| Kim Zimmer Smolders As Mae West --- The Deliciously ‘Dirty Blonde’ July 17, 2002 BY NAOMI SIEGEL The Montclair Times She was known for her platinum tresses --- crimped and curled in the earlier years, luxuriantly flowing as twilight set in. But rest assured. Where the sun never shone, Mae West was a “dirty blonde.” And deliciously dirty was what this blonde’s lifelong shtick came to be. Writer/actress Claudia Shear, whose sassy biographical monologue “Blown Sideways Through Life” first showcased her own many talents, collaborated with Pulitzer Prize-winning director James Lapine to create “Dirty Blonde” --- a quirky, affectionate and marvelously entertaining wiggle through the life and loves of the mythical Mae. As an off-Broadway hit of the 2000 season, the “little show that could” moved to Broadway’s Helen Hayes Theatre for a modest run. Shear’s starring stint as “ultimate Tough Girl” West drew strength from the actress’ obvious passion for her character more than from a total grasp of the demands of the stage. TheatreFest 2002 at Montclair State University is currently presenting “Dirty Blonde,” directed by A.C. Weary and starring soap opera legend Kim Zimmer. Out to prove West’s famous adage that “too much of a good thing can be wonderful,” this amply endowed, veteran scene-stealer tears into the patented West persona and claims it for her own. Strutting, smirking, with a “come up and see me sometime” swagger that positively sizzles, Zimmer’s Mae is a hoot. While marginally more credible portraying the actress as a spectral relic of bygone years, Zimmer’s stint as the young and thirsty vaudevillian struggling to find a showbiz niche hits home. She is also cast as Josephine, a dyed-in-the-wool West groupie committed to making yearly birthday visits to Mae’s Cypress Hills, Queens mausoleum. It is during one of these cemetery vigils that Jo meets Charlie Conner --- the meek and mild film archivist with an equally torrid West obsession, whose West-inspired secret fetish gives Shear an opportunity for some gender-tweaking in a post-Mae world. Kevin Carolan is superb as Charlie, underscoring the quiet decency of this lonely, repressed devotee, haunted by visits, as a 17-year-old novitiate, to the Hollywood apartment of his, by then, almost forgotten idol. “She didn’t look young,” he reminisces. “She looked…un-old.” Carolan also has a go at several others of the many men in Mae’s constellation. Actor Paul Amodeo is likewise called upon to fill in the biographical details. Hobbling along as old Joe Frisco, loyal Mae hanger-on in her declining years --- or tickling the ivories, dancing and singing up a storm as her vaudeville partner Eddie Hearn, Amodeo adds color and humor. Deborah Caney has dressed Zimmer in appropriately outrageous finery --- beads and bangles to spare, plumed hats with the wing span of an eagle, and feathered boas that threaten to put a stranglehold on their wearer. John Weise’s set design, suggesting the brick proscenium of an old vaudeville theater, is a perfect back-drop for the many vignettes from Mae’s life included in this trip down memory lane. We see Mae peddling her original play “Sex” --- she wrote at least 10 --- to her producer, while describing its heroine as “a bad little girl who was good to the Navy”; Mae being sentenced to 10 days in prison and a $500 fine on charges of indecency brought by the State of New York; Mae and W.C. Fields (played charmingly by Carolan) sparring through “My Little Chickadee.” One of the best scenes involves Zimmer as both Mae and Jo, being simultaneously dressed by the actresses’ stylist, Frank, and by the groupie’s buddy, Charlie, in the same Diamond Lil creation. The synchronicity is magical. To her adoring fans, Mae West was “the movie star equivalent of Venice.” For the rest of us, she remains an enduring example of self-willing star power peppered liberally with attitude --- campy, over the top, and laughing all the way to the bank. “Dirty Blonde” manages to evoke both images and leave us all grinning. |