After appearing for six years as a regular cast member on Strong Medicine, the top-rated show on Lifetime, I got the horrific news that it was being canceled. There were many “what the fuck?”s thrown around by me. I soon calmed down when Ruben Cannon called and offered me Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Family Reunion. I really needed this job, but the offer came in extremely low. I was disappointed, because I had already done so many low-budget, independent films for Ruben Cannon. I don’t know where I got the balls from, but I said, “No.” I was thinking to myself, “Fuck the mortgage. I want to be respected in this business.” I’ve worked hard, worked hard on myself, and found the strength to just say “No.”
Two hours later, Tyler Perry called and said, “What do I have to do to have you in my film?” I gave him my quote, and he said, “Yes.”
Merry Christmas, bitches!
A few months later, I went to the premiere of Cars, in which I voiced a 1957 Cadillac named “Flo.” The premiere was in Charleston, North Carolina, at a NASCAR event. Jesus Christ, what a scene; the roar of the car motors was deafening and everyone in the stadium seemed to be eating fried turkey legs and drinking kegs of beer.
Around Christmastime, I was hired to sing at a private party in Beverly Hills. Norman Lear was there. He approached me respectfully. “I’d like to apologize to you. I’m so sorry you were hurt. You’ve grown into a beautiful woman.” I felt so grown up when I responded sweetly. We went on to have a lovely conversation about our children.
Bertolt Brecht, a German born at the end of the nineteenth century, was known for stories steeped in history and told from the perspective of the poor and downtrodden. He wrote a play called Mother Courage and Her Children while in self-imposed exile from Nazi Germany.
Mother Courage was produced by the Public Theater in the outdoor Delacorte Theater in Central Park. I was asked to play the part of Yvette Poitier, performing opposite Meryl Streep. Before casting me, George C. Wolfe, the director, auditioned dozens of women. Every actress in the world wanted to work with Meryl Streep.
George’s assistant told me that after auditioning about 30 women for the role, George put his head in his hands and said, “Who can I get to play Yvette?” She has to have classical training, be able to sing, and have enough presence to share the stage with Meryl and Kevin Kline.” He suddenly flashed back to me, clowning during the run of The Diva Is Dismissed and entertaining the office staff by reciting Portia’s monologues from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. George shouted at his assistant, “Get Jenifer Lewis on the phone!”
I was thrilled to face the challenge of Mother Courage. I had my doubters. Artists are quickly labeled, and my label was “force of nature,” not so much “serious actor.” I didn’t doubt that I could tear up the role. But, I was stressed and highly intimidated by Meryl Streep. Mark Brown named my condition “Streep Stress.” I kidded with Mark that Ms. Streep would show up to the first rehearsal with one of her Oscars in hand. You know, just plop the gold statue on the table to establish the pecking order. That fool turned my anxiety into a monologue for a one-woman show the following year:
I walked into the first rehearsal of Mother Courage and planted my solid acrylic Ovation Award right in front of Meryl Streep.
“Murl Gurl. You got one of these?” I said.
“No,” she said.
“Okay Murl Girl, then we gonna be ah’iiiight.”
“My name is Mer-yl.”
“What now?” I asked.
“My name is Meryl.”
“Yes honey, that may be,” I said. “But Murl rhymes with girl. So, it’s Murl Girl.”
Meryl looked at the director, George C. Wolfe. He looked at the play’s translator, Tony Kushner. They all looked at me, and I said, “Look, she may be playing ‘Mother Courage,’ but I’m the Mothafucka up on that stage they’ll be looking at.” I was promptly shot in both knees and taken out.
In reality, despite my nervousness, I had the time of my life working with Meryl Streep. She was generous, brilliant, warm, and appreciative of my talents. She wrote me a note on opening night, calling me “the great one.” It brought me to tears. In the few weeks we ran, more than three thousand people saw the play. Celebrities, average folks, and all my gypsy friends. I felt honored when Tom Hanks brought his wife, Rita, backstage to meet me.
The reviews of Mother Courage were good. I was honored when Ben Brantley said of me in The Times that “Her interpretation of Yvette’s bitter song of remembered love is a stunningly calibrated blend of smoothness and harshness, of filigree irony and primal emotion, that suggests what Brecht was trying to achieve.”
Another critic said that I was “the only one who could handle Brecht’s dialogue.” Meryl Streep may have been the draw, said critics, “but they’re going to see Jenifer when they get there.”
The only bad review I received was in The New Yorker. Flashback to a couple years earlier when I met with journalist Hilton Als to discuss his idea for a musical about a larger-than-life woman who was at the center of the party scene in Harlem. I was pretty underwhelmed by the idea and stated dismissively, “I don’t want to be on stage with other people.”
Turned out Als, who reviewed Mother Courage for The New Yorker, got the opportunity to give me my comeuppance for my insensitivity about his idea:
“The only distraction here is Jenifer Lewis, as the business-minded whore Yvette. Lewis is not an actress but a personality. She plays the part like a refugee from the chit’lin’ circuit. From time to time, her braying throws even Streep off.” Some day I hope to meet Mr. Als in a dark alley where we can sit down and eat some chitlins together!
I was so happy when my four sisters agreed to come out to Los Angeles to see my wonderful new home. I wanted the house to look and feel special for them, so I ran around madly shopping for linens and home accessories. I called Mark Brown, rattling off all the stuff I needed to get. He let me talk until I ran out of breath. Then he asked where I was. “Bed, Bath and Beyond,” I answered. Immediately, Mark knew I was in manic mode. He said, “No you aren’t. You’re at bipolar, bath and beyond.” Well, of course that moment led to another one-woman performance piece called: Bipolar, Bath & Beyond. The show was about my turning fifty years old, surviving failed relationships, and, of course, therapy, as in the following monologue:
I put in so much time on the couch, I’ve earned an honorary doctorate in human behavior. I can spot a disorder at fifty paces. I diagnosed my manicurist as having borderline personality disorder. I could tell by the way she trimmed my cuticles. And the boy who does my hair, he’s a motor mouth with a nervous tic—a dead giveaway—schizoid affective disorder. Sexual addiction, borderline personality, narcissism, oh yes, I call it like I feel it. I’m not judgmental about it. I support my charges in every way I can. I put my arm around ’em and say, “Baby you wanna borrow my drip?”
After one of the shows, an audience member introduced herself as a journalist with Jet magazine. She told me the show resonated with her because her brother had bipolar disorder. Naturally, I said yes to her request for an interview.