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Great reviews for Carrie Fisher on Broadway

posted by Terence Keane on Mon, Oct 5, 2009
in Backstage buzz

The first of two shows that moved from Berkeley Rep to Broadway this year opened in New York last night, and I’m pleased to share with you the great reviews.

Here are excerpts from (and links to) what they’re saying about Carrie Fisher’s Wishful Drinking, staged by our very own Artistic Director Tony Taccone:

• New York Times: “Hilarious… You’re going to like it. A lot. Ms. Fisher – an actress, writer and sometime heroine of the tabloids – is the creator and cast of Wishful Drinking, the brut-dry, deeply funny memoir of a show that opened on Sunday night at Studio 54, directed by Tony Taccone… Ms. Fisher makes you feel you’ve arrived for a slumber party to swap confidences. Never mind that she does most of the talking. She has the gift, possessed by only the smartest and most charming of narcissists, of making you think that it’s somehow all about you… Ms. Fisher was blessed with a sense of the howling absurdity built into fishbowl lives… What she is doing, most cannily, is letting you see the Carrie Fisher Defense System in action. I mean the one that’s built on the transformational power of epigrams instead of pills.”
• Associated Press: “Confession may be good for the soul, but does it make for good theater? Yes, indeed. Especially when the author and star is Carrie Fisher, daughter of showbiz royalty, Star Wars icon, manic-depressive, alcoholic and astute observer of the Hollywood scene. Fisher is a raconteur in the best sense of the word. She knows how to tell a story. And Wishful Drinking, her hilariously perceptive journey through a world of celebrity and self-destruction, is chock-full of funny, fascinating tales. It helps that Fisher has enormous rapport with the audience at Broadway's Studio 54, where her autobiographical one-woman show opened Sunday... Wishful Drinking produces large laughs. Fisher's jaundiced view of the luxurious movieland lifestyle is priceless.”

• Newsday: “In Wishful Drinking – her personable, almost excruciatingly personal autobiographical show and gossip-fest – the witty actress/author clearly appreciates the absurdity of her own tabloid-ready life… She makes an expert witness to fame in all its ridiculousness and peril, who knows that celebrity is ‘obscurity biding its time.’ She's a loose cannon with satirist's discipline, a still-crazy-after-all-these-years survivor… As Fisher sees it, this is material begging to be confronted and enjoyed in public – not just postcards from the edge, but live onstage with glitter and an R2D2 throw pillow on the divan… tenderly directed by Tony Taccone and developed at his Berkeley Repertory Theatre.”
• Daily News: “Loopy and laid back… Carrie Fisher carries the day in Wishful Drinking… With Fisher's winning wit and gift for gab you're glad to sit around and laugh with her for a couple of hours… Briskly directed by Tony Taccone, Wishful whips through incidents previewed by dishy headlines flashed on a screen in Alexander V. Nichols' funky living room set, tricked out with comfy couches, a garden gnome and gigantic red apple. She welcomes you in for juicy stories, caustic quips and gobs of self-deprecation about her ballooning weight and deflated acting career.”
• Variety: “This is pretty delicious… Fisher is likable, acerbic, clever and wryly forthcoming about the warped reality of life in the celebrity bubble… studded with zingers… Fisher's avoidance of self-pity when reflecting on her lowest points is as admirable as her disdain for self-congratulation.”
• Theatermania: “Fisher is such a cheerfully sober – and sometimes subtly sobering – host that a good time is had by all… Fortunately, whatever vices she no longer has, Fisher is still addicted to the temptation to be ironic on every aspect of the dazzling, dizzying, dysfunctional life she's led… consistently entertaining… Throughout, Fisher has an ability to use words like Play-Doh, manipulating them to her clever advantage.”
• Star-Ledger: “Extremely funny… a witty, engaging evening, presented by a woman who didn’t take the easy path… Fisher recounts her life and times with a bracing combination of wryness and cynicism, and without self-pity. Even if you don’t like confessional theater and feel like crawling under your seat when a celebrity, in the name of honesty, reveals all, you might find yourself laughing your head off at Fisher’s stories.”

Here's the Wishful Drinking Broadway trailer:

Next up? The Broadway debut of a show many of you saw earlier this year in our Roda Theatre: In the Next Room (or the vibrator play). Break a leg to playwright Sarah Ruhl and Les Waters, our associate artistic director. I'll be dropping into rehearsal next week in Manhattan and can't wait to see how it's going!