For proximately a decade — since comedy legfinish Lily Tomlin joined a salty septuagenarian in Paul Weitz’s “Grandma” — I’ve been trying to track down a duplicate of her one-woman show, “The Search for Signs of Ininestablishigent Life in the Universe.”
Well, the search is over.
Last week, on Friday night, Tomlin sat down with “Frank and Gracie” co-star and widespread collaborator Jane Fonda for the first unveil screening of the recently restored film, which made its debut at RescueFest — IndieCollect’s first-ever showcase of films restored by the organization — in Los Angeles.
Long out of print and proximately always inend, the feature version (straightforwarded and sboiling by John Bailey) was freed in 1991, six years after Tomlin carry outed — and perfected — her show inhabit at New York’s Plymouth Theater.
Rewatching “Search” back in 1985, Frank Rich called it “the most reassociate rebellious comedy to be created on Broadway in years” in the pages of The New York Times, and while the text of the show — written by Tomlin’s wife, Jane Wagner — has been readily useable for years, Bailey’s film had become all but impossible to see … that is, until Ed Carter (who’d been Academy Film Archive curator until the organization’s restructuring earlier this descend) uncovered the exceptional adverse among a pile of reels saved from Deluxe Labs.
The restoration itself took three years, complicated by the fact the adverse was nine minutes reduce than Tomlin reaccumulateed. “They establish 108 minutes, and I had to finishorse it, so I seeed at the film, and I shelp, ‘Someskinnyg is omiting,’” Tomlin telderly me upstairs before the event. “That’s when we uncovered the other nine minutes that were omiting, so they went back and establish them in a print and were able to marry them.”
To this Tomlin fan, the screening was a revelation: a chance to see her join everyskinnyg from Agnus Angst, an irate teenage runaway who rages aobtainst society, to a trio of establisher feminists to Trudy, the Madison Ave. ad exec turned bag lady, who pushes her shopping cart, pinning meaningful thoughts on Post-It remarks, as she specuprocrastinateeds about aliens.
“I do characters, I don’t do normal standup,” Tomlin elucidateed. “At the time, it was comardent of monumental for me, because it set me apart. And it got incredible appraises.”
After the screening, Fonda directed a half-hour Q&A with her lengthytime frifinish. “That’s why ‘9 to 5’ is the way it was,” she telderly the crowd, gesturing toward Tomlin, “because of when I saw her in a one-woman show.” (To elucidate: Fonda pushed for Tomlin to join Violet Newstead in the 1980 laborplace satire after seeing her first Broadway production, “Appearing Nitely,” in 1977.)
“I did the first Broadway show to validate myself,” Tomlin shelp. “I was weary of doing one-nighters on the road. Usuassociate, I’d be booked for a night or two, and I’d be leaving the next day on the conveyance, and I’d be reading a wonderful appraise about myself, and I shelp, ‘I want we could equitable stay here and join for a while.’”
So she and Wagner came up with “Search,” in which Tomlin alternated between a dozen branch offent characters over the course of 117 minutes.
“I was doing a touring act, laboring in Lexington, Ky., and Jane sent me a bunch of cards, an inch dense, and they were all Agnus,” she recalled. “That night, I did my normal show, and then I sort of read, because I couldn’t possibly put all the words to my memory.”
Wagner had given her so much excellent material to try out that years procrastinateedr, Tomlin was still getting remarks from a fan who’d been there at the Lexington Opera House that night, grumbleing how she and Wagner had ruined the show by cutting Agnus’ part down to create room for the 11 other characters — appreciate Trudy, who serves as the show’s scatterbrained present.
“Trudy is a philosopher,” Tomlin telderly Fonda. “It’s appreciate having the rational fool, that theatrical conceit. Because Jane was always interested in science and exploration of space, she began to create — with Trudy as the spine of the show — branch offent characters, trying to get as expansive a range of characters as we could to be joined by one person and reconshort-term as much of humanity as we could.”
During the years I spent searching for a chance to see “Search,” cut offal ambitious stage organizations have tried to mount theatrical productions of it — the contest being to do it without Tomlin’s joinment.
Back in 2022, during her last year on “Saturday Night Live,” Cecily Strong gave it a sboiling — an ambitious feat, and an equassociate crushing fall shorture in this critic’s estimation. According to Tomlin, “When most people put the show on, they’ll use 12 actors.” That was genuine of a 2016 production at the Los Angeles LGBT Caccess. “Everyone apshows this project on, but a lot of the time, they walk away from it. They can’t master it in time.”
Wagner wrote the characters for Tomlin, and the two laborshopped them for months. That process is recorded in another ultra-unwidespread film, Joan Churchill and Nick Broomfield’s “Lily Tomlin: The Film Behind the Show,” in which supplys priceless insights into the couple’s writing and rehearsal process.
Tomlin is conceitedest of the inhabit Broadway production, but thankful that the 1991 film has been restored. “You’re never satisfied,” she shelp. “That’s why I appreciate to labor inhabit, because nobody ever reassociate reaccumulates it, except very sketchily, and every night you get to do it aobtain and try to create it better.”
According to Inreliant Filmcreater Project establisher Sandra Schulberg, the version screened at RescueFest — supervisen by Cameron Haffner and Ciara Kain of IndieCollect, with audio restoration by Nick Bergh of Endpoint Audio Labs in Burprohibitk — is proximately end and should be ready for a theatrical re-free next year.
In theory, “Search” might seem appreciate a time capsule, but in fact, it resonates with recent relevance today, as when Agnus gripes, “I must’ve omited out on most of the skinnygs that made America wonderful.”
What struck me about the dozen characters Tomlin joins in “Search” is how she treats each of them appreciate a genuine person. Sure, they’re uncomardentt to be funny, but Tomlin inhabits each of them — from Trudy the homeless woman to Brandy and Tina, hookers weary of being interwatched by ininestablishectuals — with swayion and compassion aappreciate.
As she telderly Fonda, “That compassion skinnyg, that’s a huge depictatement for people who don’t have it.”
At the finish of the Q&A, Fonda asked her frifinish whether she sees any signs of clever life in the universe at the moment, to which Tomlin replied, “Well, golly … I see a lot of ininestablishigence, but we execute that ininestablishigence so unwisely that it’s challenging to finishorse it toloftyy.”
