Should you go? Absolutely.
Walking Shadow Theatre Company’s production of John Heimbuch’s new play “Mae West & the Trial of Sex” at the Crane Theater is stunning to look at. Grand, in a way few shows are grand. There’s a sense of scale in the size of it, while at the same time paying attention to the tiniest details and just nailing them. Allison Vincent’s direction is dazzling. The ensemble of actors portray a quite dizzying catalog of dozens of characters without seeming to even break a sweat, and also without causing the audience even a moment’s confusion which is quite a trick to pull off. So yes, you should absolutely go and see this show, because we all too infrequently get the chance to see a new play produced with this bold a flourish. If that’s all you needed to know, you can skip the rest of the review and just go buy yourself some tickets.
“This perversion of yours, is it an acquired habit or has it always been so?”
Before Mae West became the bawdy star of the silver screen in the 1930s, she was a performer and a playwright in 1920s New York City. This earlier time of her life is the period on which the play “Mae West & the Trial of Sex” focuses. At the start of 1927, West had a hit play running on Broadway titled “Sex” (spotlighting the lives of prostitutes) and another play in rehearsals and out of town preview performances titled “The Drag” (about homosexuality, with actual drag performers enlisted to be part of the cast). Even though there was something called a Citizens Play Jury to pass judgement on plays so they didn’t get too racy, “Sex” squeaked by and was packing the audiences in (a whiff of controversy always being good for ticket sales). But self-appointed guardians of culture and public morals - the press, the producers, the politicians and the police - weren’t satisfied, and set out to bring “Sex” (and Mae West) down, and block “The Drag” from ever reaching a New York stage. The battle to keep one play running and get another one to opening night is the subject of the two and a half hours of “Mae West & the Trial of Sex.”
“The theater can only avoid censorship by making it unnecessary.”
Taking on the role of Mae West has to have been a daunting assignment, but Emily A. Grodzik makes it look easy - she both inhabits the character of West and allows us to see her as a real person, not just an icon or caricature. Our feathered and sparkly hats are off to her. Grodzik is the only member of the ensemble who doesn’t shift roles throughout the evening (understandable, she’s the title character and rarely off stage or out of the spotlight).
“The language is particularly… robust.”
The rest of the ensemble (Jack Bechard, Neal Beckman, Kelsey Laurel Cramer, Kayla Dvorak Feld, Samuel Osborne-Huerta, and Joe Swanson) do an astonishing amount of character work to populate the rest of the world of New York’s theater scene. This is where director Allison Vincent’s experience as founding member and co-artistic director of Transatlantic Love Affair comes into play. It’s an oversimplification but “Mae West & the Trial of Sex” is kind of as if TLA embraced the idea of using things like costumes, props and a set, instead of creating everything with their bodies, voices and the power of theater magic and the audience’s imagination. The character specificity from each actor as they ricochet from one role into the next and back again is quite remarkable. Vincent’s direction clearly challenged each actor to make each of their several characters not just reliant on a quick costume change or a funny voice/accent - each character is inhabited, each actor’s body and the way they use it physically changes, sometimes to the point where you don’t recognize them anymore and you have to remind yourself, “Oh yeah, that’s the same person who just did that other completely different role a minute ago. Wild.”
“Is he gonna do the whole play like this?”
For instance, as I was watching Cramer preside as a judge over the major trial in act two, I was struck suddenly by the fact that they’d also been, in rapid succession, Mae West’s mother, newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, and the drunken mayor of New York City earlier in the play, just to name a few, and that all these characters kept coming back through the course of the play, and each time if was like it was a different human being, even though it wasn’t. The same with Dvorak Feld as another judge, a lawyer, Mae West’s alcoholic sister/sometime ghost writer, a policeman, or the vibrant owner of an underground nightclub. Or Osborne-Huerta as the crusading moralistic district attorney, a nebbishy playwright taking West to court for stealing his script idea, a drag performer, an under-appreciated personal assistant, a bailiff, and a cop, among others. Or Bechard as two very different lawyers, a British mobster, the governor of New York, an indignant policeman, and a drag performer. Swanson takes on the roles of West’s long-suffering (and lovelorn) producing partner, a cross-dressing director, a blowhard politician, and more. And Beckman gets a turn as a scene-stealing drag queen, West’s equally long-suffering money man, and an ancient theater producer, as just a handful of their parts in the complex human tapestry of this play. Honestly, the production is worth seeing for the skilled and detailed acting work alone, thanks in no small part to Vincent’s directors eye overseeing it all.
“I told you I could read a room.”
The parade of characters is aided of course, by the wonderful period costumes of designer Mandi Johnson. The flurry of locations is achieved with the combined talents of scenic designer Sarah Bahr (assisted by painter Sammy Meverden), a full curiosity shop’s worth of props from designer Bobbie Smith, the lighting design of Tony Stoeri (assisted by Aarya Batchu, and electricians Jeremy Ellarby and Keelia Wood), and the sound design and musical compositions of Thomas Speltz. Speltz and Paul Fonfara provide recorded music, assisted by recording engineer Sean Healey. At the back of the stage is an enormous red curtain which parts to great effect at key moments in the show. On either side of the main playing area are clustered all the costumes, props and set pieces that create the world of the play, and it’s a fun guessing game to gaze at all the items prior to the show and at intermission and wonder when and for what or for whom they’ll be used. Allison Vincent’s direction is augmented by the work of drag consultant Domino D’Lorion, intimacy coordinator Alli St. John, vocal couch Leslie Vincent, dance choreographer John Michael Stiff (yes, there are musical numbers), and dialect coach Keely Wolter. Given the number of balls this production has in the air at any given moment, I’m sure stage manager Andre Johnson Jr. doesn’t get much time to breathe between curtain up and final bows. The fact that something this complex runs this smoothly is to their credit.
