Whoopi Goldberg ostensibly plays three parts in this uneven, 90-minute special, taped earlier this year during the run of her one-woman show at New York's Lyceum Theatre. Most of the time, though, there's not much acting going on.
The characters of Fontaine, an opinionated male junkie, and Lurleen, a menopausal chatterbox, are scarcely distinguishable from Whoopi the stand-up comic. If you share the star's politics, you'll enjoy it when Fontaine-Whoopi gives George W. Bush a sound thrashing. If you have a high tolerance for vulgarity, you won't mind Lurleen-Whoopi's detailed history of feminine-hygiene products. But only when Goldberg submerges herself in the role of a handicapped woman does the show truly come alive. Stiff-legged and hunched over, she projects an uncommon grace as she talks of finding true love.
