‘Blonde’ has more fun

Mae West said it’s better to be looked over than overlooked. Claudia Shear’s scintillating play “Dirty Blonde,” which is ostensibly about West, examines a couple of her otherwise overlooked fans as much as it looks over the star herself. That’s one reason why it’s better than most stage treatments of screen stars.

Most people probably feel that they belong in the “overlooked” category. At the Pasadena Playhouse, they get to vicariously share the spotlight with West.

In Shear’s script, two present-day West fans meet as they visit her tomb, remembering her on her birthday. Jo (Shear) is a New York office temp who tries to be an actress by auditioning for commercials, apparently without success. 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 at her apartment in Hollywood, scrapbook in hand.

It soon becomes clear that the two idolize West in part because they are so deficient in the quality in which she was so spectacularly proficient -- sexual self-confidence. Although they like each other, they’re not at all sure what to do about it. Maybe their memories of Mae West can help.

The script moves back and forth between the story of Jo and Charlie and scenes from West’s life -- mostly from her pre-Hollywood career in vaudeville and on the New York stage. We also see the encounters between West and Charlie, not only when he was a teenager but also in 1978, when he again visited her in L.A. and was cajoled into service as a West doppelganger for some of her other fans.

Playwright Shear plays both Jo and West. Her Jo could be a cousin of the Shear that was seen in her monologue “Blown Sideways Through Life” -- indeed, that title fits Jo well. She’s finding it difficult to make much forward progress.

West, on the other hand, walked straight ahead through life, or at least she gave everyone that impression. In one scene from West’s early days in vaudeville, we see that Janet Jackson was not the first star to experience “wardrobe malfunction.” Shear’s West endures this sudden exposure without flinching or apologies.

Generally, however, the West we remember was excessively well dressed by today’s standards for sex symbols. The billowy 1890s costumes she wore in her most famous roles give a lot of leeway to West impersonators, as both Shear and Farrell demonstrate. As a result, this is one play in which fidelity to the actual look of the famous protagonist is of relatively little importance -- the point is to capture her spirit and animate her image, which Shear does splendidly.

Also in contrast to many of the more literal plays about famous people, this one suggests the limitations of fame and success without being too obvious about it. The aged West makes a momentary pass at the virginal Charlie, and we can’t help but wonder if her own deflowering at age 12 by an older man was really as easy and carefree as she makes it sound. On a professional level, even the fervent fan Charlie acknowledges a touch of sadness in the fact that West was trapped in the self-image she created. But the sadness doesn’t tip over into tsk-tsks.

Shear also establishes that West’s act wasn’t entirely self-created. She borrowed “colored” dance steps, and she was even taught something about relying on her own voice by a stage director (Bob Stillman).

According to interviews, Shear herself learned something similar from “Dirty Blonde” director James Lapine, and his mercurial staging of this intermissionless script is an enormous asset. So are the performances of Farrell and Stillman. The former plays not only Charlie but a host of other men in West’s life, including W.C. Fields. Stillman portrays West’s hapless husband, the elderly West’s genial male companion and several other roles, and he also arranged and directed the music.

Douglas Stein’s pink pillbox of a set is almost as chameleonic as the cast, thanks in part to David Lander’s vivid lighting strokes. Indeed, the quick changes within the looks and moods of this production stand in stark contrast to the immobility of West’s own image.

*

‘Dirty Blonde’

Where: Pasadena Playhouse, 39 S. El Molino Ave.

When: Tuesdays to Fridays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 5 and 9 p.m.; Sundays, 2 and 7 p.m.

Ends: April 4

Price: $34.50-$49.50

Contact: (626) 356-PLAY

Running Time: 1 hour, 55 minutes

Claudia Shear...Jo/Mae

Tom Riis Farrell...Charlie

Bob Stillman...Man

By Claudia Shear. Conceived by Shear and James Lapine. Directed by Lapine. Musical staging by John Carrafa. Set by Douglas Stein. Costumes by Susan Hilferty. Lighting by David Lander. Sound by Dan Moses Schreier. Arrangements and musical direction by Bob Stillman. Production stage manager D. Adams.