I'll Eat You Last: A Chat With Sue Mengers Broadway Reviews

Tangy and funny as much of Mr. Logan's writing is, the play would hardly transmit the contact high it does without the presence of Ms. Midler. As a performer she shares certain qualities associated with her subject: an ability to make the crassest vulgarities sound like crystalline repartee, an earthy glamour and a preening, kittenish imperiousness that's somehow warmly endearing. It is hard to imagine any other actor imbuing the character with the same seductive effervescence - or giving a feeling of perpetual motion to a 90-minute monologue without even standing up. (Dressed in a shapely blue tent adorned with silvery spangles designed by Ann Roth, Ms. Midler looks smashing enough to single-handedly revive the muumuu.)

The role fits Midler like a glove and she does not disappoint under Joe Mantello's direction. And anyone who likes both Midler and gossip about 1970s Hollywood ought to have a good time. But in light of this rare opportunity to catch Midler onstage, a more substantial meal would have been nice instead of 90 minutes of pure dessert.

'I'll Eat You Last' is a highly packaged theatrical offering, more marketed than written. Indeed, there's more insight into Mengers and the changing nature of the agentry business in Peter Biskind's 2000 Vanity Fair account of her rise from William Morris secretary to unstoppable Hollywood power broker, followed by the sudden fall that was somewhat softened by the prominence of her much-coveted salon.

There are some overlaps between 'I'll Eat You Last' and 'Lucky Guy,' the stage biography of journalist Mike McAlary, starring Tom Hanks. Both require some knowledge of the world they are showing and both look sadly on a lost time that was more freewheeling and fun. 'I guess that's what's changed about Hollywood most. We used to laugh more. Honey, we used to have fun,' Midler says. 'Trust me, you'll miss me when I'm gone.'

Midler's consummate ability to deliver brassy chutzpah, fierceness and silky comic seduction at the same time is harnessed to perfection, allowing just a judicious whisper of vulnerability. Infusing her performance with equal parts Sue and Bette, plus a dash of her old Sophie Tucker routines, she makes this role her bitch.

Midler, as you might imagine, gives good dish. Superlative dish, even. There will be some for whom 90 minutes in the presence of an outsize character playing an outsize character will be a most delightful evening, leaving ample time for post-show martinis. That's the appeal of this pain-free bit of cannibalism. Meanwhile, the rest of America, the one without the invite, has to worry about more substantial matters.

But even as gifted a director as Joe Mantello can't make us care much about this character who figured so powerfully in a small circle of wildly self-important 'friends.' Those who come knowing Midler but not Mengers (who died in 2011) will be disappointed by this weightless valedictory, for there's no swan, and no song.

Midler only leaves the sumptuous peach Ultrasuede couch - the centerpiece of Scott Pask's perfectly Mengersian set, lit with sophistication by Hugh Vanstone - when the dishy 90-minute show is over. (A perfectly placed bit of audience interaction spices up the goings-on.) Yet even before she speaks, Midler owns the place with one flip of her frosted coif. With dynamic direction from Joe Mantello, the star makes lounging and smoking look both lazy and athletic - the very opposite approach to monologue from Fiona Shaw's showy exertions in The Testament of Mary. Which is fine because, kiddies, Mengers has much to say and all the time in the world to say it.

But Midler is delicious and worth crossing the playground to get a ticket.

Under Joe Mantello's pitch-perfect direction, Midler dives into the role with predictable relish -- which is not to say that she chews the scenery. However brassy her persona, Mengers clearly valued taste and discretion, as Pask's spacious, elegant scenic reminds us. Holding court over an audience whose members, as she repeatedly informs us, aren't nearly distinguished enough to warrant an invitation to her house, the actress brings an element of wry detachment to even some more personal observations.

Which, despite the expert attention of director Joe Mantello, is what I'll Eat You Last would do without Midler. She isn't delivering an impersonation or even exactly acting a role; she's running the Mengers prototype through her own sensibility and seeing what comes out.

By the chat's end, Midler's star power and timing have once again proved incomparable. I defy anyone else to get as much as she does out of the moment when Sue looks at the receiver, waiting for Barbra, and shrieks 'Call me, you cunt!'

Director Joe Mantello no doubt has something to do with Midler's emotional shadings and he otherwise provides a posh production. Draped by designer Ann Roth in a voluminous sea-blue caftan, sporting oversized glasses and long pewter-blond bangs that she often sweeps back with an airy gesture, the exuberant Midler appears entirely comfortable inhabiting Mengers' florid persona, and that's half the battle of animating a solo show. Consider 'I'll Eat You Last' as a serving of fruity sherbet to end the Broadway season and you may not feel so guilty over enjoying this trifle.

For her first Broadway appearance since 'Clams on the Half Shell' 38 years ago, Bette Midler split the difference between playing it safe and taking a risk.

How much fun is it to have Bette Midler curled up barefoot on a sofa on a Broadway stage, chatting at us for 90 minutes in a periwinkle blue caftan with silver sparkles to match her long fingernails? So much fun that, even when the script doesn't scintillate as much as it intends to, a happy contentment seems to permeate the theater.

A live-action piece of Vanity Fair puffery, littered with boldfaced name-dropping, I'll Eat You Lastexists primarily as a platform for Midler's return to the Broadway stage in her first nonsinging role. The part itself-brassy, bossy, warmly outré-fits neatly into her comfort zone, and it's enjoyable at first to watch her hold court in tinted glasses and a powder-blue muumuu, drawing out her consonants like slingshots for her vowels, gabbing about whatever pops into her Beverly Hills kop.But Midler never quite settles into character. The jokes, tossed off with a hint of Sophie Tucker, sound like concert patter minus the songs; dramatic moments sink into labored schmaltz. Perhaps her performance will improve with time, but for now it's a shticky wicket.