Friday March 29, 2024
I'll Eat You Last A Chat with Sue Mengers
Review

I'll Eat You Last A Chat with Sue Mengers

By Caroline Baum
April 28 2013

I'll Eat You Last: a Chat with Sue Mengers, Booth Theatre, 222 W 45th St, NYC; closes June 30, 2013. Photo of Bette Midler by Sara Krulwich/The New York Times; right: photo of Sue Mengers.

CAROLINE BAUM REPORTS FROM BROADWAY

With just a couple of nights to spare in NYC I wanted to see a show that would never transfer to Australia for one reason or another. So I picked I'll Eat You Last as a dead cert. No one could afford to bring Bette Midler to us and besides, not many people in Australia would have heard of the Hollywood maven she plays, Sue Mengers, the flamboyant queen of movie deal-making. (She invented the term "super-agent" to describe herself) and who listed luminaries such as Barbra Streisand, Faye Dunawaye and Jack Nicholson among her clients, or, as she preferred to call them, "twinklies". 

I saw the show in the final week of previews. It was a Saturday matinee and Rita Wilson slipped into the house seats as the lights went down. I guess she doesn't go and see husband Tom Hanks in Lucky Guy, the new Nora Ephron play every day, then. (I passed on this other celebrity vehicle because it had reviews that hinted the play was sentimental and a bit of mess, plus it was about a journo I had never heard of and I wanted a dose of real Broadway glamour for a change.)

Even before she had uttered a single word, Ms Midler got a standing ovation from her adoring audience. She looked pleased as a Cheshire cat, draped in a turquoise kaftan that could have done with a bit more Camilla-style adornment. I know it was designed by Oscar-winning costume design Ann Roth but it lacked weight and sparkle. A bit like the play itself.

The show is produced by Graydon Carter, editor of Vanity Fair and before it opened, Maureen Dowd profiled Mengers in a recent issue of the magazine. Trouble is, the piece delivered all the best one-liners in the play, many of them quoted verbatim, prompting me to assume that Dowd sat in on rehearsals. Having read her article, there were no surprise anecdotes or extra riffs of wit to be had. I expected more from Tony and Golden Globe winner John Logan - who wrote Red about Rothko. This feels like a lazy, perhaps hasty, cut and paste of celebrity quotes and stories that relies almost entirely for its success on the charisma of its solo performer.

I'll Eat You Last A Chat with Sue Mengers

The conceit of the evening and its stilted, selfconscious format is that Mengers is waiting for a call from her first client and dear friend Streisand, who has just defected to another agent. While she waits, she looks back over her life, from German Jewish refugee to Hollywood powerbroker. She indulges her fans with a nice bit of audience participation when she picks a man from the stalls to pour her a drink and pass her a ciggie, and she tells him in no uncertain terms to take his shoes off before walking on her costly rug. Twice. (The set, with its opulent orchid vases, conveys casual Hollywood elegance far better than the kaftan).

Of course Midler holds the stage for the 90-minute monologue with no trouble. She has a mischievous twinkle in her eye, smooths her long bob with elegantly restless hands and is forever plumping sofa cushions. She lights and smokes two cigarettes (one a joint) simultaneously, drawls some words in affected elongated emphasis and rattles out others, telling autobiographical anecdotes in a text that is absolutely expositional, devoid of subtext, complexity or ambiguity. 

The writing is banal and linear and the only moments of colour come from Mengers' undeniable A list gossip. But it is tame and timid stuff and one imagines that she had stories that were far racier, bawdier and more shocking than the ones recounted here. Her naughtiest line has a touch of Mae West: "Elton John is the easiest dinner guest. He'll eat anything except pussy." There is also a good gag about needing to have the house de-sequinned after she bought it from Zsa Zsa Gabor. The rest is thin and allows Midler no emotional range.

I was surprised to see The New York Times praise the play as a "delightful souffle". Frankly, it was so bland I couldn't tell you whether it was flavoured with cheese or with chocolate. All I could taste was air.

 

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