“I’d choose ‘Sex’ with Mae West over a night with you any day.”
I had the pleasure of seeing a Fringe-sized adaptation of Mae West’s “The Drag” last summer at the Minnesota Fringe Festival, but if you’re not familiar with West’s work, fear not - the ensemble does very amusing, rapid-fire condensed versions (maybe 5 minutes each?) of both “Sex” and “The Drag” during the course of the show at the times they’d be most helpful, just so we know what all the fuss is about. Just what exactly is everyone trying to censor?
“That pen name is as close as she’ll ever get to sharing credit.”
John Heimbuch’s script draws from court documents and newspapers in addition to West’s plays and songs of the time. Act One does a great job of setting up all the colorful characters in Mae West’s life as she juggles performances of “Sex” at night, rehearsals and rewrites for “The Drag” during the day, and the occasional side jaunt to court to deal with a playwright suing her for stealing the idea for “Sex” from his play “Follow The Fleet.” By the end of act one the censors (in various forms) have caught up to the production of “Sex” and shut it down - with the comical byproduct being that the actors playing cops who shut down the show order the stage manager to bring up the house lights so they can encourage the audience to clear the theater for intermission and go get themselves some refreshments.
“If they decide to stop us because they’re afraid of us, that’s it, dearie.”
Then in Act Two… it’s weird. Even though Mae, her producing partners and the entire cast of the show get arrested, have to show up in court for arraignment, pay bail, plus there’s going to be a full trial, people may have to go to jail, and both shows may be shut down, the stakes oddly don’t seem as high as you’d think they’d be. The urgency present in the first act doesn’t seem to hold or escalate after intermission. It’s hard to tell if it’s because we don’t think Mae West can lose (because… she’s Mae West, and that’s been more than enough up to now) or if it’s because a strange fatalism has set in and we don’t think Mae can win. If it seems like a sure win or a lost cause, it’s hard for anything to drive the action forward. There’s a lot of personal threads that feel like they might pay off later, and then they don’t: is Mae claiming credit for work that isn’t her own, whether it’s the other court case over “Follow the Fleet” and “Sex” or her inebriated sister taking down lines for her as the drag performers improv dialogue from the reality of their own lives that Mae could never dream up on her own? Is Mae stringing men along, making them think they have a chance with her, in order to get their monetary or legal support for her artistic projects? what’s the deal with the British mobster with a penchant for bird-keeping? (among other questions)
“Is it true the police were in the house tonight?”
“Were they cute?”
On the adversarial side - the politicians and theater producers - there’s a cartoonish sameness to their moralizing (or protecting their own asses) that doesn’t rise to the same level of character and humanity that Mae and her artistic collaborators all seem to have in abundance. So, on some level, it’s hard to take them as seriously. There are exceptions, of course: rich man Hearst is an eccentric fellow with a lot of resources; the governor seems at first to be a man of principle, until Hearst slowly begins to undermine his resolve with promises and/or threats; the district attorney is a fully-formed human being that stands out from the crowd around him. But what’s their deal, really, all three of those men? Why does Hearst have it out for “Sex” and Mae West? Where does the governor’s passion for freedom of expression come from, and how is it so easily dismantled? And why is the district attorney so intent on cleaning up theater in particular? Instead of a lot of one-sided bloviating, maybe we needed more of these folks in actual conversations with other real people in their lives? We know why the artists want to create, but we never really know why the opposition wants to shut them down.
“They’ve confiscated our sets, the police have locked us out of the theater.”
Of course, on some level, maybe these things are unknowable, but that too easily lets all of us off the hook, doesn’t it? Here we are, nearly 100 years after the events of this play and we’re STILL dealing with this. A certain segment of the rich people, bunglers and octogenarians that find themselves wielding power always seem to have a problem with things like: women (in general, but particularly women in positions of power who don’t seem to need a man); queer people; anyone not neatly aligned on the biological binary society decided to apply to notions of gender (and gender roles); anyone having sex for (gasp) pleasure or fun; anyone presenting stories or art about any of the aforementioned groups. It feels like we need a story where the people trying to suppress freedom of expression are formidable adversaries, characters with complex motives and driving purpose, rather than just straw men easily dismissed and forgotten. One would hope that eventually all these folks would be lost to time and memory but in our own present (and in Mae West’s past) this group of people is doing actual harm. On some level we should feel that, it should cut more deeply, hit harder, create more dread than eye-rolling.
“I have a hot date - in court.”
Still, I’d rather see a production with ambition, something that takes a big swing, even if it doesn’t entirely hit its target. History, and actual human biography in general, is a big, messy subject, with countless stray threads and dead ends that don’t lead anywhere, and facts so weird they are hard to resist - all of which makes creating a story out of that raw material an enormous challenge. The fact that the whole creative team behind “Mae West & the Trial of Sex” manage to breathe life and humanity into people long dead, and make their stories feel compelling and important, is no small thing. I’d rather meander a little bit with a show that has something to say than sit and watch something that doesn’t even bother to try. Couple that with the fact that this production in both look and performance feels rich and layered in the way most theater just isn’t, doesn’t take the time to be, and I can forgive it for a fault or two. Overall, this play hums with an urgency and unpacks the human heart with such care, it’s not even a close call. As many people should see this play as possible before it closes. Because we just don’t get shows like “Mae West & the Trial of Sex” that often.
“If we want to win the fight, we have to stay in the ring.”
Walking Shadow’s production of “Mae West & the Trial of Sex” continues through June 22, 2025 at the Crane Theater (2303 Kennedy Street NE in Minneapolis).
4.5 Stars - Very Highly Recommended
(photo courtesy of Walking Shadow Theatre Company)
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