Theater Three has a solid hit in Dirty Blonde, Claudia Shear's comedic musical salute to Mae West, the bawdy 1920s musical comedy performer with an attitude. Julie Johnson does Mae justice in an all-out recreation, with all the peccadilloes firmly intact.
Shear wrote Dirty Blonde as a vehicle for her own talents and played the role on Broadway and on tour. The touring show, with Sally Mayes in the lead role, played the Majestic Theater in Dallas several seasons ago, but that production didn't even come close to the one at Theater Three for talent or showmanship. Julie Johnson outshines Mayes both in the singing and acting arenas, and Theater Three artistic director Jac Alder reaches new heights in his staging. An old theatre axiom says that 90 percent of the success of a show lies in the casting, and Alder scores a bulls-eye with Johnson and supporting cast, Terry Dobson, Robert Prentiss, and Ricky Pope.
Dirty Blonde is really two parallel stories, one of Jo, (Johnson) an aspiring actress from Brooklyn who is an ardent admirer of Mae West, and Charlie (Dobson) a quiet librarian who works in the film archives, and, as a teenager actually met Mae West in her dotage. Jo and Charlie meet at West's grave on the anniversary of her death. They quickly discover they are kindred spirits, and their relationship intersperses the tale of the larger-than-life and in-your-face antics of Mae West.
Dobson plays several additional roles, and Prentiss and Pope enact the numerous characters who were part of West's life. Some of her notorious bon mots surface when a producer (Pope) tells West: "I've heard a great deal about you" and she parries: "You can't prove any of it." When an angry judge (Dobson) admonishes West: "I'll charge you with contempt," she shoots back in her inimitable style: "And I was doing my best to hide it."
Johnson nails West's speech patterns. She slips in and out of her instantaneous role changes with imperceptible facility.
Patty Korbelic Williams' costumes and Ryan Matthieu Smith's wigs give the show an authentic feel. Dobson in drag as Mae West near the end of Act II is a show stopper. You may not see this show done better anywhere.
