Customer Reviews

Whoopi: Back to Broadway - The 20th Anniversary

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I worked the entire run of Whoopi's Broadway Debut on the theatre staff, and I remember it vividly. It was Broadway's Lyceum Theatre, the same stage used for another historic TV special, LIZA WITH A Z.

First of all, a correction to what I've read above... this was never called The Spook Show. She may have done something earlier with that title but on Broadway it was just WHOOPI GOLDBERG. This show was far more than standup comedy, it was Performance Art. Sure, she made you laugh, but she also worked your other emotions and made you think.

The show consisted of six great characters: Act I - Fontaine the Junkie, The Surfer Chick, and The Disabled Girl. Act II - The Raisin Lover, The Old Entertainer, and The Little Girl with the Shirt on her Head. The show ran just about two hours. No costume or makeup changes were used... just Whoopi's own face, body... and TALENT.

When her name went up on the marquee, neither the public, nor the theatre staff, had any idea who this person was. After watching one performance, we were fans. Before her second performance, Whoopi got a nice note from one of the ushers. After the audience left, she looked into the house, figured out which usher it was, walked to the edge of the stage, and called out to him. She held out her hand, but gave more than a handshake. She pulled him onstage and said "come meet Mike," then introduced him to her producer/director, Mike Nichols. A few weeks later the same usher sent a little gift from the show home to Whoopi's mom. Before the house opened for next show, he was summoned to the stage for "a message from my mother" which turned out to be a warm hug.

The entire production staff was three people: A Stage Manager, A Spotlight Guy, and an Unknown Star. So who was this down-to-earth talent going to hang with? Seven ushers. After meeting her, we were all in her corner, and she, in ours.

Whoopi usually hung in the seats with us before the house opened. With the backdrop up, you had a clear view down the hall to the stage door. One afternoon, an usher arrived late, and tried to slip along the stage wall to the usher's room. Whoopi spotted him, and called out "Look, there's X coming in late, trying not to be noticed!" When told of a common mishap with patrons sitting in the wrong seats, Whoopi added a "be kind to your ushers" message to her curtain speech. Another night, while hanging with the staff, the stage manager told Whoopi that a certain well-known pop diva was coming backstage after the show, and wanted some extra "security." Remember, this was a small theatre and there were only a handful of us. "Tell her we'll lock the door" she laughed.

Early in the run, a lady called the stage door and asked, "So Vhat's a Vhoopi Goldboig?" The Doorman described her as very talented, but the next detail (black) made the lady hang up. The story was passed on to Whoopi, and that lady became a funny little character in her curtain speech.

The opening of her show firmly established that there was no fourth wall, and that Whoopi was more than willing (and totally able) to improvise in character with whatever happened. She did that often, but we don't see much of it here.

One night, an embarrassed usher tried to avoid eye contact with the stage as he escorted three successive groups of latecomers to their seats. He noticed that the theatre had fallen silent, and realized the star had focused her attention into the house. Knowing her spontaneous nature, he ran back and ducked behind the seats. Silence. After a long pause, he peeked up and saw her staring right at him. In mock indignation (and in complete character) she said "Don't bring no more people down here!" Not an official complaint, just a spontaneous funny moment in her show. At other times she might address latecomers directly: "Where the hell have you been?" She was master of that stage, and held court with engaging skill.

Word of mouth quickly made this enormous talent the darling of Broadway, with celebrities in the house nearly every night.

Through eight shows a week, over several months, she never missed one performance, even when she was so sick she could barely speak. We never saw a trace of star attitude, or bad humor from Whoopi... except one night during her curtain speech, when someone tried to bait her with a question on a topical human rights issue. We saw just a quick flash of anger: "What do you THINK I think of it? "You want to talk about this? We'll do it later," then directed her attention back to the rest of the audience and said a gracious goodnight. When the curtain came down, we were quietly told not to let anyone backstage that night. That's it.

