'‘Mae, you can fool the world, you can fool your friends and you can even fool yourself, but you can’t fool me…’
'Hollywood bombshell Mae West built her career on lookin’ good – walkin’ the walk and talkin’ the talk – while legendary photographer Diane Arbus was famous for finding beauty in the everyday. When Diane turns up at Mae’s glistening LA apartment in 1964 to take her portrait, tensions quickly flare. Mae’s version of herself is very different to the one Diane wants to catch on film. But whose version wins out when a master of illusion meets a master of truth?
'Drawing on actual events, award-winning Australian playwright Stephen Sewell imagines what might have transpired between these two extraordinary women, creating a powerful portrait of beauty, sexuality, wildness and longing.'
Source: Melbourne Theatre Company.
Teachers' notes - Part B - via Melbourne Theatre Company.
Produced by Melbourne Theatre Company, 22 February to 30 March 2019, Fairfax Studio, Arts Centre Melbourne.
Director: Sarah Goodes.
Set and Costume Designer: Renee Mulder.
Lighting Designer: Paul Jackson.
Composer and Sound Designer: Clemence Williams.
Voice and Dialect Coach: Jean Goodwin.
Cast: Diana Glenn (Diane Arbus), Melita Jurisic (Mae West), and Jennifer Vuletic (Ruby).
'Writing in 1934, George Davis lovingly described Mae West as “the greatest female impersonator of all time”. The following year, the daughter of a corset model and a two-bit boxer was the highest-paid woman in the US, having transitioned from burlesque hoofer to actor-playwright to screen star — where she still wrote her own lines.' (Introduction)
''Mary Pickford may have been America’s sweetheart,’ Mae West is recorded to have said, ‘but I’m their wet dream.’
'At the start of Stephen’s Sewell’s new play, Arbus & West, West, in her late seventies, wisecracks sexily with audiences around the United States and jibes with her long-suffering dresser and personal assistant, Ruby (played with poise and perfect-pitch by Jennifer Vuletic). As she rests during interval, the famous actress and singer’s witty sense of being irresistible seems undimmed, until Ruby tells her that the photographer Diane Arbus has died. It was suicide, she continues. West is rattled but feigns indifference. She is surprised, she says; surely there were enough people who wanted to kill Arbus, without her needing to do the deed herself?' (Introduction)
'In the world premiere production of Arbus and West, playwright Stephen Sewell appears to be straying into unchartered territory. He is renowned for being a hard-hitting political writer, whose epic plays are almost always described as “dark”.' (Introduction)
'In the world premiere production of Arbus and West, playwright Stephen Sewell appears to be straying into unchartered territory. He is renowned for being a hard-hitting political writer, whose epic plays are almost always described as “dark”.' (Introduction)
''Mary Pickford may have been America’s sweetheart,’ Mae West is recorded to have said, ‘but I’m their wet dream.’
'At the start of Stephen’s Sewell’s new play, Arbus & West, West, in her late seventies, wisecracks sexily with audiences around the United States and jibes with her long-suffering dresser and personal assistant, Ruby (played with poise and perfect-pitch by Jennifer Vuletic). As she rests during interval, the famous actress and singer’s witty sense of being irresistible seems undimmed, until Ruby tells her that the photographer Diane Arbus has died. It was suicide, she continues. West is rattled but feigns indifference. She is surprised, she says; surely there were enough people who wanted to kill Arbus, without her needing to do the deed herself?' (Introduction)
'Writing in 1934, George Davis lovingly described Mae West as “the greatest female impersonator of all time”. The following year, the daughter of a corset model and a two-bit boxer was the highest-paid woman in the US, having transitioned from burlesque hoofer to actor-playwright to screen star — where she still wrote her own lines.' (Introduction)
