Wishful Drinking (October 17, 2009)

Every October for the past few years, my friends from college Kirsten and Stasia meet up in New York City and catch a show, usually in the front row (don't ask me how I do it). Unfortunately, due to circumstances (scheduling, etc.) we were unable to get together. But being that I haven't been to the Big Apple since May, I decided to take my mom for the day. And I must surmise at the conclusion of our day, that unexpected events relating to the show were just as fascinating as the show itself, which was superb.

For some reason, the show I really wanted to see was Carrie Fisher's one woman show about her life titled Wishful Drinking, playing for a limited run at Studio 54 in NYC. I always liked Carrie Fisher. Of course I loved her as Princess Leia in the Star Wars Troligy (Cinnebon hair . metal bikini, English accent that came and went, etc.), even though I'm not a die-hard sci-fi head. But what I really loved her in as an actress was her film comedies like When Harry Met Sally and Soapdish. But most of all, I really and appreciate her as a writer, such as her novels Postcards from the Edge (one of the best books I ever read).

I did read the book Wishful Drinking, her autobiography released last year which served as the basic outline for the show. To be honest, I was a little disappointed in the book because it seemed short and sketchy, as opposed to the detailed work of her fiction.

But again, for some reason, Wishful Drinking was the one show on Broadway I really, REALLY wanted to see. So I told myself, "Bill, if you can get front row seats to Wishful Drinking, you'll keep your scheduled trip to NYC, even if you have to go alone."

Wishful Drinking is being presented by the Roundabout Theater Company, where prime seats are usually available to subscribers first; then, if the subscribers decide they didn't want to attend a particular show, the prime seats (including front row center) go on sale to the general public--usually the best seats become available 2-3 days before the show. So every day for two weeks, I would go to the Roundabout website and see if front row center to the Oct. 17th Saturday 2 PM matinee miraculously came up for grabs. I didn't expect this and I couldn't believe it. Unlike Ticketmaster or TeleCharge, where the site selects the tickets for you) tickets from the Roundabout shows are selected from a seating chart of the theater showing available and purchased seats. So last Friday night, I went on the Roundabout site, just for the hell of it; and, miracle of miracles, seats 101-102, aisle seats, front row center, were miraculously available. So after dry heaving a couple of times, I asked my mom if she would like to go (Manhattan is always better with company than alone, plus I owed her a birthday present), she said yes, and I selected the two available front row seats, threw them in my online shopping cart, and paid as quick as I could and opted for the tickets to be held at the box office for us.

So after worrying about potential snow, getting sick, etc., Saturday morning came without any major problems or deterrents and we were on our way. I was SO excited.

When we got to NYC, my mom and I walked to Studio 54 and picked up our tickets. Then we did some shopping (what's a NYC trip without shopping?) and went to lunch at Sardi's my favorite restaurant in NYC, where I had made reservations.

At about 1:30, after a little more shopping, we trekked back up to Studio 54 for Wishful Drinking. Slowly but surely, we got to the ticket taker, the we were directed by the theatre usher to our seats. That's when the day's only potential problem was averted.

The problem, of course was our seats. Our tickets were front row on the aisle, row AX, seats 101-102. The only problem was that there was no seat AX 101 so, in reality, I had a ticket for a theatre seat that actually didn't exist. After slightly panicking, the usher told us to sit in seats 102-103 and assured us all would be fine; however, an old woman already had seat 103, and her ticket stated as such. The usher told her to move down a seat and everything would even out (they were used to this because it happened at every show; why they didn't get some masking tape and cover the numbers and write new ones is beyond me). But the woman in seat 103 was quite irate (and loud and quite vocal in her old lady irration) and went to speak to the manager, who basically reiterated what the usher told us. The last thing I wanted to do was inconvenience anybody, but I paid for a seat, damnit. While 103 was off somewhere, her companion was far more rational; she sweetly turned to my surprisingly calm mother and sweetly told her, "Well, if that's the biggest thing we have to worry about in life, we're pretty lucky." Wise words, I must say and, ironically, a running theme throughout Wishful Drinking. When 103 returned to her seat, she was a lot calmer and assured that the seating was fine, and she was as sweet as pie to both my mom and me from that point on.

