Wishful Drinking

Went to see Carrie Fisher’s one woman show “Wishful Drinking” last night at the Seattle Rep Theatre. I’ve read all of Ms. Fisher’s books and appreciate her perspective on life. She makes lovely use of irony and sarcasm, which of course, I wholeheartedly embrace. She’s also a recovering alcoholic and drug addict, which makes everything a little more interesting. Toss in a tad of bipolar disorder and she’s super-fun.

The show started off with her singing – turns out she has a really good voice - while a screen displayed old newspaper headlines about her parents. In case you’re not up on Carrie Fisher’s background, her mom is Debbie Reynolds & her dad is Eddie Fisher. Their best friends were Mike Todd & Elizabeth Taylor. After Todd died in a plane crash, Eddie left Debbie for Elizabeth (who left Eddie for Richard Burton). She compared it to Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie for any folks in the audience who were too young to know the players.

She talked about her dad now dating “all of Chinatown”, which, she claimed, makes sense because he’s had so much plastic surgery, he looks Asian. Heh. There were charts & diagrams, talk about her friend dying in her bed (from sleep apnea + ya know, a lot oxycontin) a few years ago, mental illness, Star Wars (she put on the hair) and of course, dating & marrying folks like Paul Simon (she played a song he wrote about her and claimed she wasn’t paying him for using the song in the show because she didn’t take any alimony…) and Bryan Lourd (who she says claims that she turned him gay. She talked about how she uses this super-power on a regular basis). Much fun was had by all.

Here’s a video I shot where she’s discussing Star Wars (I made sure to get a bit of her Star Wars discussion cause I know the geeks love that stuff). She also reveals the name of an actor who was almost cast as Hans Solo.

My friend Shoshanna came with me to the show and she wasn’t familiar with Carrie prior, but she left a big fan. Yes, you can look at this as one of the many “survivor” stories out there (and believe me, I’m so over the survivor stories), but it’s much more (and better) than that. The fact that she’s been through all of that and is able to laugh at it is kinda secondary to the fact that this is some seriously funny stuff.

They just announced that the show is heading to Broadway and according to her website, is going to Detroit next, so if you have a chance to see her, get tix asap. I definitely recommend it.