Joy Behar Talks About Her New Play at Bay Street Theater

After a successful Off-Broadway premiere earlier this year, Joy Behar’s new play, My First Ex-Husband, is coming to the Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor for a special limited run from July 14–19.

A scathingly funny and opinionated champion of progressive politics who often draws the ire of the right-wing commentariat, Behar is best known as an original cast member of ABC’s long-running morning talk show, The View. But casual fans may not be aware that she’s also an accomplished film and stage actor, stand-up comic, author and playwright.

With a structure reminiscent of Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues (which Behar appeared in during its Off-Broadway run) My First Ex-Husband is a rumination on relationships and divorce from a female perspective.

“Divorce is an interesting subject for me because it has drama and comedy and obstacles and protagonists,” Behar says. “There are a lot of the same elements in these monologues that you can find in any play.”

The show consists of eight individual stories delivered from a minimalist set by a rotating cast of actors. The Bay Street Theater cast includes Behar herself in select performances as well as iconic soap opera diva Susan Lucci, who played the conniving Erica Kane for over 40 years on ABC’s All My Children.

Also featured is veteran comedic actor Jackie Hoffman, who is known for multiple Broadway performances as well as a pivotal role in Steve Martin’s Only Murders in the Building on Hulu.

Rounding out the Bay Street cast is Veanne Cox, who, like Hoffman, is also a Broadway veteran, but may be best known for memorable supporting performances in Seinfeld and the Steven Soderbergh film Erin Brockovich.

A longtime East End homeowner, Behar’s full-time gig as a co-star of The View compels her to be in Manhattan for significant stretches. But these days, she estimates that she spends about 40 percent of her time at her South Fork home.

“It’s a place to breathe and relax,” she says. “And we also have a lot of friends out here. I think I have more of a social life out here than I do in Manhattan at this point.”

Behar began creating My First Ex-Husband about 10 years ago. The original idea for the show took shape when she was talking to a close friend about the friend’s divorce.

“She was very good at telling her story,” Behar says. “She was funny and she took no prisoners.”

Behar began recording and transcribing their conversations. “I transcribed them myself because I happen to be an excellent typist,” she quips. “And then I had to carve the material into a monologue that made sense and didn’t ramble on and on.”

Once she had created her first monologue, Behar realized she had the makings of something potent. She conducted countless interviews over the ensuing years, eventually culling them down to eight monologues.

“It all came out of a curiosity and an interest in trying to dissect what went wrong,” she says.

Not surprisingly, as she delved deeper and deeper into people’s divorce stories, certain recurring themes emerged. If one were inclined to cobble together a greatest hits list of divorce catalysts, Behar notes that adultery, money issues and marrying too young would certainly make the cut.

But relationships are endlessly complex organisms. Some marriages fail partly because of divergent religious or ethical beliefs, she observes – or because one spouse realizes that they just aren’t wired for a heterosexual relationship.

Behar points out that performing a play as a series of monologues adapted from real-life stories brings with it an unusual level of freedom for seasoned actors.

For example, because they are physically reading their monologues as part of the play’s structure, cast members are not required to memorize their lines.

“I think reading is a way to maintain the authenticity of what the actors are doing, which is telling someone else’s story,” Behar says.

“The beauty of this show is that you can attract top notch people who aren’t necessarily kids anymore,” she adds. “You don’t have to memorize lines, there’s no blocking, really… You have to be a skilled actor, but if you’re good, it’s a pretty easy show to do.”

Case in point: Early productions of My First Ex-Husband have featured an eclectic and compelling roster of actors. In addition to the stars in Bay Street’s upcoming production, the show’s previous Off-Broadway cast included the likes of Tovah Feldshuh, Marsha Mason, Gina Gershon, Marilu Henner, Judy Gold, Adrienne C. Moore and Julia Sweeney, among others.

Since all eight of the play’s monologues examine divorce through an exclusively female lens, Behar says she was curious about how men would react to it. In fact, she went out of her way to ask men whether they felt like the script engaged in male-bashing.

“No man has ever said that it was an attack on men,” she reports. “And that made me feel good. It’s really about what happened rather than who was right and who was wrong.”