • http://CourtingMaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Courting Mae West
Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • Arcade Hotel • • 1927
NYC
Mae West.

Mae West: Wales Padlock Law

Several New Yorkers had seen Mae West's play "Sex" more than once — — including Sergeant Patrick Keneally, who had taken an exhaustive number of notes while attending three performances at Daly's 63rd Street Theatre in the line of duty.
• • Police action against "Sex" had been more in opposition to "The Drag" than to Margy LaMont's lascivious adventures, explains Jill Watts in her impeccably researched bio: Mae West: An Icon in Black and White.
• • According to Jill Watts: While efforts to mothball "The Drag" succeeded, "Sex" played to capacity crowds for several more weeks. However, by the beginning of March [1927], attendance had died off and profits shrank. Desperate to keep the production alive, the Morals Production Corporation ordered a 25% pay cut for everyone. Several players handed in their notices. Finally, on Sunday, March 19, after the evening's performance, Morganstern announced that Mae West was physically exhausted and was closing the play. Yet he also emphasized her determination to fight the case to its end.
• • According to Jill Watts: Only a few days later, the New York State senate passed the Wales Padlock Bill, which required the district attorney to prosecute everyone associated with an indecent production and to lock down for one year any theatre that hosted such shows. It was less severe than mandating a stage censor and allowed the power over Broadway to remain with the district attorney, who in New York was the Tammany Hall loyalist Banton. The bill now sat waiting on Al Smith's desk.
• • In Jefferson Market Police Court (on Sixth Avenue and West Ninth Street) the defendants from the "Sex" raid came to trial on 28 March 1927. The prosecution's case rested on the testimony of Sergeant Keneally and his ability to take rapid, accurate stenography in a darkened playhouse. New York's district attorney, perhaps addicted to the fortissimo eloquence of inner lives magnificently thwarted by the law, was prepared to step into his gladiator mode to do battle with the dauntless leonine jezebel of the Jazz Era — — Mae West.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • The serious-minded comedy "Courting Mae West" by Greenwich Village playwright LindaAnn Loschiavo, set during 1926 — 1932, explores Mae West's legal woes. Act I, Scenes 3 — 4 dramatize both the police raid on 9 February 1927 and the tense aftermath at Jefferson Market Police Court.
• • Using fictional elements, the text is anchored by true events and has several characters who are based on real people: actress Mae West; Beverly West; Jim Timony; Texas Guinan; Mr. Isidore, a news seller on Sixth Avenue and West 9th Street; and Sara Starr, based on the Greenwich Village flapper Starr Faithfull, whose death inspired John O'Hara's novel "Butterfield 8" and a dozen other books.
• • "Courting Mae West: Sex, Censorship, and Secrets" will be onstage at the Algonquin Theatre [123 East 24th Street, New York, NY 10010] by July 19th, 2008.
• • Get ready to come up and see Mae onstage in mid-July 2008.
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Source:http://courtingmaewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Courting Mae West
Mae West
• • Photo: Mae West at 33 years old • • "Sex" 1927 • •
• • Illustration: Jefferson Market Court
NYC
Mae West.

Mae West: A Sex Encounter

The audience had finished their last round of applause and MAE WEST was heading towards her dressing room when she spotted some young men — — but these were no star-struck stage-door johnnies. Instead this was a uniformed detail from New York City's vice squad taking stock of Daly's 63rd Street Theatre on 9 February 1927. The cast and crew of "Sex" were herded into Black Marias and hauled downtown to Jefferson Market Police Court on Sixth Avenue. Mae West, the last one escorted in the paddy wagon, was forced to stand all the way to West Tenth Street.
• • Two other plays would be raided the same evening.
• • Hours earlier, some police stenographers sat in the dark writing down all of the dialogue.
• • In this scene from "Sex: A Comedy Drama" [1926] prostitute Margy LaMont (who has been dating the well-heeled Jimmy Stanton) tells off society lady Clara Stanton. Listen to how angry the playwright (Mae West) is towards the hypocrites who comprise the tony upper-crust league in Connecticut.
CLARA: I'll not listen.
MARGY: Oh, yes you will. You've got the kind of stuff in you that makes women of my type. If our positions were changed — — you in my place, and I in yours — — I'd be willing to bet that I'd make a better wife and mother than you are. Yeah, and I'll bet without this beautiful home, without money, and without any restrictions, you'd be worse than I have ever been.
CLARA: No, no — —.
MARGY: Yes, you would. You'd do it and like it.
CLARA: For God's sake stop it, I can't endure any more — —
MARGY: Now you're down off your pedestal. You're down where you can see — — it's just a matter of circumstances. The only difference between us is that you could afford to give it away.
• • Dialogue between Margy LaMont, a prostitute, and Clara Stanton, a wealthy woman, from Mae West's play Sex, a Comedy Drama, 1926. Published by Routledge, New York.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • The serious-minded comedy "Courting Mae West" by Greenwich Village playwright LindaAnn Loschiavo, set during 1926 — 1932, explores Mae West's legal woes. Act I, Scenes 3 — 4 dramatize both the police raid on 9 February 1927 and the tense aftermath at Jefferson Market Police Court.
• • Using fictional elements, the text is anchored by true events and has several characters who are based on real people: actress Mae West; Beverly West; Jim Timony; Texas Guinan; Mr. Isidore, a news seller on Sixth Avenue and West 9th Street; and Sara Starr, based on the Greenwich Village flapper Starr Faithfull, whose death inspired John O'Hara's novel "Butterfield 8" and a dozen other books.
• • "Courting Mae West: Sex, Censorship, and Secrets" will be onstage at the Algonquin Theatre [123 East 24th Street, New York, NY 10010] by July 19, 2008.
• • Get ready to come up and see Mae onstage in mid-July 2008.
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Source:http://courtingmaewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Courting Mae West
Mae West
• • Photo: Mae West at 33 years old • • February 1927 • •
NYC
Mae West.

