Four-time Tony Award-winning playwright and actor Harvey Fierstein knows how to tell captivating stories that are hilarious and heartbreaking. I Was Better Last Night is filled with the same energy, quick wit, wise observations and big heart that are hallmarks of his plays and musicals. This is a theater memoir for the ages.
Fierstein, who grew up gay in Brooklyn, recalls using eyeliner, mascara and lipstick to dress as a girl for Halloween at the age of seven. "My outsides at last matched my insides," he writes. As a teenager, he was cast in Andy Warhol's only play, Pork, and eventually started writing plays himself. When he combined three autobiographical one-act plays into Torch Song Trilogy, the four-hour production surprised everyone by becoming a critical and popular success in 1983. Although he was memorable in his role as Robin Williams's gay brother in Mrs. Doubtfire, Fierstein's biggest successes were on stage.
His drinking spun out of control in the late 1990s. "I never had a hangover because I was never sober," he writes, adding that he was drinking nearly half a gallon of 100-proof Southern Comfort every day. He successfully turned to Alcoholics Anonymous after a suicide attempt. He found great joy and acclaim when, finally sober, he starred in Hairspray. In the 2010s, he wrote three Broadway productions (Kinky Boots, Newsies, Casa Valentina) that ran concurrently while he toured the U.S. in Fiddler on the Roof and prepared for the second Broadway revival of his musical La Cage aux Folles. This is a joyous, life-affirming memoir written with charisma and a generous spirit. --Kevin Howell, independent reviewer and marketing consultant