Theater

Dirty Blonde: Mae West said it’s better to be looked over than overlooked. Claudia Shear’s scintillating play, which is ostensibly about West, examines a couple of her otherwise overlooked fans as much as it looks over the star herself. Two present-day West fans meet as they visit her tomb, remembering her on her birthday. Jo (Shear) is a New York office temp and wannabe actress. Charlie (Tom Riis Farrell), now a film archivist at the New York Public Library, was so taken with West at age 17 that he visited her Hollywood apartment, scrapbook in hand. Director James Lapine’s mercurial staging is an enormous asset.

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Ends Sunday at the Pasadena Playhouse, 39 S. El Molino Ave. (626) 356-PLAY