“Marriage and divorce—what gets more dishy and interesting than that?” That was the actor and comedian Susie Essman, recently on The View, talking about Behar’s My First Ex-Husband. Essman and Behar, longtime friends and collaborators, star alongside Adrienne C. Moore and Tovah Feldshuh in the based-on-true-stories piece at off-Broadway’s MMAC Theater.
There’s no denying that these woman can land a laugh: Behar does it on the daily on the still-going-strong daytime talk show The View as one of six female cohosts. Essman famously bantered with Larry David as the brash, garishly dressed Susie Greene on the sitcom Curb Your Enthusiasm, which recently ended its 12-season run. Orange Is the New Black alum Adrienne C. Moore (she played “Black Cindy”) was recently seen as the wisecracking Gio in Katori Hall’s The Blood Quilt at Lincoln Center Theater. And thanks to Feldshuh’s scene-stealing turns as Mrs. Brice opposite Lea Michele in Funny Girl and judgy mom Bina opposite Adam Brody in the Netflix romcom series Nobody Wants This, we’re in the middle of a Tovah-sance.
But the laughs are too few and very far between in My First Ex-Husband, an episodic play composed of eight meandering monologues, all of which could use some level of cutting or restructuring. Essman starts things off with a piece that plays to her strengths, “Walla Walla Bang Bang,” packed with plenty of one-liners about her survivalist ex: “He was so cheap, he used Entenmann’s pie plates for hub caps”; “our place was like Grey Gardens…just not as nice.” Her later monologue (“Clothes Make the Man?”) is almost mundane by comparison—not to mention predictable; a man dressing up in women’s clothes has no real shock value, or comic currency, in 2025.
Feldshuh and Moore are the best at creating some sense of character. Moore’s “Where Are You At?”—which details a woman’s discovery of her husband’s affair, X-rated photos and all—might be the most stereotypical story, but she lands it. And “The Widow”—the story of a 17-year-old Orthodox Jewish girl’s arranged marriage—is a perfect fit for Feldshuh, who truly captures the young woman’s innocence, fear, inexperience, and hope. You’ve heard the phrase “pulling a face”? Feldshuh actually pulls her face to convey her character’s emotional rollercoaster ride. Yet even that story, as great as Feldshuh is, could be trimmed.
Behar has generously given her costars the best material. Her monologues aren’t as engaging; rather, they’re more like stand-up routines. In fact, the second—about a middle-aged woman contemplating divorce in order to escape the constant demands of her “hot to trot” hubby—is pretty much joke after joke after joke. It’s in her wheelhouse, but there’s only so much you can hear about shtupping and pumping and spritzing.
One casting note: Behar, Essman, Feldshuh, and Moore appear only through Feb. 23. The second cast—Judy Gold, Susan Lucci, Cathy Moriarty, and Tonya Pinkins—plays Feb. 26–March 23. Another group—Jackie Hoffman, Gina Gershon, Andrea Navedo, and Veanne Cox—runs March 26–April 20. Presumably to keep things “dishy and interesting.”
My First Ex-Husband opened Feb. 6, 2025, at Manhattan Movement and Arts Center (MMAC) Theater and runs through April 20. Tickets and information: myfirstexhusband.com
