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Or recall the comedienne’s near slapstick performances in Ruthless People, when her character, Barbara Stone, is kidnapped and her husband (Danny Devito) resists paying the ransom as he resists having his wife back; in Scenes from a Mall, as the over-the-top (but no less loveable) Deborah Fifer to Woody Allen’s Nick Fifer, the husband she fusses at and over; and in The First Wives’ Club, as the mouthy, rambunctious, and rightfully vindicated ex- who joins two equally jilted friends (Diane Keaton and Goldie Hawn) in clever ex-spouse vindication and revenge. Or muse on the delightful, self-effacing charm of the Divine Miss M, who rides onstage in a wheelchair dressed in a flashy sequined mermaid’s costume, and pokes fun at everything from her leaving her ass behind to her jiggling her own shaggy underarm flesh when she gestures or waves. To experience Bette Midler is to feel more than just hyphenated adjectives. It is to be transformed. (0)