'Wishful' a great couple hours of entertainment
By: Doug Krentzlin
Special to The Examiner
September 10, 2008
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Carrie Fisher performs her solo show "Wishful Drinking" at Arena Stage at the Lincoln Theatre Sept. 5-28. (Photo by Kevin Berne at Berkeley)
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WASHINGTON — One-person stage memoirs are a peculiar subgenre that, depending on the artist in question, can either be very enjoyable or embarrassing displays of narcissism. (Suzanne Somers in "The Blonde in the Thunderbird," anyone?) Fortunately, Carrie Fisher's "Wishful Drinking," which is playing D.C. thanks to Arena Stage, falls into the former category.
Fisher is, of course, the daughter of Hollywood royalty (Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds) who, for better or worse, has earned a permanent place in pop culture history for her portrayal of Princess Leia in the first three "Star Wars" films. (According to Fisher, everybody involved with the first "Star Wars" knew it was going to be a colossal success, except writer-director George Lucas.)
Another legacy of "Star Wars," Fisher notes, is that she is doomed to be associated with one of the goofiest hairdos in the history of the movies. In one of her show's funniest moments, she entices a member of the audience to come up on stage and don a Leia wig so she can confirm that it's not just her who looks ridiculous wearing it.
Fisher also recounts the scandalous breakup of her parents' marriage in the late '50s, when her father dumped her mother for newly widowed Elizabeth Taylor. In a segment of the show called "Hollywood Inbreeding 101," in which Fisher details her parents' various remarriages and the offspring and stepsiblings they produced, she puts it this way for those too young to remember: Her folks were Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston and Liz was Angelina Jolie.
Fisher demonstrates her self-depreciating sense of humor as she covers her own disastrous marriages ("My first husband, Paul Simon, short Jewish singer. My father, short Jewish singer. Do you see a pattern here?") and her well-known battles with alcoholism, substance abuse and manic depression ("Marx called religion the opiate of the masses. I took masses of opiates religiously.")
Carrie Fisher's "Wishful Drinking" is a solid evening (or afternoon) of entertainment. Anyone who can come up with observations like "Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die" is definitely worth spending a couple of hours with.
(If you go: Arena Stage's "Wishful Drinking" runs through Sept. 28; The Lincoln Theatre, 1215 U St., NW; 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday and Sunday (6 p.m. Sept. 14), 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday and 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday; $55 to $74; 202-488-3300; www.arenastage.org)
