Whoopi Goldberg, who achieved EGOT status in 2002 (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony) came to prominence with The Spook Show, a one-woman tour de force of various character monologues. After Mike Nichols saw the production, he mentored her to bring the show to Broadway (1984) re-titled The Whoopi Monologues. The dynamic production won a Drama Desk, an Outer Critics Circle Award and a Grammy when Goldberg released the comedy album of the show. After twenty years Goldberg starred in her revival of The Whoopi Monologues for its 20th anniversary. She received a Tony nomination for Special Theatrical Presentation.

Now, with a new twist of theatricality and pizzazz, The Whoopi Monologues, runs at the intimate Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater at Lincoln Center Theater, Off-Broadway. Award-winning director Whitney White sets up a winning combination of Goldberg’s most humorous, heartfelt characters. Portrayed by five talented award-winning actors, the production’s subtle topicality rings with truth. Not only does the one hour forty-five minute show give a nod to Goldberg’s genius, it gently recalls our remembrance of a more hopeful time.

In that, the production suggests themes of the past meld with the present in a timeless loop. While everything changes, nothing changes. In their complexity and vulnerability, Goldberg’s portrayals sensitively, authentically nuanced by the fine ensemble show us what we should laugh about in ourselves to keep our balance and not be upended by life’s inevitable sorrows and injustices.

Kerry Washington, who also produced the show comes out after Hana S. Kim’s (video design), Black celebrity visual projections scroll against the turquoise doors/backdrop (Studio Bent scenic design) of the performers’ dressing rooms. With Fan Zhang’s original music, the eye-popping, rhythmic presentation sets up Washington for her applause and introduction of the actors. These Black women seamlessly manifest Whoopi’s characters. Later in the production-fourth character in-Washington portrays Surfer Girl.

However, first up, Kara Young’s brilliant Ph.D. turned addict, Fontaine appears. When Fontaine states, “I got a PhD I can’t do shit with. So I stay high so I don’t get mad,” we understand her learned wisdom. Her snide, energetic commentary arouses audience enthusiasm and interactions. Pointedly, Fontaine’s description of how she ends up in Bellevue after a harrowing flight when the plane was on fire, jars and frightens. Particularly galling, the flight attendant’s “Shssh” sets her to screaming and “freaking out.” She continues during deplaning, and medics put her into a strait jacket and ambulance to Bellevue where doctors readjust her thoughts. After 10 weeks they release her and she speaks to the audience. We realize her monologue occurred in flashback and her revelation brings healing and warnings.

Secondly, the Blonde Girl (Kai Heath covered for Dominique Fishback when I saw the show on Wednesday July 15, 2026) wears a white shirt on her head to pretend her golden hair shines. Heath drew sympathy from audience members who felt badly that Blonde Girl despised her “Blackness” and dreamed of turning into the women she sees on television. The fascist images of “white blonde and blue-eyed beauty” have psychically damaged generations of women young and old. From anorexia nervosa to surgical botch jobs and disfigurations, women suffer to “measure up” to the impossible changing fantasy of beauty like the Blonde Girl does. Goldberg’s revelations reverberate even more trenchantly today.

Next, the Jamaican Lady (Danielle Pinnock), tells about her move to the United States to care for an old man who she refers to as “an old raisin.” Queen Jean (costume design) and Nikiya Mathis (hair & wig design) pull out the stops with the Jamaican Lady’s blue hair and gold-plated accessorized outfit covering over a partially see-through bustier. However, Jamaican Lady’s outsized, and jovial personality warrants it. Pinnock got a huge laugh when she said “I don’t know if you can tell that I’m Jamaican because I lost my accent.” The irony landed. Also, her humorous story embodies the American dream and hoped-for immigrant success story. Pinnock’s refreshing, spot-on performance belies the current situation with immigrants from the islands. Hers is a throwback to a time when “dirty old men” sweetly kept their promises.

Fourth in the strategic line-up, Kerry Washington’s Surfer Girl who sounds like a “Valley Girl,” loves to surf and feels connected to the ocean. “There’s water in my body and water in the ocean and like we pass water, water passes us.” Though she appears to “have it all,” she runs into the kind of trouble where the priest, the nuns and her mother don’t provide comfort or support for the 14-year-old. She’s left to her own devices. Unfortunately, the situation of “abortion with wire hanger,” in the past for 49 years, updates to the present. The reversal of Roe making abortions illegal in the states aligns with what women like Surfer Girl barbarically did if they didn’t have any choices. By including this character in these monologues, the themes clarify. Human rights trump all else. If nothing has changed, that above all else hasn’t either.

In the final portrayal, Lurleen (Kecia Lewis), another outsized personality “appreciates” the incomparable menopausal state of her feminity. By the time Lewis’ Lurleen completes her stories of physical, emotional and psychic changes, even the men in the audience, laugh through their tears. Importantly, Lurleen covers gender inequities as they relate to women’s vast ignorance of their bodies, while men learn to (open stalled urinals in bathrooms), focus on their reproductive organs obsessively. Indeed, the monologue should be played for women of all ages and especially women after they’ve decided on no more children.

Lurleen’s raw, priceless wisdom dances with humor and pathos. As Lurleen wraps up with surprising revelations of her struggle to redefine herself as a woman, White cleverly brings back the other women as she does between a few monologues as a tie-in. Because their dance and celebration of life uplifts, the audience leaves joyous in laughter with bittersweet reminders that we have a long way to go to achieve human rights for all.

The Whoopi Monologues runs 1 hour 45 minutes through Aug. 30 at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater, lct.org.