She came to the theatre staff Christmas party with her mom, daughter and a big stack of presents: huge, extra thick silver-gray beach towels that had the show's logo silk-screened in red. Months later, when she heard that the ushers were not invited to the closing night party (which was all producers and theatre execs) she said "F--- 'em, we'll have our own party!"

On the last show, Whoopi held it together until the last scene, the Little Girl with the Shirt on her Head. It must have hit her right then. Her voice wavered through that last character as she fought back tears. At the curtain call she called "my ushers" onstage to stand behind her. When she said goodbye, she asked that the curtain not come down, then walked offstage with us. Later on, the closing party for WHOOPI GOLDBERG on Broadway was just Whoopi sitting on the edge of the stage, with her ushers, and simple take-out food.

The next day, an HBO crew took over. They wanted only a one-hour show, with extra bits of the individual characters backstage. Instead of shooting the show in its entirety and editing later, Whoopi was directed to speed up, and cut and censor her material live in front of the cameras! The Old Entertainer character was dropped entirely, and cue cards were held up to bridge the cuts they wanted.

I was in the audience, which was now lit for television, and the whole vibe was different. Accustomed to months of her successful free-form delivery, this was obviously jarring to Whoopi. Professional, but uncomfortable, Whoopi stopped at one point, and said something like "I don't want to freak y'all out in the video truck, but... I've been doing this for months, we closed last night, I boo-hooed, and now y'all are holding up signs at me, so this is not easy..."

Some great material, (about half the show) was lost in the process. More material survived in the (studio recorded) album, but what was presented on HBO as "WHOOPI GOLDBERG-Direct from Broadway" had actually detoured through a lot of ill-advised editing. The result does not do justice to Whoopi's formidable talent, and how amazing her debut performance was.

The Anniversary Show was in the same theatre, which looks huge due to camera magnification and extra lighting. The opening isn't quite as strong as the original was, because you don't see the curtain go down and back up as she restarts the show... this audience knew how to respond on her first entrance. The new show does seem less character driven and more of a standup platform for making statements, but her message is on the nose, and still thoroughly entertaining.

It's a shame we don't have her all of Broadway Debut, but I'm glad to at least have what's left of it, along with the new Anniversary Show. Whoopi is a terrific talent, even better when experienced live, spontaneous and unedited. This set is just a glimpse of what she is capable of. I Highly Recommend it

You'll love this double DVD. The first DVD includes her complete 20th Anniversary Broadway show, with segments not seen in her HBO special. The second DVD is the complete 1985 Direct from Broadway show. There are also three short extra features -- a few bloopers, Whoopi on Whoopi and an interview with Whoopi while she's on the toilet in the theater's back stage ladies' room. These shows also contain a lot of "strong" language, so if that offends you, you probably aren't a fan of Whoopi's anyway.

I started to watch the 1985 concert, and I noticed that they edited a lot of Whoopi's dialogue when she is doing Fontaine. I remember a lot more content than what they are showing on this dvd. I am thinking of writing to HBO and ask why this was done.

THOSE OF US THAT ARE OLD ENOUGH TO REMEMBER THE FIRST PERFORMANCE!

WHOOPI WAS GREAT STANDUP, FIRST!
THE GIRL IS BAD!
THE LADY IS BAD!
THE WOMAN IS BAD!

I REMEMBER THE BROADWAY SHOW IN "85"
IT WAS GREAT!

I WAS ELEVEN BUT, I REMEMBER CRACKING UP!
I LOVE THE VALLY GIRL AND FONTAINE!

THIS DVD IS GREAT!
I WAS SO GLAD TO SEE THE 1985 SHOW AGAIN!

THE NEW ONE IS GREAT TOO!!!
5 STAR DVD *****
LOVE IT!!

