Rosie O’Donnell: Common Knowledge ★★★★★ | Laura Benanti: Nobody Cares ★★★★★

Beloved comedian and former talk-show host Rosie O’Donnell and acclaimed Broadway mainstay Laura Benanti are making their Edinburgh Fringe debuts, and both are delivering great performances in different-but-delightful shows. Coincidentally, and tellingly, since motherhood is a primary topic in these new works, both women have added retorts from their children to the titles of their respective shows. For famous as they both may be, their children aren’t overly impressed. Fortunately, their audiences will be.

In Rosie O’Donnell: Common Knowledge, O’Donnell begins her show sharing the story of her mother’s death on St. Patrick’s Day in 1973. O’Donnell was 10 years old, and the experience was, understandably, traumatic and color-draining, like “The Wizard of Oz in reverse.” Her father subsequently hauled the entire family to Ireland to be with relatives at the height of The Troubles, a country O’Donnell recently returned to in order to get out of the United States while “Mango Mussolini” resides in the White House.

Donald Trump and O’Donnell have historically and publicly had a hate-hate relationship; he recently tweeted that he’s thinking of revoking her American citizenship, even though that’s not something a President can do. Horribly depressed by his looming presence in American life, O’Donnell painted 600 paintings of him in an effort to soothe her soul. (In a bit of unexpected Fringe synergy, this reveal brought to mind 300 Paintings, the superb returning Summerhall show where Sam Kissajukian recounts how he made 300 large-scale paintings during a six- month manic episode; their combined output would make a fascinating museum exhibition.)

The artistic escapism didn’t work, and after Trump was re-elected, O’Donnell decided it was time to depart for safer shores. So off to Ireland she went, with her non-binary, autistic child Clay in tow. Clay in turn challenged their mother to redefine what she knows motherhood to be, and the personal adjustments O’Donnell makes for her child and her new country of residence are both hilarious and touching.

Serious as all this sounds, it all works thanks to O’Donnell’s impeccable comic timing. And like the best stand-ups, she’s fast on her feet and able to veer off-script as needed. When an audience member sitting on the front row arrived late, O’Donnell quickly summed up all that the woman had missed, ending with “Real women can hold their urine.”

Laura Benanti also likely has an adversarial relationship with the sitting President. Her wickedly brilliant impersonations of Melania Trump on Stephen Colbert’s soon-to-be-canceled late-night show most certainly irked the First Lady and thus also her spouse. But in real life, Benanti discloses, she’s been far from confrontational. So much so that she’s now on a “people- pleasing recovery journey.”

Benanti made her Broadway debut at 18 in The Sound of Music in the chorus, eventually playing Maria von Trapp to the almost-five-decades-older Richard Chamberlain’s Captain. (And to think that those singing nuns thought that Maria was the problem to be solved. Hmm…) A favorite of New York theatergoers ever since, she’s garnered five Tony Award nominations (with one win, for Gypsy) in her illustrious career.

Benanti is fully aware that she’s best known as a Broadway baby. She also knows that many audience members were likely dragged to her show by a friend telling them “I know you don’t like Broadway, but I think you’ll like her.” For as glorious a singer as Benanti is, many don’t know how funny she is.

And she is hysterical. Describing how many of her (unnamed) ex-boyfriends became wildly famous after they split up, she reckons that her vagina was “the portal to greatness.” Then she started getting married, three times to be exact, the third accomplished after obtaining her two “divorce awards” from City Hall.

From there it’s the march into motherhood: “Being a mother is the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and I’ve had sex with a clown.” Few topics are off-limits. Perimenopause, postpartum depression and moving to New Jersey: all tasty fodder for Benanti to feast upon.

Interspersed in Benanti’s monologic script are fantastic songs written by Benanti and her co- writer and music director, Todd Almond (who Fringegoers may remember from last year’s Fringe terrific fever-dream song cycle I’m Almost There), performed alongside Johnnie Grant on drums and Joseph McKearnon on bass. Tightly directed by Annie Tippe, Laura Benanti: Nobody Cares is a show very much worth caring about.