The Conical Glass: Very Carrie

Monday, February 18, 2008

Very Carrie

It seems like it's commitment enough to have season ticket packages to two theaters (ACT and Shotgun), but Joe & I made a mini-commitment to Berkeley Rep last year by purchasing a three-ticket subscription. For our final play, I'd picked Carrie Fisher's "Wishful Drinking," since it's a one-person show, and y'all know how much I love those. Plus, who doesn't like Carrie Fisher? She's funny and self-deprecating and has been remarkably open about her own substance abuse and mental health issues.

Berkeley Rep has been promoting the show for months now with "CARRIE FISHER IS COMING TO BERKELEY REP!" ads, posters, mailings, etc. It's obviously paying off, since our Sunday matinee was sold out. However -- and I swear this is true -- before the show started, I overheard a woman a couple seats down from me say, after looking at her program (which has a head shot of Carrie on the cover), "Oh, Carrie Fisher's in this?" I suppose some people just file their season tickets by date and set off with no idea what they're going to see. Still, I found it a bit odd.

"Wishful Drinking" is by no means a polished piece of theater; as solo shows go, no one's going to anoint her as the new Spalding Gray. Basically, "Wishful Drinking" is two hours of Carrie talking to the audience -- about her crazy celebrity upbringing, "Star Wars," marriage to Paul Simon, etc. The main problem with the show is that I can't imagine that anyone is as interested in the life of Carrie Fisher as Carrie herself. For instance, she begins the show by talking about the incident in which a friend of hers was found dead in her home, and raises the house lights so audience members can ask her questions about it. Now, I consider myself a connoisseur of celebrity gossip, but I didn't recall this episode at all. It's not even mentioned in her Wikipedia entry. Are there really people out there who are dying to find out every detail?

Luckily, the show really gets going when Carrie dissects the love lives of her parents, Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher, with the helpful visual aid of an easel filled with photos. Since a lot of her "Star Wars"-era fans had not been born during the tabloid frenzy that ensued when Eddie dumped America's sweetheart for Elizabeth Taylor, Carrie suggests we think of Debbie as Jennifer Aniston, Eddie as Brad Pitt, and La Liz as Angelina Jolie. Another highlight of the show comes when Carrie discusses her experience working on "Star Wars," with lots of pokes at George Lucas (wonder if he'll come down from Marin to see the show?) -- for instance, he refused to let her wear a bra under her costume because "there's no underwear in space." She then brings a life-size "Princess Leia sex doll" onstage, and picks an audience member to come up to examine it to see if he can figure out how, uh, it "works."

The show is often very funny, and a must-see for anyone obsessed with celebrity gossip and/or Princess Leia, and as for whether or not it counts as "theater," who really cares? Berkeley Rep presents a lot of classic and challenging work, and if they want to make a buck or two by bringing a real-life celebrity to town, I have no problem with that. Tomorrow is the official opening night, and it'll be interesting to see what our local critics have to say.

One distraction: Even though the set has a chair and a chaise longue on it, Carrie doesn't sit still for long, and when she paces back and forth across the stage, it's a bit alarming to see how graceless she is. She is only 51, but moves haltingly, like someone much older. She hasn't recently had a hip or knee replacement, has she? If she had, I'd think she'd have worked it into the show.

posted by 125records @ 4:34 PM

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