It's wonderful to see both shows, the 1985 show and the 2005 show. I read the review from one of the workers from the 1985 show and it explains a lot. Whoopi looks more uncomfortable and not as relaxed as a performer should be while giving a show. I would have been shocked if that is how the original show played out. HBO tampered with it too much and the star wasn't able to intervene.
The 20th Anniversary performance is another story. Whoopi is clearly in control and is confident in her performance. She is outstanding and the jokes and skits are very touching and funny. I'm glad Whoopi was able to come back to HBO and correct a wrong. I'm sorry that the entire performance isn't available to us from 1985.

Stand up comedians are funny people - it's their job, and they do it for a living so we expect it. If they can make you laugh and inject some material you haven't heard or seen before, they are a great comedian. If they can raise a laugh, give you something you haven't heard or seen, and give you something to think about without "bringing you down" they are a legend, and then if they can do all this and somehow manage to take you through the entire spectrum of emotions to the very edge of welling up and crying with tears of both laughter and sadness, then they're whoopi goldberg..

I've watched a lot of standup in my lifetime.. Ellen DeGeneres is masterfully goofy and observationally so sharp, Robin Williams is hysterical and so rapid fire you can find your sides aching, peter kay does humour as only a northerner can, but only Whoopi to my knowledge has ever managed to bring out the range of human emotions in a medium such as this. Life is all about human interaction and provoking a response, and this DVD does it in spades.

The original show amply displays that the young Whoopi was a VERY competent and original performer at the time. The difference with the 20 years later show (which personally i preferred) is that the Whoopi of 2005 is eminently more confident in her roles, and uses the characters as a frame for the ideas and the statements rather than simply acting a role. I found this better as the comedy really shone through in the 2005 show. The opening (Fonataine) was so tightly scripted and funny i found myself regularly laughing all the way through (particularly the Leviticus and gay marriage section which had me weeping, Condaleeza's airforce one smile, and Whoopi's opinions on the Bush administrations efforts to find Osama!)

The show then moves on to character two, Lurleen... This is the womens humour section, and although not being one parts of it were lost in me in empathy terms, it was nonetheless hilariously funny. As at the end of the Fontaine section this is where Whoopi breaks the standup comedy mould. To end Lurleens piece she delicately and very suddenly drops into a simple heartfelt little monologue about the agony of menopause related depression and a near attempt at suicide, stopped my her 8 year old child. There is no one and i mean no one i know of in the entertainment world who could somehow not make this depressing and even still maintain an element of humour, but again she does it...

The final section walks a very perilous line, and with such contentious subject matter, it's not at all surprising, but again, hats off to the girl she performs the "crippled lady" routine to perfection, and gives an utterly moving and very funny account of the mistreatment of the disabled, not just from a societal perspective, but also (and i thought this was supremely clever) by themselves via the paranoia that is created by being treated differently. The dream sequence where our crippled lady gains the ability to move all her limbs and talk normally and be treated like everybody else, is an utterly heartbreaking performance piece, that demonstrates Goldberg is a VERY competent actress as well..

All in all, utterly mindblowing piece of performance art, to call it simply standup is almost an insult. If you want some comedy that will make you crease with laughter and even make you question the way you view the world, you could do no better, utterly outstanding!

This comedy special is so funny that my cheeks were hurting the next day! Although its a comedy special, Whoopi makes some very interesting and strong political statements. Love, love, love this DVD!

I was very glad to see this 20th Anniversary DVD collection mainly because of her original HBO special was included. However, it was the edited version and not the one that actually aired on HBO. I would think if they were going to release this special DVD package it would include the original HBO special unedited.

Whoopi Goldberg will go down in history as the one of the most naturally talented comedy acts ever. Her original show, her debut, was fabulous and this update or return to it all is a knock-out performance. I would encourage anyone to buy this dvd set and you won't regret it.

I've followed Whoopi Goldberg's career from its beginning. When I found this 20th anniversary edition I had to have it. What makes Whoopi Goldberg who she is - is her raw uncensored truth especially her political views. She has no problem taking sensitive topics and putting her Whoopi brand on them and bringing you along for the ride. Her candid frankness is what makes her a unique talent in this world. This is an excellent project. She's always been one of my sheros.