{"id":295096,"date":"2026-07-14T02:42:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T02:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/295096\/"},"modified":"2026-07-14T02:42:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T02:42:08","slug":"the-whoopi-monologues-five-whoopis-are-less-than-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/295096\/","title":{"rendered":"The Whoopi Monologues: Five Whoopis Are Less Than One"},"content":{"rendered":"

July 13, 2026 9:59 pm <\/p>\n

By Frank Scheck<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2606\u2606 Five stellar actresses perform Whoopi Goldberg’s award-winning one-person show in this Lincoln Center Theater reimagining <\/p>\n

\"\"The cast of The Whoopi Monologues. Photo credit: Angela Mario Orellana<\/p>\n

The math doesn\u2019t quite add up in Lincoln Center Theater\u2019s production of The Whoopi Monologues. Repurposing the solo material presented not just once but twice on Broadway by Whoopi Goldberg, the show features five extremely talented actresses divvying up the short pieces and making feasts out of them. It quickly becomes apparent, however, that the original production was less effective for its writing than its spotlighting of its talented star delivering a virtuoso performance. That effect becomes lessened in this adaptation which mainly serves to reveal the essential thinness of the sketches.<\/p>\n

Not that there aren\u2019t fun moments in the 100-minute intermissionless evening flashily staged by Whitney White, recently Tony-nominated for Liberation. There are some decent-sized laughs, and the material provides a field day for the powerhouse ensemble consisting of Dominque Fishback, Kecia Lewis, Danielle Pinnock, Kerry Washington, and Kara Young.<\/p>\n

But the material hasn\u2019t aged particularly well, nor does it benefit from repetition for those who\u2019ve already seen Whoopi perform it live or through the 1985 HBO special. Despite each skit running no more than 15 minutes or so, they feel repetitive and obvious in their satirical targets.<\/p>\n

[Read Melissa Rose Bernardo\u2019s \u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2606 review here.<\/a>]<\/p>\n

Still, it\u2019s a pleasure to see Young stealing this show much as she does every other one in which she appears, as the junkie Fontaine, delivering his sing-song rendition of \u201cAround the World in 80 Motherf\u2014ing Days\u201d and regaling us with an account of his visit to the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam. Or Pinnock sporting a humorously exaggerated accent as the \u201cJamaican Lady\u201d who describes moving to American with an elderly man she describes as \u201cThe Old Raisin\u201d and becoming a millionaire twenty times over when he kicks off.<\/p>\n

Fishback delivers a poignant portrayal as the young Black girl who desperately wishes she had blonde hair, while Washington deftly mines both the laughs and horror as the \u201cSurfer Girl\u201d whose monologue begins humorously before a harrowing description of a self-induced abortion.<\/p>\n

Performing a piece created for Goldberg\u2019s 2004 Broadway revival of her show, Lewis pulls out the stops as Lurleen, bemoaning the deleterious effects of aging on her body ranging from menopause to her \u201cbalding pudenda.\u201d The Tony-winning actress called for line prompts more than once during the preview performance, but recovered nicely. (I assumed it was also a mistake when her character referred to McCoy Tyner singing \u201cThe Hustle\u201d when it was actually Van McCoy, but the error is also in the script.)<\/p>\n

White\u2019s staging proves more elaborate than when Goldberg performed the show, including a set (designed by Studio Bent) featuring five doors through which we see the performers\u2019 supposed dressing rooms, video projections by Hana S. Kim, and several dance interludes, including one to Jamaican reggae duo Chaka Demus & Pliers\u2019 \u201cMurder She Wrote,\u201d in which the five performers get to cut loose. The actresses frequently appear onstage together between segments, and the intimacy of the theater allows them to amusingly engage with delighted audience members seated near the stage.<\/p>\n

The writing also features several tweaks nodding to the present day, including one of the characters mentioning seeing Whoopi Goldberg on The View and another declaring \u201cKnicks in five!\u201d to predictably rapturous response.<\/p>\n

But while The Whoopi Monologues serves as a showcase for its five performers much as it did for its creator, the divvying up reduces rather than enhances its impact. The evening ultimately feels like less than the sum of its parts.<\/p>\n

The Whoopi Monologues opened July 14, 2026, at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater and runs through August 30. Tickets and information: lct.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"July 13, 2026 9:59 pm By Frank Scheck \u2605\u2605\u2605\u2606\u2606 Five stellar actresses perform Whoopi Goldberg’s award-winning one-person show…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":295097,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[75,84,83,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-295096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295096\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/295097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}