Mae West (1893-1980)
I've never read this 1944-play by Mae West or seen it performed, but I've read about it and the literary ambitions of West. People of today who even remember who Mae West was, most likely don't know that she went on the stage as none less than the Russian Empress Catherine the Great in a play she herself wrote, but she did. Allegedly, the play, which ran for 191performances, was inspired by at least one psychic message from the actual - but very dead - empress.
%20%20%20%20CatherinetheGreat-639f05fc7cb645669d08b37023a21b1f.jpg)
Catherine the Great of Russia (1729-1796)
The actual Empress - also known as Catherine II - started out as a very young and naive German princess. She was chosen as the wife of an immensely childish, immature and non-impressive Grand Duke, Peter, by the then current sovereign Empress, Elizabeth, who was the daughter of the Emperor Peter the Great and his wife, The Empress Catherine I. Of course the marriage of the German princess and the Russian milksop, the Grand Duke Peter, wasn't a success. However, that led to the coup by which she established her power as the new Empress, Catherine the Great.
When I see stage performances of Mae West it's obvious to me that she, in everything she does, is a proponent of what she understands as FEMALE POWER. Of course, she would be a Catherine the Great-fan as this specific empress exercised power over men in a very spectacular manner, just as the stage-queen Mae West proposed to do: A very important stage "prop" in the West-shows were the loads of muscular and good-looking men who sort of were her "backdrop". What her message was, having this special "backdrop", is "I rule, the strongest and best-looking men bow to me". She did what countless men have done, walking around with an extremely pretty woman as the symbol of their power and potency.
Her shows were very sexual in a special female manner which I see as some sort of "a symbolic, subdued aggression". Interesting enough, several actresses before WWII appeared in what Mae West had wanted to be, but never did: Catherine the Great-movies.
However, the most famous one of these movies was the one with Marlene Dietrich, which came at almost the same time as the one with Elizabeth Bergner, namely 1934. The Catherine-market at that time was full, so to speak, and the attempts by Mae West to make her own movie about the Empress in 1938-39 was not met with enthusiasm.
The Catherine-play by Mae West was didn't bring her any acclaim. It was called "boring" by critics, and she even had legal problems as she was sued for "plagiarism". She may have had dreams of turning her career, but this play didn't bring her what she wanted.
Her shows with extremely muscled and good-looking, half-naked men were a success, but also something which targeted her as "immoral". Not that that seems to have bothered her, but still, she might have deserved better. Anyway, her choice of Catherine the Great looks to me as her way of signalling the use of female power: How to move from pawn to the ultimate power as a sovereign empress. In real life she had to contend with the stage power over men.
Wikipedia
