drugs side effects

Wishful Drinking

CC

studio 54 logoI recently went to Carrie Fisher’s one-woman show on Broadway, “Wishful Drinking.”  I went not because I’m a little bit of a Carrie Fisher fan; I went because I’m a huge fan of the title.

She opens with an impersonation of her mother’s nightclub act, or maybe it’s of herself in her mother’s act, as she then winds up through the years of growing up in a celebrity home, a broken celebrity home, and then through her problems with alcoholism, drugs, and mental illness.  She even shows us how her photo appears next to the textbook image of bipolar disorder.  Well, actually, it’s a photo of Princess Leia.  Like Carrie Fisher doesn’t have the disorder; that intergalactic princess does.

The show is good because she’s funny and in a way acknowledges that even things that she complains about, like having life-sized sex dolls made in her image, are not that bad.  She may be forever known as Princess Leia, but does being an icon really suck?  Probably not.  She does a good job of making the audience feel like she’s just like us – real person, real problems, and all that.  And, she makes an effort to involve the audience, including the opening where she sprinkles glitter over each individual in the front row.  This included me, and in my case, it was more a shower of glitter.  Later that night, I would come home late and find glitter in my bra.

As I sat there, I thought about the show’s home, the theater that used to be the old Studio 54.  Carrie even mentions what Studio 54 used to be like, as she had been there a few times.

I thought about how I was there in Studio 54, 30 years too late, lacking drinks and wishing for them.  Carrie was there, but a little older, and no Paul Simon.  But I did have glitter in my hair.

::CC also writes at Lowbrow Life::

October 26, 2009 8:42 am

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