Whoopi Goldberg on stand-up: 'I guarantee you you will not be bored'

Whoopi Goldberg's day job may be cohosting

The View

- alongside Joy Behar, Michelle Collins, Candace Cameron Bure, Paula Faris, and Raven-Symoné, - but her true trade is stand-up.

She'll hit the Valley Forge Casino Resort on Saturday and appear alongside Ashley Judd in Big Stone Gap, in theaters Friday.

Before The View, before starring in 1985's wrenching The Color Purple, 1990's Ghost (for which she won a best supporting actress Oscar) and 1992's smash Sister Act, her high-wire brand of tall-tale-telling is where she got her start and schtick.

"I'm a storyteller," she says. But Goldberg's career began before she was a traditional stand-up. Her roots are in performance art, where she was discovered by famed director Mike Nichols in 1983.

"I had to adjust how people perceived what I did, because people didn't know what performance art was then, didn't have a connection to it, artistically or emotionally," says Goldberg. She morphed her monologues into richly detailed stories with deeply etched characters of her own creation.

"Suddenly, people said, 'Oh, you're a stand-up comedian' and I'd say, 'No, I'm a storyteller' and then they'd say, 'No' again," she says, laughing. "To me, stand-ups told jokes - joke, joke, joke, joke - I don't do that. I tell stories where sometimes you laugh and sometimes you cry. So I think that I and my audience evolved together."

Goldberg knows everyone loves a good story, even when it's not exactly on the happiest of topics. She told me a tale about when her brother, Clyde, died this year. Goldberg called his girlfriend, who was in hysterics over the death. "I had to use my calm Whoopi voice to settle her down from crying and screaming, crying and screaming," Goldberg says. The only issue? Goldberg found out this woman and her brother had been together for only a couple of weeks.

"I have to make things relevant to me, often in a very hard and sad way. It is how I've evolved as an artist," she says.

That evolution was aided by influential figures such as Moms Mabley (Goldberg executive-produced a 2013 documentary on Mabley for HBO called Moms Mabley: I Got Somethin' to Tell You), Richard Pryor, and Lord Buckley. Like those artists who told long, detailed stories rather than one-liners, you might not like where Goldberg goes with her tales. "But I guarantee you, you will not be bored," she says.

Goldberg doesn't know whether people come to see her stand-up because of the stories or because of The View.

That's why she starts her stand-up show with a speech explaining why she uses the language she uses, how this isn't The View, and how she won't sing songs from Sister Act or quote from The Color Purple. "How can I remember The Color Purple? That was 30 years ago," she says.

She ends her act with a Q&A that can touch on anything her stand-up show hasn't.

During her stand-up, Goldberg discusses "sex, politics, guys - I don't talk about The View. It's not my place. Now, afterward, if they ask me how I feel about certain things and I'm in a mood to answer, I do. Sometimes, depending on the tone, I let them know that I don't have to defend [myself]. You feel one way. I feel another, I'm not mad at you . . . Why you mad at me?" she says, laughing about the repartee. "I love the banter."

Ultimately, what Goldberg wants from anyone in her audience is to stay loose and have a good time. "People may not like me, but rest assured I'm never dull," she says. "If people aren't rigid they see that and stay awhile."

Whoopi Goldberg, 8 p.m., Saturday, Valley Forge Casino Resort, 1160 First Ave. Tickets: $62-85. Information: 610-354-8118 or www.vfcasino.com.