Dirty Blonde

The first show of Signature's new season is Dirty Blonde and I went to see it yesterday afternoon. I'd bought a full season subscription this time out, by the way, since there was enough I wanted to see to make it worth taking chances on the shows I wasn't as sure of. I'm glad I did, since otherwise I might have skipped this one. I might not have, though, since: a) I've liked playwright Claudia Shear for a long time (since I saw "Blown Sideways Through Life") and b) it got excellent reviews.

Anyway, Dirty Blonde is "a play with music" about Mae West and about two people who come together because of her. The action switches between the story of Mae and the stories of Jo, an aspiring actress, and Charlie, a film librarian who Jo meets at Mae West's grave. Emily Skinner played Jo and Mae, while Hugh Nees played Charlie and several other male characters. The other member of the cast was J Fred Shiffman who played a number of the men in Mae's life, including her husband Frank Wallace. All of them turned in excellent performances.

The script is witty and adult, in the best sense of that word. I did feel a bit uncomfortable about a scene in which the two men do a very swishy drag queen bit, but I admit it was very funny. (And I've read two reviews by gay men who didn't seem bothered by it, so I may have been hypersensitive without good reason.) The two stories were nicely balanced and, even without costume changes, it was easy to keep track of which set of characters were involved at any given time.

All in all, this was a fine reminder of why Signature is one of the best local theatre companies - and why they won the regional Tony award.

In Other News

1) The facebook glitch for the Voices in the Glen website fixed itself later in the day. I still think their help pages suck.

2) At least the Source of All Evil in the Universe didn't sweep the Red Sox. But I still had to put up with my Yankee fan colleague gloating today.

3) I read a news story last week about an effort by a Conservative rabbi to overturn the law in Georgia which requires kosher products to be certified by an Orthodox rabbi. I agree with that this is an unconstitutional mingling of government and religion. The appropriate approach would be to require disclosure of "who says so" in labeling a product as kosher. (Presumably the same would apply for halal food.)

4) I was fascinated by a detail in the recent case of the murdered model whose body turned up in Southern California. She could not be identified by fingerprints since her hands were cut off or by dental records, since her teeth were extracted. Apparently, she was identified by the serial numbers of her breast implants.

5) I am absurdly busy at work this week. Mondays are always hectic since I'm preparing the weekly summary for our senior leaders. Today I also had two meetings to go to, both of which were productive, but still took up time. I've got all day meetings the next three days and a half day on Friday. I'm not sure how I will get any actual work done at all.