In The Passion of the Crawford, now playing the Empire Plush Room in San Francisco, Lypsinka (actually, John Epperson) recreates an interview Joan Crawford gave right in her last Mommie Darkest days.

It was a one-time only appearance at Town Hall in Manhattan, a few years before her death in 1977, and I, in fact, was in the audience.

I remember how Joan kept pouring dark whiskey-colored liquid from a Pepsi can and rattling the ice cubes in her tall glass as she steadily became bombed out of her mind while the interview, conducted by an old friend and flatterer, John Springer, went on and on.

In no time, Joan’s ladylike Hollywood Royalty shtick dissolved into inappropriate giggles alternating with morose musings. Every now and then her moist searchlight eyes would scan the theater as if she were still looking for Marilyn Monroe, whom, according to transcripts from Marilyn’s psychiatrist that came to light a year ago, Joan had once bedded:

(”Oh yes, Crawford,” Monroe told her psychiatrist. “We went to Joan’s bedroom. Crawford had a gigantic orgasm and shrieked like a maniac. Next time I met Crawford she wanted another round. I told her straight I didn’t much enjoy doing it with a woman. After I turned her down, she became spiteful.”)

No spite, however, was on display that night at Town Hall. Joan was utterly feeling no pain. For as more Pepsi cans were brought from the wings and the ice cubes refreshed by the fastidious Springer, Joan became the flapper she once had been in the 1920’s when she would throw back her head and Charleston crazily on tabletops, a pre-Hollywood self then known as either Billie or Lucille LeSueur.

Mischievously this young Joan shot us a look from over her tall glass and cosily confided that Clark Gable was “a man.” We sort of knew that, but Joan had a point to make. “He had ‘em,” the dizzy Lucille LeSueur confided, accompanied by a rude gesture of someone scooping up a bunch of grapes and twisting them. “He had a real pair! — if you know what I mean.”

It was, as was once said of the Titanic’s sinking, a night to remember. One that left its cattle-brand on my young, but never fragile mind. I thank you, Joan. The mad queen that lives in my heart and is right now dictating these notes thanks you as well, with trembling lips.

I don’t know if Lypsinka (right, as “The Crawford”) includes the anatomical tidbit about Clark Gable in her recreation of the Town Hall interview — I can’t imagine her leaving it out unless the tape that she is lipsinking to cut it out (very, very likely) — but Chad Jones’ rave review of the Lypsinka performance refreshed my memory, quoting half-forgotten gems from that vivid three hours when Joan was, not exactly on the cross, but in her Passion and Glory:

For more than an hour, [Lypsinka as Crawford] bemoans the lack of dignity in 1970s Hollywood, tells stories about Greta Garbo, Johnny Garfield, Clark Gable and others.

About Bette Davis, the co-star she came to loathe while working on Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, Crawford said, “We must have challenges. Otherwise, we don’t grow. I think Bette Davis, in Baby Jane, was one of the greatest challenges I’d ever had. I meant that kindly. I had more control and learned more discipline. No, no, let me explain that please. Bette is of a different temperament than I. She has to yell every morning. And, so, I just sat and knitted. I knitted a scarf from Hollywood to Malibu.”

When asked if there were any good roles out there for her, Crawford said: “They just don’t write for us any more. Barbara Stanwyck feels the same way, we talk about it. Not often, because I don’t live in the past. I live in today preparing for tomorrow.”

Now for those of our reader too young to understand what living “in today” might mean to The Crawford, as well as for the rest of us, who certainly know a good time when we see one, here is a fabuloso celebration of the Joan Crawford Experience from Dan-o-Rama. Strap yourself in, Christopher!

Yes, it takes a while to load, doesn’t it. But boy oh boy, is it worth it! Meanwhile, you’ll find us in (cue the echo chamber, Joan) “Any. Dark. Barrrrrr.”