Carrie Fisher performing Wishful Drinking for HBO   

Life’s a bitch—just ask Carrie Fisher. Booze, pills and bipolar disorder sullied the bed of roses that life seemed to have in store for her when George Lucas cast her as Princess Leia in Star Wars at the tender age of 21. Of course, given her privileged pedigree, it’s easy to think, “Tell someone who cares.” But when she gets going on her hard times (including a failed marriage to Paul Simon and losing a fiancé to another man), she does not grouse, giving herself the business for her bad choices better than anyone else ever could.

Riffing on the life she has lived in novels (Postcards from the Edge) and parading her demons more explicitly in Wishful Drinking—the stage show opening this month at the Bank of America Theatre—Fisher has made her mark with a wit that combines the literate snap of the Algonquin Round Table with a Borscht Belt determination to keep them laughing, no matter what. Her readiness to share and her self-deprecating nature give the illusion that she is our new best friend, when in reality this is a smartly calculated performance, not a kaffeeklatsch. And for Fisher, who takes questions from the audience, thinking aloud on stage is more than an opportunity to name-drop. “My present informs my history just as much as my history informs my present.”

With her husky voice and a world-weary delivery that suggests Fran Lebowitz on a jolt of Red Bull, it is not hard to imagine Fisher as a too-wise-for-her-years child, scowling at the idiotic adults across the room. “Lucille Ball asked my mom once, ‘Is your daughter mad at me?’” she says. “I was three.” Mom is Debbie Reynolds; Dad was singer/actor Eddie Fisher, who infamously left Reynolds, America’s sweetheart, for Elizabeth Taylor. Reading became young Carrie’s life raft in this Hollywood fishbowl. “I’d always been a bookworm, and my family called me that,” she says. “And they didn’t mean it nicely.”

Traveling hopefully on the road to recovery, Fisher still reads constantly and is currently intrigued by the work of Dr. Daniel J. Siegel, author of the book Mindsight. “I’ve always had a tendency to avoid yoga and stuff like that, but I don’t mind taking up a book. [Dr. Siegel] appeals to you on a logical basis, suggesting you can change your brain chemistry,” says Fisher. “That stuff interests me. It doesn’t interest me to sit in a room for three hours with my legs crossed. That’s not gonna happen.”

Wishful Drinking will run October 4-16 at the Bank of America Theatre. Tickets range from $25 to $65. 18 W. Monroe St., 800-745- 3000; broadwayinchicago.com