The Return of Swamp Thing

The last year has been a big one for wizened, shit-talking comic legend and plastic surgery art installation Joan Rivers. She starred on The Celebrity Apprentice with her daughter Melissa, and celebrated the publication of two books: Men Are Stupid … And They Like Big Boobs, a candid book of medical advice about elective cosmetic procedures, and Murder at the Academy Awards, the first in a new fictional mystery series inspired by her experience covering awards shows. She was roasted on Comedy Central (during which Whitney Cummings said “I loved you in The Wrestler” and Greg Geraldo compared her to a “surprised catfish”). She made a brilliant and frivolous play against the bleak recession mentality (and an unapologetic affirmation of crass materialism) with the launch of a TV show called How’d You Get So Rich? in which she runs around the country interviewing wealthy people. All this after forty years of brash, fast-talking, trail-blazing show business -- and still she has time to come to town for a stand-up gig (in this city of “a million mincing Marys,” as she refers to it on her blog). Rivers arrives, it is promised, “direct from Michael Jackson’s funeral,” and her act undoubtedly hinges on gossip about recent media events, every moment filtered through her bitchy, rasping, irresistibly fun comic delivery.
Oct. 2-3, 7:30 & 9:30 p.m., 2009