Sex in Their 60s

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The New York Sun

For sheer bathos, nothing beats old whores. As proof, Paula Vogel’s new play takes us to the graffiti-befouled Upper West Side, on the eve of Reagan’s election. Five aged prostitutes are lined up on a park bench. The sight is every bit as sad as, well, five aged prostitutes lined up on a park bench.


“The Oldest Profession” depicts longtime working girls trying to survive painful change. Mae, the majestic madam, has kept them together – and syphilis-free – for 50 years. Now the world grows hostile. Condos and crack heads are encroaching on their turf. Plus it’s election year, so they worry that the cops will launch a “whore diaspora” to New Jersey. Mostly they fight the clock. One lady complains about how her arthritis is slowing her down. She gets no sympathy. “It’s a poor workman that blames his tools,” comes the tart reply.


Clearly the story has more going for it then mawkish sentimentality. Ms. Vogel’s modestly appealing play, which kicks off a season devoted to her work at Signature Theatre, finds rooms for jokes, some dirtier than others. It even rises now and then to the allegorical. The date is no coincidence: One of the girls, the hard charging Ursula, embodies the principles of Reagan. She fumes that the girls don’t understand the laws of supply and demand. When they learn they may have to move out, she insists on their forgoing emotion and “strategically looking ahead and having a contingency plan!”


Mae represents the old guard, and the New Deal. When her leadership is challenged by Ursula’s corporate speak, she defends herself with cozy semi-socialism. “There’s always money for the doctor if any of you girls get sick, and food on the table. And we share and share alike, in one common pot. I’ve never held back on anyone.” Significantly, Mae’s reign dates to FDR’s presidency, give or take a few years.


Ms. Vogel isn’t just smuggling “Crossfire” onstage in f– me pumps. The play works best when it shows us the passing of a way of life. The girls cling to their dignity, however soiled, in what they regard (and Ms. Vogel seems to regard) as a world growing less dignified all the time. At one point Mae storms offstage to confront a strung-out interloper, returning with switchblade extended.


“Cheap amateur whores don’t know how to act like ladies; I’ll teach her etiquette if I catch her again,” she seethes, sounding a little like Mama Morton in “Chicago,” or Macheath. “Where the hell is their pride? Where the hell is their ambition? This is America … where any girl can start in the alley and end up a Madam.”


In ways large and small, Ms. Vogel uses the whores’ plight to show what happened when the Ursulas of the world began undoing the work of the Maes. To judge by their fates, she doesn’t think it’s a change for the better. I’m not giving anything away to say the show starts sad and ends sadder.


The emotion comes through even though Ms. Vogel has a sometimes errant sense of humor, and leans too heavily on the schematic. (Over the course of the play, some of the ladies depart for the great flophouse in the sky, a little too mechanically.) She also tends to spell out in places where suggestion would be more welcome. When the show works, it’s because of the performances. David Esbjornson has drawn customarily smooth and settled work from a remarkably gifted quintet.


Priscilla Lopez plays sad, spicy Edna; Carlin Glynn is the gentle, doomed Lillian. Joyce Van Patten makes Ursula convincing when she’s spouting economic jargon, and affecting when Ms. Vogel gets around (somewhat belatedly) to humanizing her. For women whose recollections of early life are filled with references to Storyville and Basin Street, you’d expect at least a hint of a Nawlins drawl. Even without it, the actors nicely inhabit their roles.


Two performances stand out. Gentle Vera loves the sun, has an outsized appetite, and “hates to see fighting on such a beautiful day.” Marylouise Burke tends to play her like a compact break-dancer. Many lines are accompanied by a jerk, pivot, and poplock. When she sits still, her small, sweet voice is heartbreaking.


Mae is played, with iron and lace, by the extraordinary Katherine Helmond. If you don’t like the play, you can amuse yourself by imagining what kind of wrong turns it would have taken for another of Ms. Helmond’s characters, the saucy Mona from “Who’s the Boss?” to end up in Mae’s predicament. If you do like the play, it’s because of her grandly regal performance.


Her imperial bearing and bright red hair make a bitter contrast to her reduced circumstances. You can be sure that when Mae is finally undone, it won’t be because of Ursula, the cops, or cheap upstarts: Only time and age can top her. When Ms. Helmond stares at you across the footlights, she is harrowed, and harrowing.


The New York Sun

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