Mae West: A Sneaky Preview

West Ninth Street, Manhattan, is only one block long, from Fifth Avenue at one end to Sixth Avenue at the other, east to west. It was at the west end, between Ninth and Tenth Streets, where another West, a lady named Mae, spent one night in jail in 1927 in what is now the historic old Jefferson Market Library but was then the Jefferson Market Courthouse, wrote Jerry Tallmer in his article for The Villager about the play "Courting Mae West."
• • Jerry Tallmer continued: The full title of this serious-minded comedy is “Courting Mae West: Sex, Censorship, and Secrets,” and the based-on-real-life characters in it include the pre-Hollywood Mae West; Mae's sister Beverly; Mae's lawyer-manager Jim Timony; night club queen Texas Guinan; gorgeous, doomed Starr Faithfull, a Greenwich Village good-time girl — the Gloria Wandrous of John O’Hara’s blazing “Butterfield 8” — whose corpse rattled many of the rich and powerful when it washed up on a Long Island beach; and a news dealer named Mr. Isidore who was the last person in Manhattan, from his stand under the El at Sixth Avenue and Ninth Street, to see Starr Faithfull alive as she disappeared into the PATH station on her way to the L.I.R.R.

• • There are also a number of fictional characters, notably Eliza Rourke, a repressed, glamour-worshipping, working-class Irish-American girl who slaves without pay in her parents’ boarding house on Ninth Street, and Mario “Shortie” DeAngelis, a young, over-eager New York newspaper reporter who dashes frantically between such headline events as the jailing of Mae West and the discovery of Starr Faithfull’s body on Long Island (which actually happened in 1931). Eliza is sweet on him; her mother is not happy about this budding romance.
• • Veteran news man Jerry Tallmer, who founded the Obie Award in the mid-1950s, is one of the few who realized the truth: that Mae West's arrest for obscenity was provoked by the midnight performance of her new homosexual play "The Drag." Variety Magazine reported that this "sneak preview" occurred in Daly's 63rd Street Theatre and, hours later, the vice squad showed up to raid Mae's performance in "Sex."
• • Headline-hungry tabloids rushed to photograph the new felon on 9 February 1927 at Jefferson Market Police Court on Sixth Avenue in Greenwich Village. Understandably, Mae West was upset that night. Little did she know what would happen to her in the near future because of her police record.
• • Get ready to come up and see Mae onstage during July 2008.
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Source:http://CourtingMaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Courting Mae West
Mae West
• • Illustration: Mae West • • artist Michael DiMotta • •
NYC
Mae West.

Mae West: Hot in August

MAE WEST was enjoying "Sex" during August in 1926. It was hot: summertime in New York City — — especially over on the westside when MAE WEST was starring in "Sex" as the unapologetic prostitute Margy LaMont. By the summer of 1926, the show had been booked in Daly's West 63rd Street Theatre for a couple of months but the boxoffice was still sizzling. Onstage Mae was shimmying. All this in the days before air-conditioning, too.
• • As with most writers or actors, Mae West did not want to be ignored. Variety had given her many blistering razz-berries [also known as the humiliating "Bronx cheer"] in print. So had all of New York City's major drama critics. Mae West decided she would produce her own material and she would also take charge of the production. Maybe that would improve things for her career.
• • Even before "Sex" officially opened in Manhattan during April 1926, it attracted strong reactions. Mostly, it received a black eye in print.
• • It was "feeble and disjointed," The New York Times critic said.
• • It was a "disgrace," The New Yorker announced.
• • Walter Winchell called it "a vulgar affair ... amateurish in script and cast."
• • The Daily Mirror, a William Randolph Hearst paper, was less mellow. This was, it said, "a monstrosity plucked from the garbage can, destined for the sewer."
• • Theatre critics had a different perspective on scarlet women back in '26.
• • Mae West's play looked at the social mores of the time, she claimed, but John Q. Public was not so sure. The first attempt to close "Sex" failed; the police department convened a play jury but the officials barely missed getting the required three-fourths vote of a citizens' panel.
• • Moreover, celebrities and certain authors [for example, Robert Benchley and Zora Neale Hurston] had favorable things to say about "Sex." Some newspapers carried second reviews, reversing their first opinion.
• • After making a profit on the show, West was fined $500 and sentenced to 10 days in jail. "This will be the making of me," she predicted.
• • That prediction, however, would take a while. Five years later, and nearing her 40th birthday, Mae West finally made her presence felt in the motion picture world. She often wrote her own lines, oozing sexual references. She died in 1980 at 87, having outlived the era she mocked.
• • 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."
• • Stage-manage your weekend and make some time for Mae West on Friday evening 17 August 2007, when a guided tour will explore Manhattan's WEST-side during the "Mae West Side Story" walking tour. The event — — open to the public — — is timed to salute Brooklyn's own sexpot on her birthdate. [See the Annual Mae West Gala posting below.]
• • Only 1 more day until Mae's birthday on August 17th!
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Courting Mae West
Mae West
• • Photo: Mae West in her play "Sex" • • 1926 • •
NYC
Mae West.