“Celebrity Autobiography,” a revue in which performers make fun of celebrities by reading from their cringe-worthy memoirs, made me laugh when I first saw it more than a decade ago at the Triad, a cramped second floor cabaret venue on West 72nd Street. But, presented now at Broadway’s Shubert Theater, it plays differently for me, not least because it reminds me of the recent “All In” and “All Out.” Like those shows, it charges as much as $320 a ticket for a rotating cast of celebrities to read funny passages aloud from a series of published texts. The difference is that none of the lines that are being read aloud in “Celebrity Autobiography” were originally intended to be funny. The authors were simply so clueless, vapid or self-centered that they inadvertently produced something literally laughable. There were any number of funny or at least eye-rolling moments at the performance I attended. But it would be delusional for anybody in the audience to think they are somehow striking a blow against our celebrity-obsessed culture by paying to see current-day celebrities make fun on Broadway of other celebrities, many of whom either stretch the definition of celebrity or are now long dead.
Eugene Pack tumbled cheerfully onto the stage to explained that he and Dayle Reyfel were first inspired to create their show three decades ago after reading Wheel of Fortune co-host Vanna White’s 1987 memoir “Vanna Speaks.” Passages from that seminal tome were then read by Jeff Hiller (whose own recent memoir revolves around the many celebrity memoirs that he reads obsessively, making him a natural pick as one of the current cast members.) Her job is not “the most intellectually challenging jobs in the world; few jobs are,” we hear, but there was a reason why, out of 200 people who auditioned, she was the one chosen; she thinks it was because of the way she turned the letters.
Hiller later follows up as Sandy the dog from “Annie,” passages from his memoir name-dropping all the famous people who patted his head. He and Jackie Hoffman as Oprah gave the most memorable readings. Mario Cantone tried the hardest to get the accents right, from Arnold Schwarzenegger to Carol Channing (who mostly disses competitively about Barbra Streisand.)
The memoirs were often grouped together according to theme. We heard passages about food and diet alternatively from Neal Sedaka, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Dolly Parton, and later passages about sports and fitness alternatively from Schwarzenegger, Joe Namath (who talked mostly about his hair), Tiger Woods (whose nearly every utterance about his putting was an unintentional double-entendre), and Khloe Kardashian (who, in Reyfel’s reading, had a unique way of pronouncing “abs.”) There was a poetry corner, with the recitation of some egregious verses by Matthew McConaughey and Suzanne Somers.
The selection of passages apparently changes from night to night, but the finale is likely to remain the same, the story of the infamous romantic relay involving Debbie Reynolds, Eddie Fischer, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, as told in competing memoirs. Admittedly this is the most theatrically realized moment in the show; I might be alone in having found it dated and mean-spirited.
The Triad, which is about one-tenth the size of the Shubert, is also the venue where I saw “Spamilton” and “Forbidden Broadway.” These are two popular, oft-produced revues that rely on Broadway for their material and on savvy Broadway theatergoers for their audience, but don’t belong on Broadway (which “Forbidden Broadway” learned the hard way.) There is a sense of intimacy and informality, a standing apart and aside from the mainstream; outsiders kibbitzing. It would lose something to thrust them into the mainstream.
“Celebrity Autobiography” has never been as much a by-product of Broadway, although this Broadway edition has added a few Broadway-centric passages. On the night I attended, it began with Scott Adsit reading from one of David Hasselhoff’s memoirs: “Knight Rider made me famous. Baywatch made me rich. But Broadway had always been my dream,” recounting as unprecedentedly grueling his Broadway debut as the replacement Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde – nearly three months of performances, two separate characters, 14 different songs! Yes, there is a humorous lack of awareness, a touch of self-aggrandizement in his account. But here it is being read on a Broadway stage by Scott Adsit, granted a talented comedian (veteran of The Second City and 30 Rock) making his own Broadway debut reading from a few books for a few minutes for a week.
Celebrity Autobiography
Shubert Theater through August 16
Running time: 75 minutes, no intermission
Tickets: $49 – $329. Digital lottery and digital rush: $49
Created, co-developed and co-directed by Eugene Pack and Dayle Reyfel
Scenic and costume design by Derek McLane, lighting design by Ed McCarthy, sound design by Palmer Hefferan.
The cast I saw: Scott Adsit, Mario Cantone, Jeff Hiller, Jackie Hoffman, Leslie Rodriguez Kritzer, Ben Mankiewicz, Eugene Pack, Dayle Reyfel, Bruce Vilanch