I also notice in my Playbill that today's matinee would be the second of only two scheduled performances of Wishful Drinking that would include a sign language interpretation by an organization called Hands On!; so a signer would be performing in the left orchestra for the deaf and hard of hearing. We could only see her if we looked back and to the left because, of course, we were in the front row.

One positive review of the book Wishful Drinking (I think it was Entertainment Weekly) suggested that the book is most affective if someone read it aloud to you. After seeing Carrie perform her piece, I agree. Just hearing her tell her life story in her own words was so much more fleshed out to me, and so fascinating. Carrie states that, if anything, her life story will make you look at yourself and say, "My life isn't as bad as Carrie Fisher's."

And what a life it was. The daughter of America's sweethearts, Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher, Carrie's life was unusual from the beginning. her father left her mother for Elizabeth Taylor (the widow of his best friend) when she was a toddler; she quit school to work in the chorus of her mother's Broadway show; she became a culture icon at 18 for her role as Princess Leia in Star Wars and has had her likeness merchandised as everything from PEZ dispensers to anatomically correct figurines to a sex doll), she has had crippling bouts with depression; she was married to and divorced from legendary musician Paul Simon, followed by a marriage to a man (and father of her daughter) who claims she turned him gay; she was diagnosed as manic-depressive, then bipolar disorder; she woke up one morning a few years ago and her friend's dead body was laying next to her in her bed; and has even had two rounds of electroshock therapy.

But she still has her humor. And by laughing at herself, she allows her audience to guffaw right along with her, which is one of the things I love about both her and her performance of Wishful Drinking.

Now some highlights from the show itself:

After the customary announcement about your cellphones, unwrapping your candy, and taking pictures during the performance (all theatre no-nos), the lights went up on the stage to reveal a living room liek set, a couch and table on one side, and a comfy chair on the other. Then Carrie Fisher took the stage from a door at the back of the stage, which doubled as a screen that projected photos and film clips throughout the performance. Dressed in blue satin pajamas and a colorful robe, and with glitter in her hair and eye makeup), she sang a beautiful rendition of Happy days Are Here Again. As she sang, he descended the stairs on the left hand side of the stage and began to throw handfuls of glitter into the faces of the audience members in the left side of the front row. At this point, I turned to my mother and told her, "I doubt she'll do that to us." Five seconds later, Carrie was face-to-face with my mother and threw a handful of glitter in her face and hair. Then she stood in front of me and, to my excitement, threw glitter in my face and hair as well. As she finished the song and climbed to the stage again, she stated, "I am Carrie Fisher and I'm an alcoholic." Thunderous applause. She then took off her slippers and performed the rest of her show barefoot (something Bea Arthur did also during her own one-woman show).

About five minutes into the show, when Carrie was relating a particularly hilarious episode in her life, a cellphone went off in the back of the theater. Carrie kindly asked, "Please turn your phone off." But the cellphone continued ringing. Finally, another man in the front row shouted, "TURN YOUR CELLPHONE OFF ALREADY, YOU JERK!" No more ringing. Carrie was so thrilled by this man (his name was mark) that she grabbed something from the table on the stage and gave it to him--a voucher for a free drink at the bar during intermission.

Carrie went back to her hilarious monologue without missing a beat, and she even encouraged the audience to shout out questions as she related the story of how she woke up one morning to find her best friend passed away from AIDS in her bed.

