The Whoopi Monologues

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Not all one-person shows written for their creators can be performed by others. Tony nominated director Whitney White has instead revived Whoopi Goldberg’s 1984 one-woman show now retitled The Whoopi Monologues with an all-star cast of five consummate actresses. The results are both hilarious and revealing of Black women’s experiences, bringing actresses like Tony Award winners Kecia Lewis and Kara Young and Emmy winner Kerry Washington back to the New York stage with excellent material to sink their teeth into. The production on the intimate stage of Lincoln Center Theater’s Mitzi E. Newhouse should be one of the hits of the summer.

All of the performers interact with the audience particularly those in the first few rows. The set designed by Studio Bent is a series of doors to five dressing rooms suggested by the opening of the HBO version of the show renamed Whoopi Goldberg: Direct from Broadway in 1985 in which she visited all of the characters we would later meet. Here the actresses come out to greet us at the beginning and between the scenes.

First up is “Fontaine” played by Young straight off her performance in the recent Broadway revival of Proof. (Is there anything this tremendously talented actress can’t do?) She plays a New York junkie who just happens to have a PhD in Literature from Columbia. After making a score on the Upper East Side, Fontaine decides it is time to get out of the country and heads for Amsterdam. There a visit to the Anne Frank House proves to be cathartic and life-changing.

Young’s streetwise character is smart, quick and satiric. Dressed in a man’s suit (pitch perfect costumes by this year’s Tony Award winner Qween Jean) it has been pointed out elsewhere that Fontaine may be male, but in any case the character is androgynous. In her unique way, Young makes every line sting whether it is a new revelation or an obviously causal remark. Fontaine’s end is as much of a surprise as most of the other monologues.

“Blonde Girl” played by Kai Heath at the performance under review rather than the usual Dominique Fishback (Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, Judas and the Black Messiah, and her one-woman Off Broadway show Subverted) turns out to have her seventh birthday on Wednesday. She wears a white towel on her head in order to look blonde as no one on television looks like her with her brown eyes and brown skin. She has even tried sitting in Clorox which didn’t work but burned.

Heath is excellent as a child who can’t figure out how she fits into society. Although the concept is not new, the message is still pertinent: the majority of the actresses on television are blonde and blue eyed, and don’t resemble the majority of us viewers. Like the other actresses, her body language tells us her age and view of herself.

Danielle Pinnock (2025 winner of the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Comedy Series for Ghosts) gleefully and expansively plays “Jamaican Lady” in a blue wig (hair and wig designs by Nikya Mathis). She tells the story of her life as a souvenir seller in Kingston, Jamaica, who becomes the object of affection of an elderly American who she nicknames the “Old Raisin” because he is so winkled and tanned. When he is about to return to the U.S., he tell her he needs someone to “do the cooking and the cleaning and to give me a little nookie.” She agrees to accompany him and take care of his needs. When she arrives at his home she discovers that he is as rich as he said. And then she is confronted with a new problem when he keels over and dies: his greedy family.

Pinnock’s exuberance and high spirits is infectious as we follow her adventures. The references to soap operas with their sexist men and the television commercial which begins “Come back to Jamaica” dates the play but a great many famous plays are products of their own time and era.

Washington who is also a co-producer of The Whoopi Monologues through her company Simpson Street is up next as “Surfer Girl.” Her Valley Girl accent belies the fact that she is addicted to the beach. When she meets a hunk who singles her out, she is unprepared for getting pregnant after a one-night stand and she never hears from him again. She finds out exactly who are her friends now that she is in this predicament. The shocking conclusion is that she only turns 14 next week.

Washington brilliantly maintains her Vallery Girl accent and her pose as teenage sophisticate which can’t be easy with lines likes “No, I am a surfer because before there was the mall, there was the ocean okay.” She seems to get younger as the play goes on right before our eyes. The upbeat ending belies her actual situation. As she does for each of the monologues, video designer creates a montage that accompanies the stories, here the ocean backed by Fan Zhang’s sound effects.

Last but not least is Lewis as “Lurleen,” a monologue which comes from Goldberg’s second one-woman show 20 years after the first. Not only is it a brilliant piece of material but like she did with her award-winning performance as Miss Liza Jane in Hell’s Kitchen, Lewis proves she is one of our finest actresses making every line land though very little of it is intentionally comic. Arriving on stage fanning herself, she announces that she is the throes of menopause. She is furious that there is Viagra for men but nothing that works for women having hot flashes. She then gives us the history of sanitary napkins through the decades, one bad idea after another. When her son discovers her depression, he asks her to teach him to do a dance, “The Hucklebuck,” from her generation. This leads to her realizing that she is just going to adapt and be herself at the age she is now.

Lewis makes every line either sound like a punchline or gives us the shock of recognition. She milks this monologue for everything it’s worth: humor, memories, revelations, history, human connections. It is a big performance and Lurleen seems to get bigger as the play goes on. Clever of director White to save the best for last. Not only do you end up wanting more plays from author Whoopi Goldberg, but you want to see whatever these actresses do next. Obviously, Whoopi would have played these roles differently, but in the hands of these five actresses you do not miss her presence.

The Whoopi Monologues (through August 30, 2026)

Lincoln Center Theater

Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater, 150 W. 65^th Street, in Manhattan

For tickets, call 212-239-6200 or visit http://www.telecharge.com/the-whoopi-monologues-tickets

Running time: one hour and 45 minutes without an intermission