Joy Behar, Adrienne C. Moore, Tovah Feldshuh, and Susie Essman star in My First Ex-Husband (photo by Joan Marcus)
MY FIRST EX-HUSBAND
MMAC Theater
248 West Sixtieth St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Wednesday – Sunday through April 20, $69-$186
www.myfirstexhusband.com
Joy Behar looks at the lighter side of marital strife in the funny and affecting My First Ex-Husband, which opened last night at MMAC Theater. Based on interviews Behar conducted with numerous women, the eighty-five-minute play consists of eight poignant monologues delivered by four actors, taking turns at the front podium, where the script is there for them to refer to.
Behar, the longtime host of The View who has appeared in such shows as The Food Chain and The Vagina Monologues and written Crisis in Queens, Bonkers in the Boroughs, and Me, My Mouth and I, introduces the play by pointing out that nearly half of US marriages end in divorce. She asks the audience how many of them are divorced, then follows that up by saying, “How many of you wish you were?”
Through February 23, the the initial cast features the Brooklyn-born Behar, who is on her second marriage; two-time Emmy nominee and four-time Tony nominee Tovah Feldshuh (Funny Girl, Golda’s Balcony), a Manhattan native who has been married to the same man sine 1977; NAACP Image Award winner Adrienne C. Moore (The Taming of the Shrew, For Colored Girls . . . ,), who hails from Nashville; and Behar’s bestie of more than forty years, the Bronx-born Susie Essman (Curb Your Enthusiasm, Broad City), who has been married since 2008.
In the first monologue, “Clothes Make the Man?,” Serena (Essman) talks about dealing with her ex-husband’s fetish of wearing women’s clothes. In “The Widow,” June (Feldshuh) shares her abandonment issues and her ex’s obsession with her weight. In “Where Are You At,” Laila (Moore) is a successful actress on the brink of stardom whose husband is cheating on her. And in “The Touch,” Monica (Behar) discovers a new side of herself when her bookie husband is sent to the hoosegow.
Adrienne C. Moore nearly steals the show at MMAC Theater (photo by Joan Marcus)
Behar has a penchant for strong first lines, as demonstrated by the below examples.
“The Widow”: “Okay, my husband’s dead.”
“Walla Walla Bang Bang”: “My shrink says that it’s important to have some things in common with your spouse.”
“The Drummer’s Wife”: “I was on my way to the honeymoon, and I was thinking, ‘How am I gonna get out of this.’”
“Get Off of Me”: “I really don’t belong here tonight because I’m not divorced yet. But I’m on the cusp.”
It’s no surprise that the topic that comes up the most is not money or age or children but sex. “He was respectful and didn’t pressure me to have sex,” Serena says. Laila remembers when her husband asked her, “Can I please have sex on the side? I’ll be discreet.” In “Walla Walla Bang Bang,” Jessica (Essman) explains about her ex, “He also was a product of his strict Catholic upbringing, and he didn’t function very well sexually. In my opinion, religion can fuck up your libido.” In “Wigged Out,” an arranged Orthodox marriage between Rebecca (Feldshuh) and a teenage boy is complicated by her vaginismus. And in “Get Off of Me,” Gloria (Moore) thinks her husband might be a sex addict.
Under the unobtrusive direction of Randal Myler (Hank Williams: Lost Highway, Love, Janis), the ensemble, all dressed in black, is excellent, but Feldshuh and Moore deserve extra accolades for their performances, Feldshuh for injecting a sly sense of humor and Moore for bringing down the house several times with her energetic movement and overall enthusiasm, even when she’s sitting in the back watching the others, waiting for her turn.
From February 26 to March 23, Judy Gold, Susan Lucci, Cathy Moriarty, and Tonya Pinkins take over, followed March 26 to April 20 by Veanne Cox, Gina Gershon (April 2–20), Jackie Hoffman, and Andrea Navedo.
You should go no matter what state your own relationship is in, but don’t get any ideas.
[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]