Next, a huge blackboard covered with a family tree of headshots descended from the ceiling, detailing her Hollywood lineage and the marriages, divorces, etc. of her family (she lovingly referred to this section as "Hollywood Inbreeding"). She addressed the question, "And what happened to the marriage of Liz and Dad?" to the audience. She then stood in front of my mother and asked her, "What's your name?" My mother responded, "Mary." Carrie continued, "Mary can you tell me what happened to their marriage?" Surprised out of her ass, my mother Said, "They got divorced." Carrie told my mom to come forward, she pulled a "Winner" medallion necklace from the back of the blackboardappy Days Are Here Again. and, as she did to Chewbacca, Han Solo and Luke Skywalker at the end of the first Star Wars, placed it around my mother's neck. it was fucking awesome. Carrie then blew a kiss to my mom and said, "Mary, I'm not done with you yet." For the rest of the family tree section of the show, when discussing the beginning or the end of a relationship, she again addressed my mom and asked, "And what happened then, Mary?" At first, my mother was speechless, so I whispered to her, "She got married" or "She got divorced." Carrie looked at me and said, "No you can't help her."

After this hilarious part of the show, the stage went dark, with a short clip from Star Wars played on the door/screen behind her and, when the lights went up, Carrie was wearing the famous Cinnebon Princess Leia wig. She talked about the pressures of being a cultural icon (including an image of a metal bikini-clad reclining Leia statue that revolved to revealed, as Carrie put it, "my shaved crotch)." After displaying images of various Leia memorabilia on the screen, a life-size Princess Leia sex doll descended from the ceiling (Carrie explained this gave new meaning to the term "Go fuck yourself") and, "being that I don't have a penis, " she asked for a male audience member to come up on stage and demonstrate how it works. Someone actually volunteered, but the doll ascended again and a duplicate Leia wig appeared in its place. Carrie made the volunteer put on the wig and read a little card that hilariously closed the first act of the show.

At intermission, I stopped in the lobby, glitter still in my hair, and bought a poster for the show; then I stepped outside for a couple of cigarettes. A couple of the other smokers stopped me and told me I "wore my glitter well" and they seemed ecstatic when I told them my mother was the infamous "Mary" that Carrie Fisher spoke so lovingly to. On my way back in, I stopped and bought a Wishful Drinking t-shirt for my mom. I also asked the salesman if carrie even comes out after the show and signs autographs. He said sometimes, but not usually after matinees. But he directed me to the Studio 54 stage door on 53rd Street, "just in case." When I got back to my seat, my mom stopped chatting with 103 for a moment as I gave her the shirt, which she loved.

At the end of Act II, Carrie concluded her show by reciting her famous "Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi" speech to a stuffed R2D2, which IMHO was the ONLY way to end the show.

For some strange and wonderful reason, my mother is a good luck charm when it comes to getting autographs after a Broadway performance--for some reason, it worked with David Hyde Pierce after Curtains and, to my shock and delight, it worked with Carrie Fisher. We went to the stage door, doubting Carrie would actually come out and sign (I even told my mom, "Don't be disappointed if she doesn't come out. We'll just wait 15 minutes, then go get something to eat."

There was alreadyquite a crowd there already, mostly people with no Playbills in their hands and bags filled with Star Wars merchandise. When the stage door manager came out and said, "Cariie IS coming out, but she will ONLY be signing Playbills," I was ecstatic. As you can probably imagine, half the people waiting (those who hadn't just seen the show and just wanted Princess Leia and Star Wars memoribilia signed) turned around and left..which left my mom and me right in front of the line.

Then carrie came out. She started to sign my mom's Playbill, then she looked up to find the infamous "Mary" staring at her, and Carrie exclaimed, "OH, IT'S YOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!", then added the word "Mary" to her autograph. Carrie told my mom she really appreciated her being such a good sport for all of the "Marys" throughout the show. Then she signed my Playbill; I told her I loved the show and she kindly thanked me.

Now I'm re-reading Wishful Drinking and loving it even more than the first time. It's very, very close, wordwise, to the live show, but I am enjoying it so much more picturing Carrie Fisher in my mind performing the piece.

Wishful Drinking is running on Broadway for a 12-week engagement that will end at the beginning of January. I highly recommend you get tickets for the show ASAP (it doesn't hurt to wait a few days before the performance to see if front row opens up, and prepare yourself for possible aggrivation if you happen to get ticket AX 101) and laugh your ass off!