LOS ANGELES─"Hi Cooper darling, its Nanny New-Face" Joan Rivers says to her grandson, referring to her extensive plastic surgery, during the world premiere of 'A work in Progress by a Life in Progress' in an on-stage phone conversation at L.A.'s Geffen Playhouse on Mar. 22, during the early show filled with the silver-haired crowd.
The audience is treated to classic Joan Rivers' irreverent, scathing humor, as she makes fun of herself and anyone else. This performance, however, reveals an unexpected vulnerability, and a surprisingly poignant peek into this smart Hollywood survivor.
The show is set in her dressing room backstage, a perfect motif or metaphor for the content, in which the audience feels privy into what feels like 'behind the scenes' at the Academy awards, where Rivers has reigned for years, interviewing celebrities on the red carpet, making famous the question, 'Who are you wearing?'
Rivers, herself wearing black slacks, a fitting black turtleneck and a hot pink draping sweater, speaks from a very personal perspective on her professional and often public life, including anecdotes of Hollywood legends, her start in the business, and family accounts. A significant theme in the show is aging, as she communicates with fierce resentment the undermining role the network executives play in age discrimination on TV and jokes about sex over 60 until people are crying in laughter.
If you want to know how management regards you she says, "Look at the cheese plate in your dressing room--don't call your agent, the cheese plate tells you what management thinks of you." We then discover that she has a platter of laughing cow.
'Backstage' with Rivers is Svetlana, (Yosefa Forma), the makeup artist Kenny (Adam Kulbersh), and Ms. Goodheart (Tara Joyce), the new network executive who is 'making changes.' Rivers goes back and fourth from the internal structure of the play to monologues where she steps out and address the audience.
She described how Johnny Carson, after many years of friendship as a regular guest on his show, cut her out of his life after Fox offered Rivers her own show; and her painfully failed attempt to reconcile their relationship after his son was killed in an accident.
In another such aside, she talks about hosting the elderly and eccentric Mae West for mandatory candlelit dinners at River's home where everyone was instructed to listen in silence as she reminisced in the infamous 'Mae West' persona and voice. Rivers also talked about a strange encounter with Joan Crawford, and other screen greats. Along with speaking openly about the great tribulations of her life, like when her husband Edgar committed suicide after a severe depression following serious heart surgery, and at 56 needing to start all over again when she was fired from the network on the premise that a widow who's husband kills himself is not funny, Rivers explains, "its how I always got through life by telling jokes".
She triumphantly brings us on the journey with her, through the pain, towards faith and perseverance, while keeping us howling with laughter in the isles--heartfelt and hilarious.
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