12 Photos
Some of Justin Bieber’s “Beliebers” might actually want to know about the pop star’s discovery of dulce con leche con brownie—a “sweet, creamy ice cream with brownie chunks,” as he describes it in his second autobiography, “Just Getting Started”—in painstaking detail.Maybe a laundry list of George Hamilton’s favorite snacks, or Joe Namath’s constant struggle with his hair, are truly fascinating to diehard fans.
For playwright and performer Eugene Pack, it is all pure gold. And his Drama Desk Award-winning show, “Celebrity Autobiography,” is dependent on it.
“This is probably the only show that’s ever been inspired by Vanna White’s autobiography, called ‘Vanna Speaks,’” Mr. Pack said on Saturday night in the green room at Guild Hall in East Hampton, having just come off the stage from the first of two sold-out, back-to-back performances. “I was leafing through it and said, ‘Wait a minute—there’s a whole chapter where she describes how challenging it is to flip the panels on ‘Wheel of Fortune.’ I thought, if you read this without any inflection in front of an audience, this would be mind-blowing.”
Mr. Pack got to work.
Over the last 10 years, he and his team have scoured more than 300 memoirs, self-help and fitness books, searching for the best superstar material for actors to perform, word for word.
“All this just tells me not to write [a memoir],” actor Ralph Macchio said in the green room, after impersonating the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger, accent and all, and David Hasselhoff. “But this is so much fun. I want to have a couple glasses of wine right now—but no, not yet. One more show to go.”
At 9:30 p.m., Mr. Pack kicked off the second staging with a disclaimer. “Before we begin the show, it’s really important everyone realize that every single word you’re about to hear on this stage was written in their own words—meaning, we are not making any of this up,” he said. “And it’s going to be very hard to believe that. Seriously, I’m not kidding. We could not even make this stuff up if we tried.”
While the humor does lie in the content, its foundation rests with the actor’s delivery—usually straightforward, monotone and deadpan, as long as he or she can keep a straight face, or completely extreme with an over-the-top impression. There is no in-between.
Actor Jerry O’Connell showed an incredible range, from Mr. Namath to rapper LL Cool J, while his co-star, Christie Brinkley, took on Beyoncé to Dolly Parton.
“I think people can’t quite get over what other people want other people to know,” Ms. Brinkley said, checking her Instagram account outside the green room after the first show before snapping a selfie with her co-star, Susan Lucci. “That they actually think that other people are interested in that kind of minutiae of their lives. It’s like, really? They actually wrote that? What they’ve chosen not to change is just ...” She dropped her jaw, shaking out her blonde mane. “I find it hysterical.”
Rounding out the cast was Alec Baldwin, as well as co-creator Dayle Reyfel and Tony Danza, whose segment involving Marilu Henner—Mr. Danza’s co-star on “Taxi”—and David Cassidy was a clear audience favorite.
“Tooooony Danza,” Ms. Reyfel read from Ms. Henner’s memoir to an eruption of laughter and applause as Mr. Danza stood next to her, his face playfully tight, “was adorable. Tony would walk in, back me up against a wall, or throw me down on a table, and kiss and grope me all over as someone would yell out, ‘Is Tony in yet?’ That kind of frisky energy drove life on the set.”
Just when he thought he was off the hook, reading a seedy passage from Mr. Cassidy about an awkward sexual encounter with his “Partridge Family” TV sister, Susan Dey, Ms. Reyfel paused and launched back in.
“Tooooony ...” she said, pausing for effect, “and I—hallways, airplanes, you name it, we did it!”
He pursed his lips and smirked.
“We often went for 15-rounders,” she continued.
“Woohoo!” an audience member cheered.
“We just zeroed in on each other in a big, cheek-biting kind of way,” she concluded.
As an aside, Mr. Danza added, “She used a boxing metaphor? Really?” referring to his short-lived boxing career.
In the green room, the actor said the comedic genius that comes with Ms. Reyfel baring all about his sex life, in front of a packed audience, on Ms. Henner’s behalf is worth any and all embarrassment.
“Well, that’s a little weird. It really is,” he said. “And you know, it’s just a commentary on youth, and then it comes back to haunt you. To tell you the truth, she was my first girlfriend in Hollywood, and I loved her very much. I still do. It’s weird to end up in [the show], but as a performer, you know it’s gonna kill.”
He laughed, and continued, “It’s amazing what people will write in their books,” he said. “It’s stunning. The material’s so good, you can’t mess it up. But the narrative, there’s no embellishment. Marilu—every word was true, I hate to say it.”
on Aug 27, 2014