Review: Celebrity Autobiography on Broadway

Before I reviewed shows for TheaterMania, I reviewed books—mostly celebrity memoirs. Working that beat gave me an aversion to the form, which so often feels like a case for the defense, longform propaganda penned not by the subject but a desperate ghost writer who would much rather be creating speculative fiction but can only get paid to list Paris Hilton’s favorite foods. The stench of thwarted ambition wafts off the page, and more than once I found myself wondering, Who would actually spend good time and money to read this?

Eugene Pack has found a way to make these books genuinely entertaining by turning them into theater. For years his Celebrity Autobiography has put audiences in stiches simply by having celebrities read the published words of more famous celebrities. By speaking them out loud, rather than leaving it to the internal voice of the reader, Pack and his ever-changing cast reveal how truly ridiculous these self-serving tomes can be. The show has finally made it to Broadway, where it is slated to play the Shubert Theatre with different readers rotating in and out throughout the summer.

On opening night, Scott Adsit broke the ice with a reading from Don’t Hassel the Hoff, in which the Baywatch star expounds on his time playing “the hardest role on Broadway” (in Jekyll & Hyde) for 72 whole performances. Pack follows this perfect Broadway overture with a brief explanation of how Vanna White’s struggles to turn the letters on Wheel of Fortune (apparently, the subject of a whole chapter in Vanna Speaks) inspired the whole franchise.

Pack, who co-directs the show with longtime collaborator and co-star Dayle Reyfel, smartly curates his readings, often putting two different celebrities in unexpected conversation. We learn that both Justin Bieber (read by Kenan Thompson) and Kris Jenner (read by a hilariously sincere Andrea Martin) have had the experience of upstaging the art at the Louvre, with tourists’ cameras turning away from the Mona Lisa and toward their scrupulously documented faces.

Some of the readers prove excellent mimics: Jeff Hilller does a spot-on Cher, infusing his reading with the urgency of a woman who just wants to eat M&Ms and Jack in the Box, but promised Viola Van Horn that she wouldn’t. And Rita Wilson certainly seems to be making a go at replacing Marla Mindelle in Titaníque with her maple syrup-slathered reading of Céline Dion’s My Story, My Dream.

But I much prefer the readers who, rather than trying to impersonate their subjects, filter their words through their own distinctive voices. Jackie Hoffman tells us she’s Oprah describing the nirvana of a perfect cup of chai; but she still sounds like Jackie Hoffman, which makes this passionate monologue about tea even funnier.

I felt bad for the readers saddled with particularly dull and unknowable celebs, people that are more brand than human at this point: Gayle King made a brief appearance as Beyoncé, reading a passage about her insecurities around her personal appearance that was more tragic than comic. And Christopher Jackson took a swing at Ryan Seacrest, a figure who is simultaneously overexposed and preposterously guarded. A passage about prosciutto on pizza seems to be describing the most erotic experience of the American Idol host’s life. Unfortunately, Jackson seems a little too in on the joke for this moment to be truly funny.

How refreshing it is to encounter a passage of unvarnished honesty, like when Joe Namath (a perfectly matter-of-fact Bobby Moynihan) explains why he’s not ready to get married: “I would cheat.”

Mario Cantone is naturally called upon to play a trio of gay icons: Liza, Carol, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. All slobbering consonants and bared teeth, Cantone delivers the most cartoonish version of his subjects, leaving not a bit of scenery unmasticated.

Derek McLane has designed the seemingly simple set, which simulates an empty theater without actually showing us the innards of the Shubert. An upstage row of books recalls the clearance cart outside the Strand, where unloved celebrity memoirs call out to passers-by, “Please steal me!” McLane outfits the cast in black, while Ed McCarthy’s uncomplicated lighting and Palmer Hefferan’s crisp sound design ensure that our focus stays on the words, vapid though they may be.

The grand finale recounts the love quadrangle of Debbie Reynolds (Reyfel), Eddie Fisher (Pack), Elizabeth Taylor (Wilson), and Richard Burton (Adsit) using three different memoirs as source material. It’s fascinating to clock the contradictions, who catches whom in a lie and who reaches out first to bury the hatchet (spoiler: the subject of the memoir is always the bigger person). More than just a hilarious guilty pleasure, Celebrity Autobiography strikes at the unknowability of history, which is really just a record of the PR that sticks.