I’ll Eat You Last
Opening Night: April 24, 2013
Closing: June 30, 2013
Theater: Booth Theatre
Sue Mengers (Bette Midler) was an American original. She was the first female "superagent" at a time when women talent agents of any kind were almost unheard of. She came from near poverty, a refugee from Hitler’s Germany, and worked her way up through pluck, charm, and a legendary wit. In that uniquely American way, she invented herself; and when the career she wanted didn’t exist, she invented that as well: "Superagent." It was a term Hollywood all but coined for her. By the 1970’s, she represented almost every major star in Hollywood and went on to become the town’s most renowned hostess. Joe Mantello directs.
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April 24, 2013
Literally the mother of all Hollywood superagents, Sue Mengers let it be known she was displeased at being crassly parodied by Shelley Winters in a giant muumuu in the 1981 Blake Edwards comedy S.O.B. But as famously abrasive as she could be, it’s impossible to believe the late Mengers wouldn’t have puckered up for John Logan’s big wet kiss, I’ll Eat You Last. It’s equally hard to imagine her not being tickled by the eternally fabulous Bette Midler’s portrayal of her – a fusion of one self-made, larger-than-life persona with another in which the dividing lines all but vanish.
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April 24, 2013
Enthroned on her couch in Beverly Hills, Hollywood superagent Sue Mengers did not go gentle into that good night but, instead, gossiped and tattled against the dying of the light.
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April 24, 2013
Chances are you are not a movie star. Chances are equally good that this state of affairs is not likely to change soon. But if you’ve ever wondered what it might be like to explore that golden realm where the gods and goddesses of the screen dwell, race over to the Booth Theater, where you can enjoy an audience with a woman who consorted almost exclusively with box office luminaries, or “twinklies” as she affectionately calls them.
READ THE REVIEWApril 24, 2013
Bette Midler takes a luxuriant drag from the joint she’s holding in one hand, then a quick puff on a cigarette in the other. She’s lit, and she glows like she owns the place, which she does, a studiedly taste-free mansion flooded with pale golden sunlight streaming through acres of glass.
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April 24, 2013
Just imagine the excitement if Bette Midler came to Broadway in a big, splashy musical. What a shame she couldn’t be squeezed into the cast of “Priscilla Queen of the Desert,” which she helped produce two seasons ago.
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