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Dirty Blonde | Introduction

Dirty Blonde, a play by Claudia Shear, was first performed off-Broadway, at the New York Theater Workshop, in January 2000. It was a box-office success and moved to the Helen Hayes Theater on Broadway later that year. The play was published in 2002 by Samuel French, Inc., and as of 2006 was in print.

Dirty Blonde is at once a contemporary love story and a re-creation of key incidents in the life of Mae West, the legendary stage and screen star famous for her uninhibited sexuality, provocative double entendres, and lines such as “Why don’t ya come up sometime and see me.” As the play interweaves the growing romance between Jo and Charlie, two Mae West fans in New York—Charlie met Mae West in her old age—with scenes from West’s career, the audience gets to see how carefully and confidently Mae West developed the extravagant, sexy, taboo-breaking public persona that was the hallmark of her fame. Dirty Blonde also hints at the personal price Mae West paid for her need to constantly maintain her public image and explores issues related to cross-dressing, homosexuality, and the need for self-discovery and self-acceptance.

Dirty Blonde Summary

Dirty Blonde begins with Jo, a young would-be actress and her friend Charlie, both Mae West fans, enthusiastically talking about how they admire a “tough girl,” a girl “who doesn’t care if you’re shocked,” and who says and does exactly what she wants. (Tough girl was a phrase in vogue in the 1910s and 1920s. It was used to describe raucous, assertive women like Mae West.)

Charlie recalls the dull conformity of his upbringing in the Midwest, while Jo remembers when she first heard the Mae West song, “I’m No Angel,” sung by a Catholic high school friend of hers named Darla, who then promptly gave a full-blown impersonation of West. Charlie recalls when he first saw the Mae West film, I’m No Angel, when he was still in high school. He was so captivated he went to see the film every day for a week.

The next scene takes place in Poli’s Theater, in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1912. Jo, now dressed as nineteen-year-old Mae West, is arguing with Harry (the same actor who plays Charlie), her partner in her traveling vaudeville act. (Vaudeville was a variety stage show made up of songs, dances, dramatic sketches, pantomime, juggling, and the like.) Harry is worried that Mr. Poli, the theater owner, will object to the sexual suggestiveness of Mae’s act.

They do their act together. Mae addresses the young men in the audience (“you Yale boys”) and then sings “Cuddle Up and Cling to Me.” She moves vigorously to the music as Harry accompanies her on the piano. Her dress strap breaks, revealing a bare breast. She looks down, cups her breast, and the curtain falls. (This was a deliberate, well-established routine that Mae West went through in her early days in vaudeville.)

Harry then stands by the piano and explains to the Dirty Blonde audience that every week it was a different stunt, with Mae doing outrageous, sexy things on stage. He toured with Mae for thirty-two weeks. Finally he had sex with her, after which she fired him.

Jo enters and tells how in August of the current year she went to visit Mae West’s grave. She enters the Cypress Hills Mausoleum in Brooklyn and on the second floor finds the West family. Mae is buried next to her mother.

The lights then go up on Charlie, who tells of a trip he made to Los Angeles to meet Mae when he was seventeen. He hung around in the lobby of the apartment house, until a man named Joe Frisco, a former vaudeville comedian famous for his jazz dance, arranged for him to go up to Mae’s apartment.

The scene switches to Ravenswood, Mae’s apartment. Part of the scene is a reenactment of Charlie’s first meeting with Mae, and part of it is Charlie’s later recollection of the event. He shows her the scrapbook he has been keeping of her, and they look at it together, page by page. Mae invites him to go to dinner with her and Joe Frisco at a Chinese restaurant. At the dinner, Mae tells Charlie how to stay healthy with regular enemas. He is embarrassed. He then makes the mistake of noticing another movie star in the restaurant. Mae glares at him; she does not like competition. She continues to talk frankly, this time about her sexual experiences as a young girl. She is interested in what Charlie says only if it is about her.

Charlie says he never forgot his week in Los Angeles. After her death, he visited her grave every year.

Jo and Charlie meet for the first time, at Mae’s grave. It is August 17, Mae’s birthday. Charlie says Jo looks like Mae. As they leave the mausoleum, they get sandwiches and sit on a park bench, where they share their enthusiasm for Mae. Jo reveals that her ambition is to succeed as an actress, and Mae is her inspiration. Charlie reveals that he works in the film archives at the public library; he invites her to stop by some time. A tentative feeling of friendship grows between them.

At the Variety Vaudeville House in New York in January 1911, Mae confidently informs vaudeville star Frank Wallace that she is to be his partner. A month later, at Rehearsal Hall, they are seen rehearsing a dance step, and then in March of the same year they dance together at a theater in Chicago. At a theater in Milwaukee in April, Frank worries that they may be fired because they are not married. He persuades her to marry him, but soon Mae tires of their... » Complete Dirty Blonde Summary