dirty BLONDE. To 3 August.

Leeds

dirty BLONDE
by Claudia Shear

West Yorkshire Playhouse, Courtyard Theatre To 3 August 2002
Mon-Sat 7.45pm Mat Sat 4pm
Signed 23 July Audio-described 25 July
Runs 1hr 45min No interval

TICKETS 0113 213 7700
Review Timothy Ramsden 18 July

A curious, engagingly performed, look at the making of a star and her impact on others.Theatre's cheap enough to accommodate quirkily individual ideas or obsessions – especially if the quirk belongs to someone who knows how to go about putting on a show. Writer/ performer Shear and Sondheim collaborator Lapine certainly know about that, so here's their strange, individual piece about obsessions over Mae West.

It glances at Mae through her impact on others. Lonely Jo and Charlie kinda come together through their routine lives' interests in the glamour-encrusted star. Which would be all right by Mae, for whom Sex was more than just the title of one of her stage plays.

Shear and Chamberlain play nervous very well. He's not exactly in the closet but has a sequinned secret to let out of the costume bag – he dresses up as Mae, starting from when she had him dolled up during a visit to her in her old-age. Apparently visitors would be sent patrolling her gardens in Mae-wear, waving to nearby coach parties: keeping the legend alive without the living legend (Shear capturing her arthritic age splendidly) wearing out her semi-operative legs.

Mae comes over as the Madonna of her age in shock and column-inch values. In contrast to her fans' slow coming together, we repeatedly quick-flash back to the youthful star's touring days, when she'd seduce every male co-artist into the sack, only to give them the sack the following week.

Such glimpses show only one resistant chink – W.C. Fields, captured hilariously for a minute by Chamberlain, in a performance partnership where no love was lost, or found, between the professional partners.

So, how much of Mae's persona was an act? And, how much was there really to come up and see sometime? The best clue in a show that is, and is not, about lies, lies in the music. At the side there's a piano. Both men play it expertly (especially Stillman, who also contributes fine contrasting images of Mae's elderly minder and smart young associates). Or do they? Left alone, it plays itself just as well. So, how much is show? Who knows? That's showbusiness. To which this show is a fascinating footnote.

Frank Wallace/Ed Hearn/Others: Bob Stillman
Jo/Mae: Claudia Shear
Charlie/Others: Kevin Chamberlain

Director: James Lapine
Designer: Douglas Stein
Lighting: David Lander
Sound: Dan Moses Schreier
Costume: Susan Hilferty
Music, composer/ arranger: Bob Stillman
Musical staging: John Carrafa

2002-07-23 16:47:12