REVIEW: Tessa Auberjonois’ uncanny, tour-de-force realization of the icon elevates Daniel Goldstein’s script.
Even if you think you already know most of what there is to know about Joan Rivers, “Joan,” the new world premiere at South Coast Repertory, is a revelation.
Daniel Goldstein’s previously unpublished script peels back the curtain on Rivers’ life from childhood to her waning days doing podcasts with her daughter Melissa.
The show, directed by SCR artistic director David Ivers, is also an ode to theater, with four cast members portraying every role.
During scenes with Tessa Auberjonois as the older, iconic Joan, Elinor Gunn is Melissa. When Gunn is Joan as a young adult, Joan Molinsky, Auberjonois is her mom, Mrs. Molinsky.
With older Joan, Andrew Borba is husband Edgar Rosenberg, and he’s Joan’s dad Mr. Molinsky with younger Joan. He’s also Johnny Carson and others, and Zachary Prince essays the rest of the script’s roles.
Auberjonois delivers a tour de force as the Joan Rivers the world came to know – sharp-tongued, ironic, sarcastic, profane, all with no fear of reprisal from those she insults. The actor has an uncanny way of getting inside the skin of the public Rivers persona without merely doing an impression.
Gunn, alongside this portrayal, does so much more than simply complement the stunning work seen by Auberjonois. In her Melissa persona, Gunn gives us entrée into the family’s lives, allowing us to see Joan through her eyes.
Goldstein’s script doesn’t simply use sleight of hand to accomplish this. He opens showing us the vintage Rivers personality, bringing out Melissa to set the stage.
“That’s my mother,” she tells us. “She’s offensive. That’s what she does.” This brief prologue tells us what to expect, and it’s no surprise when Melissa returns at play’s end to wrap things up.
Auberjonois’ star turn in the key role is vintage Rivers – especially, uncannily, the singular delivery and the voice that goes from breathy to booming, with hilarious pronunciations of seemingly prosaic words.
While Goldstein shows us that show biz and organized crime were equally cutthroat, Rivers insists she lives “the C word – Comedy and Career – with a capital ‘C,’” and that she’s “lucky to have the show biz life.”
A running theme is the comic’s assertion that “show business is a lot like the Mob – it’s a family business.”
“Joan” really gets going by showing us the Molinsky family in 1953: Joan (Gunn) at age 20 dealing with her sardonic mom (Auberjonois) and practical dad (Borba), a doctor who’s good with money but shows little emotion.
Having emigrated from Russia, Joan’s parents expect her to find a wealthy husband – preferably a doctor – marry, settle down and start a family.
Joan finds her dates “so boring,” yet winds up married. Neither her parents nor her husband understand that what drives Joan is the burning desire to take the stage and make people laugh.
Goldstein’s text is anything but a knee-slapper, yet it makes its points, forcefully, its use of Rivers’ one-liners generating the needed authenticity.
As Joan gets career advice from Lou Alexander, a veteran comedian, “Joan” shows us a young woman now divorced, using the stage name “Joan Rivers,” and showing more confidence by leaps and bounds.
Auberjonois lets this new persona put it all out there for her club audiences, turning casting couch sexism into jokes like “I have upholstery burns on my back.”
Joan explains to her bewildered parents that her on-stage persona “is exaggerated – it’s funny.” A key line sums up nearly everything you need to know about “Joan”: “All I want is to be funny and to make the whole goddamn world laugh.”
Not until 1965 does the 32-year-old comic get a shot at guesting on “The Tonight Show,” during which star Johnny Carson tells her “You’re gonna be a star” and invites her to join him at his desk.
Rivers not only achieved celebrity in her chosen field, but carved a fulfilling life in which “I write and tell jokes and get paid for it” and that never stops moving.
Anyone who followed “The Tonight Show” wars and Rivers’ failed attempts to be brought in after Carson’s retirement knows the anguish and disappointment this brought her.
Ditto her life with second husband Edgar Rosenberg (Borba), which was a lot more like a business merger than a happy marriage, including the couple’s failed attempt to keep Rivers’ 1986 late-night show on Fox on the air for more than a year.
“Joan” fully delivers on Rivers’ behind-the-scenes life details with Edgar that are intimate and, in the hands of Ivers and his actors, surprisingly moving. As Joan’s star rises, the stakes are higher – and so is the tension.
Goldstein’s script brilliantly mingles the drama of Rivers’ backstage life and her public persona. Such a solid foundation meshes ideally with Ivers’ direction of his inimitable cast and the bold, striking visuals delivered by Wilson Chin’s modular scenic design and Kish Finnegan’s costumes.
Edgar’s walking out on Joan and committing suicide was the defining tragedy of the comic’s life as “Joan” shows us Rivers on the downside of her career from the ’90s on, including gut-wrenching anguish as Rivers spills her guts in a standup gig at a third-rate Vegas nightspot.
The through-line of SCR’s production is Auberjonois’ bravura, pitch-perfect turn playing someone seemingly familiar. First off is the actor’s delivery – snarky and always self-deprecating, her voice part breathy and excited, part mournful.
The key to this portrayal is that she’s not as hyper as the real Rivers, which humanizes the play’s subject and makes her more accessible.
“Joan” winds up depicting Rivers’ third act during the last three or four years of her life, as she and Melissa join forces for cable shows like “Fashion Police.” This is where Gunn takes over and the audience realizes how her incredible portrayal of Melissa has delivered a profoundly accurate point-of-view of Rivers’ life and career.
Melissa Rivers provided Goldstein plenty of details about the family’s private life, according to director Ivers. A guest at SCR’s opening night performance, she joined the cast on stage as they took their curtain call.
In a nutshell, Goldstein’s script and SCR’s production of it have all that’s needed – the cache of something born of a real person’s life and work and how her tension, drama and laughs are realized on the stage.
‘Joan’
When: Nov. 2-24. 7:45 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays, 3 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays
Where: South Coast Repertory, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa
Admission: $35-$114
Contact: 714-708-5555, scr.org
