Review: Joan Rivers Bioplay at South Coast Rep Needs More of Her Dynamism

Someone as delightfully unpredictable as the legendary comedian Joan Rivers deserves a delightfully unpredictable show. The new biographical play Joan by Daniel Goldstein, now having its world premiere at South Coast Rep, however, is a pleasant but by the numbers program.

Melissa Rivers (Elinor Gunn) narrates the topsy-turvy life of her famous mother, Joan (Tessa Auberjonois). Growing up in the repressive Eisenhower 1950s, Joan Molinsky (also Gunn) had never been the apple of her mother’s eye. Mrs. Molinsky (also Auberjonois) expects her Joan to be the demure wife of a Jewish doctor. But Joan refuses to be cookie-cutter. She wants to be a comedian, a raunchy and topical one at that, which is a shonda for upwardly mobile eastern European immigrants. She does marry the “perfect man” when she’s young, but her career sidelines that relationship.

Joan’s life as “Joan Rivers” starts slow, but eventually, she reaches the summit, a guest spot on The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson (Andrew Borba). After her set, Johnny does the unthinkable. He invites her to sit on the couch and chat for a session, something he hardly does with comedians. From there, Joan’s career skyrockets. A new man in her life, Edgar Rosenberg (also Borba), will bring Joan joy, a daughter, and more tragedy than she can imagine.

The real Melissa Rivers commissioned playwright Goldstein to write the play, giving him access to books, documentaries, specials, and Rivers’s personal joke catalog. Goldstein also collaborated with Larry Amoros, a member of Rivers’s personal team, so there is a lot of inside information available. But the story feels rote and uninspired following the plot points of her life like a laundry list. At least the script does feature many of Rivers’s personal zingers which keeps the audience laughing.

Auberjonois is enjoyable as both the adult Joan and her mother. Playing Mrs. Molinsky, she brings old world flavor with her accent and body language as well as passive-aggressiveness. As Joan, she masters the Rivers rhythms and inflections. Her most powerful moment is enacting rage, sorrow, and defiance at her first stand-up routine after Edgar’s death.

Borba displays chameleon-like skills by embodying several true-life characters. His Carson is spot on, and he conquers the subtleties of Edgar’s British and Germanic accent correctly. Playing Jimmy Fallon, as well as an assortment of husbands, boyfriends, and bellhops, Zachary Prince is charming, creating a distinct characterization for each role. Gunn, unfortunately, is stiff playing both Melissa and young Joan. She doesn’t modulate her voice or stance between characters and has the affectation of speaking with her outreached hands all the time. She exudes a sweet presence but appears uncomfortable on stage. With more of director David Ivers’s support, she may have been able to relax some of that rigidity.

Kish Finnegan’s costumes juxtapose the classy and the crass that were Rivers’s visual trademarks. Wilson Chin’s sets quickly convert rooms by sliding different components in the middle door – a bed for the bedroom, a counter with tchotchkes for the living room – in economical ways.

The current script for Joan is reminiscent of a movie of the week. It feels more like a retread than something riveting. This is a shame, because Joan Rivers herself was a dynamo.