Judy Gold examines her life through her favorite sitcoms in new one-woman show (photo by T Charles Erickson)
MY LIFE AS A SITCOM
DR2 Theatre
103 East 15th St. at 20 Union Sq. East
Through September 1, $65
www.judygold.com
With all of the stand-up comics who have had their own sitcoms over the last several decades, it seems like Judy Gold’s life would make for one great show. The six-foot-three Jewish lesbian mother of two boys, who met her current girlfriend, a Jewish therapist from Rochester, in a magazine singles column, has won two Daytime Emmys for writing and producing The Rosie O’Donnell Show, staged her own one-woman success, 25 Questions for a Jewish Mother, and recently appeared on Broadway in Love, Loss, and What I Wore. But still no sitcom. So she’s taken matters into her own hands with her solo play, The Judy Show: My Life as a Sitcom. Running through September 10 at the DR2 Theatre in Union Square, the eighty-minute production examines Gold’s life through the lens of her obsession with the sitcoms of the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s.
TICKET GIVEAWAY: We have four pairs of tickets to The Judy Show to give away for free. To be eligible to win, just send your name, daytime phone number, and all-time favorite sitcom to contest@twi-ny.com by Wednesday, July 20, at 5:00 pm. All entrants must be twenty-one years of age or older; four winners will be selected at random. Enter now to see if you will strike gold!
Award-winning documentarian Errol Morris’s ninth feature-length film is a lighthearted look at self-delusion, tabloid journalism, and just how far someone might go for love. In 1977, a story broke in England about Joyce McKinney, a young woman accused of kidnapping a Mormon missionary, chaining him to a bed, and forcing him to have sex with her for three days. But the former beauty queen claimed that it was completely consensual, that she and Kirk Anderson were in love but that he was being brainwashed by his religious leaders. Morris speaks at length with the vivacious and engaging McKinney, who clearly loves talking about herself and her sex life. Morris also interviews two of the British journalists who originally covered the sordid story, the Mirror’s Kent Gavin and the Daily Express’s Peter Tory; while one bought McKinney’s tale hook, line, and sinker, the other discovered that there was a lot more to this crazy character. Much of the charm of Tabloid, which Morris calls a return to the “sick, sad, and funny” genre he explored in such earlier works as 1978’s Gates of Heaven and 1981’s Vernon, Florida, involves the many twists and turns the tale takes; just wait until cloning enters the picture. Along the way, Morris eschews the re-creations he often uses in his films in favor of unrelated clips that heighten the tone and mood but often feel like unnecessary overkill. In the end, it doesn’t really matter who’s telling the truth; as with so much tabloid journalism, it’s all in the salacious details. While the misnamed Tabloid — the film is really about McKinney herself much more than British journalism in general — doesn’t hit the serious notes of such Morris gems as The Thin Blue Line, The Fog of War, and Standard Operating Procedure, it’s still a hell of a lot of fun.
