If they had dropped a bomb on the 5th Avenue Theater last night, LGBTQ Seattle would have almost been wiped out. Everyone and their gay cousin was in attendance cheering on the Divine Lily Tomlin who gave a two hour performance that included many of her most famous monologues and most treasured characters including Edith Ann, Trudy and a nice long set of Ernestine including an update on the ex-phone company employee who is now terrorizing the customers of your least favorite HMO.
Ernestine, talking to a blind customer requesting coverage: “Denied. Blindess is a pre-existing condition. Didn’t you read the fine print?”
It was a great show, with Lily frequently going off script to add her own anecdotes or to try out new material including some juicy new stuff poking fun at a certain ex-governor of Alaska as well as a few jabs at our current President for not staying the course. The largely liberal audience ate it all up, (though my brother sat next to a woman who seldom laughed or applauded and might have been a relative of Judith Beasley…)
We’ll have more about the show later today/tomorrow…Lily’s #1 fan Ms Aiden Karamanyan was in attendance and she has PLENTY to say about the night. (She even waited at the stage door for Lily to emerge…)
If you missed last night’s show, she encores today at 3pm and there are a handful of seats left…grab’em while you can!
Related Posts
Jericho Brown, Jane Wagner, and Brian Lam to be Honored with 2020 Lambda Literary Awards
Via press release: Lambda Literary is pleased to announce that Jericho
Let’s Help Coco Peru Make A TV Show! UPDATE! SHE MADE HER GOAL!!!
We really, really, really j’adore drag performer/icon MISS COCO PERU.
Two Options For Hump Day: Skate With Bears And/Or Laugh With Lily Tomlin
You ONLY have two options for fun this Wednesday, March
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Seattle Gay Scene, Bill W.. Bill W. said: Lily Tomlin was DEE-lightful last night at the 5th. She’s here today at 3pm as well! http://twurl.nl/ah7l3i […]
Thank you very much for your review Michael. I missed the ads about Lily’s two Seattle shows and might have considered seeing her in person again, but I’m not disappointed now. Read on. I’ve enjoyed her comedy since I was a kid back in 1969, when she first started on Laugh-In. I’m always interested in reading reviews of her perfomances in the Northwest which have been fairly regular over the years, since the early 1970′s. I would not pay again to see her in person.
My family went to see her in April 1972 at the Seattle Opera House, now McCaw Hall. She was still on Laugh-In and this may have been her first nationwide tour. It was awful. She came on stage for about ten minutes and then turned the stage over to her opening act. This was a singer named Helen McElwen if I recall correctly. She was wearing a red velvet evening gown and construction worker boots! She played her guitar and sang poorly for almost 45 minutes. The audience was really irritated, having paid to see Lily. Lily finally came out and did a short show with some of her standard characters. From the reactions of the people I was sure a large number of people would not be buying any more tickets to see her. What a disappointment that was for 13 year old me and many others. The next day she made a visit to the Purdy Treatment Center (prison) for Women and gave a performance. I remember there were articles in the Seattle and Bremerton papers about her visit.
I was curious if she had an opening act when you saw her at the 5th Avenue Theater? I was thinking things might have improved over the years but the following comment from Lord Garth of a show from just a few years ago caught my eye:
http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/reader_feedback/public/display.php?source_name=mbase&source_id=2014056030
January 28, 2011 at 10:05 AM
Rating: (1) (0)
Log in to
report abuse
A couple of years ago, she was in town too. My wife and I paid around $50 per ticket. Her show was less than an hour long and for about 15 minutes of the show she went into this big long monolog about Iraq and Bush that wasn’t even funny. She should give everyone that was at that show free tickets to this one, then apologize for the other show. We both like most of her comedy, but after that last show, my wife and I will never pay to see her again.
Very disappointing. I still have her records to enjoy and recently bought her Lily Tomlin Collection 5 pack video set in mint condition on the Internet for around four dollars ! That’s a better bargain for her “best of” in her prime.
Best wishes,
Bill
professor.moriarty1@yahoo.com