‘Tribute to Phyllis Diller’ in Ambler

This production includes re-creations of Diller’s routines, performed endearingly by Childs and Mary Martello. Surprisingly revelatory, however, was the personal connection between Childs and Diller.

As the artistic director of 1812 Productions, a Philadelphia company specializing in comedy, Childs and her late collaborator Jilline Ringle wrote and starred in Always a Lady: A Celebration of Funny Women in December of 2004.

In this Diller tribute, Childs relates how she and Ringle flew to Los Angeles for a scheduled half-hour interview at Diller’s home. The then-88-year-old comedienne sat for four hours with her two young Philadelphia visitors and embraced them as friends. She even suggested that Childs and Ringle develop their own stand-up act — the first-ever female comedy duo, Diller said.

This production provides the expected laughs as Childs and Martello take turns imitating their idol. But it turns into much more: a touching chronicle of the three-way friendship between Diller and her two admirers. In the process, this tribute provides behind-the-scenes insight into the preparation of comedy routines while simultaneously revealing its legendary subject’s off-stage persona.

Diller, we discover, was a stylish lady, very unlike the brash, loudmouth character she created. She was also a trained classical pianist (this show includes a fugue she composed, played expertly by Owen Robbins, who also accompanies Childs and Martello in several songs that relate to Diller’s career). She also starred in Hello, Dolly! on Broadway in 1969, succeeding Carol Channing and Pearl Bailey in the title role.

Yet onstage, Diller concealed her intellectual and chic side and instead dwelled incessantly on her ugliness (e.g., “I got a figure that just won’t start”). She also conceived a fictitious husband from hell, called Fang, who bore no resemblance to her real-life husband.

As Childs describes how she and Ringle assembled Always a Lady and prepared for their comic duo act, she discreetly drops comments about Ringle taking time off for medical treatments. At the time, Ringle was engaged in a long battle with cancer that ended with her death in 2005 at the age of 40. Ringle did appear in Always a Lady opposite Childs, but their stand-up act never transpired.

That revelation provided a dramatic climax to Childs’s Diller tribute, turning it into a tribute to Ringle as well as Diller. Most of all, though, it’s a tribute to the friendship among three women.

Both Childs and Martello brilliantly channeled Diller’s posture, timing, and especially her cackling laugh. This Ambler run consisted of just three performances (the production previously ran at 1812's Philadelphia home, the Plays and Players Theatre), and it doubtless will receive well-deserved encore presentations for one simple reason: Its material is timeless.