Dishing with Bette Midler as Sue Mengers in I’ll Eat You Last

One of super agent Sue Mengers’ many rules for dealing with divas is never remind them of the beginning when you are walking them down the red carpet on the way to the Oscars. For example, do not say to Diana Ross, we are a far cry from when you were giving Berry Gordy blowjobs in the back seat of a limo. Taking that cue, it would be just wrong to remind the Divine Miss M of her work at the Continental Baths backed by the Harlettes before her Broadway revue, Clams on the Halfshell. Then again, she was so fabulous back in the day, and incarnating Sue Mengers, in I'll Eat You Last, a show that does not even touch her mega singing chops, she’s fabulous now.

Seated in her living room at the Booth Theater, in Scott Pask’s set that inspires envy and lit spectacularly by Hugh Vanstone to show the waning hours of the evening, Sue Mengers, in Ann Roth’s turquoise silken caftan, sits on her plush sofa awaiting a call from Barbra Streisand, who, nee Bar-bar -a, has just fired her as beloved agent that afternoon. The phone sits ominously by her side. Calls do come in, one from Sissy Spacek allowing Mengers to instruct on how to steal a client in the guise of giving motherly advice, going to the lengths of visiting her farm, sacrificing her Chanel pumps to the mud. A Holocaust kid, Mengers honed her moxie and mouth just to cross the playground.

Deploying both, she recounts her biggest heartbreak till now, when Ali McGraw, smitten with Steve McQueen, divorces Bob Evans and her career to become a homemaker. This being a night of curious synergy, Ali McCraw is in the room, finding Midler as Mengers “jaw-dropping.” And Streisand is downtown celebrating her birthday. Framing as she does, John Logan’s witty, rich script, she might have laughed her way through, enjoying this tribute to her perfectionism. Forget her. For an hour and a half, Bette Midler, under Joe Mantello’s deft direction, is bawdy, bitchy and mesmerizing.

If you have something nasty to say about somebody, says Bette as Sue, come sit by me. And the audience for opening night on Wednesday did:  Ellen Barkin, Marlo Thomas, Susan Sarandon, Jon Hamm, Christine Baranski, Sting, Barbara Walters, Narcisco Rodriguez, Anjelica Huston, Jack Huston, Harvey Weinstein, Graydon Carter, Victor Garber, Larry Kramer, agent Boaty Boatwright, and gossip doyenne Liz Smith, to name a few, but the buzz was only positive. At the after party at, where else, The Russian Tea Room, the petite, curvy and gracious Bette Midler greeted them all. Kathy Griffiths who knew Mengers opined, “Bette was born to play this part.”

Regina Weinreich

Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura

 

 

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