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Culture Theatre

Wishful Drinking

WISHFUL DRINKING written and performed by Carrie Fisher (Mirvish). At the Royal Alexandra (260 King West). To August 21. $35-$99. 416-872-1212. See listing Rating: NNN

Carrie Fisher knows how to squeeze every ironic drop out of an anecdote, but there’s no reason why her autobiographical solo show, Wishful Drinking, needs to clock in at two and a half hours.

Sure, filmdom’s Princess Leia has lived through a lot, what with her celebrity parents (Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher), up-and-down film and literary career and years of substance abuse before her life-saving recovery involving medication and electroconvulsive treatment.

But she clearly needs an editor or dramaturge.

Her chatty tone works well sometimes, as in an early bit about her extended family tree, called Hollywood Inbreeding, presented as a lecture complete with audience quiz. This section’s gossipy and fun and incidentally helps fill in her history for those who know her only from her Star Wars movies.

A section on her two marriages to singer/songwriter Paul Simon is also amusing, especially when she points out unflattering lyrics about her.

Yet many of her stories ramble on without purpose. The show’s adapted from her book of the same name, and neither Fisher nor director Tony Taccone has found a way to illustrate things. Most of the time, she simply recounts her tales while sitting on a sofa or chair in David Korins’s paraphernalia-filled den of a set – not very theatrical.

Oddly for a show with a title about giving up drinking, there’s not much confession Fisher doesn’t even give us the “rock-bottom” scene that’s the staple of most recovery memoirs.

But whether she’s recounting a surreal incident from the Star Wars set or one of her many relationship mistakes, Fisher comes across much as she does in her film work: as a wise, funny survivor.

And that’s enough to pass the time.

glenns@nowtoronto.com

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