I recently saw an actress in a play who I thought would be marvelous in a play about screen legend Mae West, so I thought maybe I'd write one. Turns out I needn't bother, as there's already a terrific play about West, Claudia Shear's Dirty Blonde. Shear (who also star...red in the play in New York) does a terrific job of telling West's story in a dramatic context, and without doing it as a "then next I did this" one-woman show. This is closer to Gypsy than to anything else I can think of. It's not a traditional musical, but has lots of music. Of course, reading it doesn't allow the music to lift the experience. But it's a pretty fine play on the page. I hope sometime to see it on the stage. ( )