Virgin Mary, Sue Mengers and Ann Richards in NY

With whom would you rather spend an evening alone? A Hollywood super-agent, Jesus's mother, or the former governor of Texas?

Those are your confounding choices in the one-woman show category on Broadway this spring. And though their dramatis personae couldn't be more different, the theater experience is similar: You're locked in a room with the same woman for nearly two hours, and she does all the talking.

Still, it's a tough choice, since each of these women is charismatic and compelling in her own unique way.

Virgin mother with vulture

Spending an evening with the mother of Jesus is a revelation. After all, we thought we knew Mary's story. But as told in Colm Toibin's spellbinding narrative The Testament of Mary, and as played by the fearless Fiona Shaw, Mary will have you transfixed for 90 suspenseful minutes and transformed (if not converted) at the end.

Prepared to be disoriented when you enter the Booth Theatre. The stage is strewn with an incongruous assortment of objects, only some of which seem relevant to the story.

There's an uprooted tree, its craggy trunk towering to the ceiling, topped with a wheel. (Does it represent a cross?) There's a transparent floor, through which you see a subterranean room filled with clay jugs. (Is this Lazarus's tomb?)

There's a huge vulture (yes, live) perched on a rock, its black wings spreading dangerously. Kitchen furniture, pails and bottles are strewn everywhere. We strain for a connection.

And then, stage right, behold: a huge plexiglass cube, in which sits a saintly Mary, dressed in crimson and draped in regal blue satin. Her lips move noiselessly, as candles flicker. Having been invited onstage, we circle around her. What is she saying?

Suddenly the cube disappears, the vulture is removed (thank God), Mary sheds her brilliant garments, we take our seats, and the story begins.

That worrisome Jesus

Flitting from one object to another like a distracted homemaker, cleaning, rearranging, reaching for a cigarette, Mary pours out her anguished story of the man she calls "my son" and what befell him. Dressed in a drab tunic and trousers, she represents a mother of any era fearing for a son whose actions anger the authorities and whose life is in danger.

Her alarm begins with the account of the wedding in Cana, where her son performed a miracle (turning water into wine). It compounds when his prophesies (Lazarus's return from the dead) come true. Her disdain for his "followers" evokes laughter from the audience (what mother hasn't disapproved of her son's friends?).

Terrified, she warns her son— now called "King of the Jews"— that these actions will lead to his downfall. But her maternal warnings go unheeded.

Eventually all disparate scenic elements coalesce into the harrowing, heartbreaking account of a helpless mother who watches her son die before her eyes and can do nothing to save him. The ladder becomes a cross she drags across the stage, representing her son's final journey. The coiled barbed wire becomes a crown of thorns she wears, signifying her son's final headdress. The water in which she bathes her naked body onstage reflects the water that washed her son's body, too.

At the end, the astonishing Fiona Shaw demystifies one of the greatest stories ever told and renders instead a profoundly human, universal narrative. Her eyes sunken, her cheeks hollowed, this anguished mother's last words about her son's self-sacrifice are almost too painful to hear: "It was not worth it."

These could be the words of any mother who has lost her son tragically to a cause.

King vs. Kingmaker

Meanwhile, imagine that vulture in The Testament of Mary taking flight, alighting in a nearby theater, perching on a sofa in a sleek Beverly Hills set, and— presto "“ it's transformed into Sue Mengers, Hollywood super-agent.

As played by the irresistible Bette Midler, Mengers is the man-eating vulture who fed off the flesh of stars and studios of Tinseltown. From humble beginnings as a German refugee, Mengers clawed her way to the top of the talent agency empire in L.A. during the '60s and '70s.

At the height of her power, she represented Michael Caine, Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Joan Collins, Cher, Gene Hackman, Mike Nichols and scores of other superstars. "Why be a king when you can be a kingmaker?" she asks us, flashing her outrageous Cheshire cat grin.

Through a cloud of smoke and obscenities, Midler/Mengers treats us to a libelous, delicious anecdotal account of her reign in Hollywood, appropriately titled I'll Eat You Last. She trashes fellow agents; she dishes dirt on Steve McQueen; she gushes over Barbra Streisand and Ali McGraw. She brags about her exclusive dinner parties. "My own mother couldn't come if she were standing out there in the rain."

Sue's five secrets to handling a superstar? 1) Never blow a deal over money; 2) Never remind them of when they were hungry; 3) Never tell them the truth; 4) Never lie to them; 5) Know the spouse.

One of the marvels of Midler's performance is that she never rises from the sofa for 90 minutes, and yet holds us in the palm of her hand. "I'm not getting up. It's your house. You get up," she orders.

Indeed, Midler commands an audience member in the first row to come up on stage and get her a cigarette whenever she wants one. And we love her for it.

Fall from grace

We love Ann Richards, the former governor of Texas, too, for the same qualities as Mengers— her wisecracking, her ambition, her bravado. As brought to life by Holland Taylor (who also wrote the play Ann), Richards governs the Lincoln Center stage for two hours with her rages-to-riches story. (See my previous review here.) Like Mengers— who, in the end, falls from grace and loses most of her clients— Richards loses her power, too, along with her second term.

But no matter. In the end, we admire these women for their humanity, their strength, their endurance, and their unwavering conviction, even in defeat. Why else would three successful stars take the biggest risk on Broadway: the one-woman show? And triumph, in the end.