Carrie Fisher Stars in Her Autobiographical Solo Show Wishful Drinking at Berkeley Rep
Berkeley Repertory Theatre (2025 Addison Street Berkeley, CA 94704)
- Full Price:
- $33.00 - $63.00
- Our Price:
- $16.50 - $31.50*
* Additional fees apply.
All offers for Wishful Drinking have expired.
The last date listed for Wishful Drinking was Sunday July 19, 2009 / 7:00pm.
Currently at Berkeley Repertory Theatre:
Monday Night PlayGround at Berkeley Rep
- Full Price:
- $15.00
- Our Price:
- $7.50
Come see where the theater pros go to play on their night off. Now in its 18th season, PlayGround identifies a select group of the Bay Area's best emerging professional playwrights and asks them to submit original ten-page plays -- all on a pre-determined single topic. From those submissions, six short works are chosen for staged readings to be performed by leading local directors and actors each month. Pre-show discussions provide further insight into the chosen topic, the writers' processes and more. Learn More
Goldstar Member Tips
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julie lee on What to Wear
Casual is fine
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julie lee on Where to Park
Street parking can be difficult
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Ray Q. on Where to Park
Easy free street parking (after 6 PM) just two blocks away around the local park.
Goldstar Member Reviews
Barry R.
Uneven but enjoyable, expecially the bits about hollywood inbreeding. Great set!Written on Jul 13 2009
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James
Would have gotten two stars if it was local theater, but this is a celebrity and successful screenwriter… more should be expected. I thought she’d be much more clever and entertaining, and perhaps address the issue in the show’s title. Overall the show offered rather shallow observations of the lives of other people and not hers.Written on Jul 10 2009
She summed it up herself at the very beginning with her self-introduction: "My name is Carrie Fisher and I'm an alcoholic." This is obviously a woman who has told her story a few too many times at 12 step meetings, gotten some good laughs, and decided to bring it to the world. I assume that when the show first started she must have had some deeper insights about herself that addressed the show’s title, but those seem to have been lost in revision.
During the first act I took a few little naps while she dragged on about everybody else’s bad marriages. The second act was a little tighter writing with a few more clever lines and references, but it wasn't all that interesting or insightful either. And outwardly blaming her electroshock treatments as an excuse for stumbling and forgetting so many of her lines was just lame… she’s been doing this show for well over a year now.
Overall it seemed to be a stretched out effort to squeeze every last drop of potential humor (and money) out of things that just aren’t that funny to start with.
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Robert S.
I've always loved Carrie Fisher's written wit in book and screenplay formats. This was a highly entertaining and enjoyable evening. What a life she's had! Definitely recommend for fans of everything from Star Wars to Debbie Reynolds to Postcards from the Edge.Written on Jul 20 2009
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Jerry D.
Went but set up in the rafters. Missed some of the diolog. What I heard was funny.Written on Jul 10 2009
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Member Photos
More Information About Wishful Drinking
Website
http://www.berkeleyrep.org/season/0809/4029.asp
Quotes & Highlights
- “Fisher knows how to write wickedly comic material and, better still, how to deliver it. It’s also quite brave…Princess Leia is just telling her life story—as honestly, sardonically, fetchingly, caustically and comically as she can.” --San Francisco Chronicle
- “Berkeley Rep...is now giving the hapless daughter of Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher an opportunity to be drop-dead funny about a string of personal crises so horrific that the only alternative to laughing at them is slashing your wrists in sympathy.” --Wall Street Journal
- “Convulsively funny…A lightsaber-sharp comedy about the dark side of celebrity…Fisher is a cheerfully tart one-liner machine, regaling us with the deadpan jewels that made her autobiography, Postcards from the Edge, twinkle…The lightsaber-sharp comedy will be irresistible to anyone who knows his Jedi from his Jabba.” --San Jose Mercury News
- “Frank and forthcoming and, I’m delighted to say, occasionally filthy, Wishful Drinking is a theatrical memoir with a whole lot of kick…Fisher is hilarious” --Oakland Tribune
- “Fisher is wickedly funny and undaunted to stand before all of us simply as herself.” --SF Bay Guardian
- “She’s an absolute riot. What a surprise performance. I could see it again, and I will…You’ll double over laughing at the skeletons in Carrie’s closet.” --KGO Radio
Description
In Wishful Drinking, Carrie Fisher tells a true and intoxicating story with the strong, wry wit that she poured into bestsellers like Postcards from the Edge. Born to celebrity parents, she became a silver-screen princess in the original Star Wars when just 19 years of age. But it isn’t all sweetness and lightsabers. Aside from a demanding career and her role as a single mom, our heroine spends her free time battling addiction, weathering the wild ride of manic depression and lounging around mental institutions. It’s an incredible tale—from having Elizabeth Taylor as a stepmother, to wedding (and shedding) Paul Simon, from having the father of her baby leave her for a man, to waking up one morning and finding a friend dead in her bed. Entertainment Weekly declares Drinking “drolly hysterical,” and the Los Angeles Times dubs it a “Beverly Hills yard sale of juicy anecdotes.” Berkeley Rep is Wishful Drinking’s final stop before opening on Broadway this fall—don’t miss this outrageous chance to get Carried away.
About the Ticket Supplier: Berkeley Repertory Theatre
Known for its amazing and adventurous audience, the nonprofit has provided a home for emerging and established artists since 1968. With two stages and a Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre, Berkeley Rep premieres exhilarating new plays and reimagined classics. In the last five years alone, the company has helped send five shows to Broadway: Green Day's American Idiot, Bridge & Tunnel, In the Next Room (or the vibrator play), Passing Strange and Wishful Drinking. Come see tomorrow's plays today at Berkeley Rep.
Berkeley Rep operates two performance spaces: the Roda Theatre, a state-of-the-art 600-seat proscenium theatre, and the intimate, 400-seat Thrust Stage. The Theatre is located in the heart of downtown Berkeley's arts district, just a half block from the Berkeley BART station, near lots of restaurants, cafe, pubs, and cool retailers.