Review: KATE at Pasadena Playhouse

Kate Berlant’s reputation precedes her, thus even the first lighting shift of her one-woman show elicits laughter. The piece is an athletic undertaking— a tour de force that stretches her elastic face and expressively-engaged limbs to their fullest potentials. Upon entering the theatre, one is met by Berlant herself engaged in a Yoko Ono-esque performance flanked by an artist’s statement which has appeared verbatim in the program for every show I’ve reviewed in the past year. I will not describe anything else that happens because an open mind is needed to fully appreciate what Berlant has in store for Pasadena Playhouse’s subscription base.

The entire evening feels incredibly risky and sacrilegious. It sits on the precipice of parody without ever winking to let you know it is in on its own joke. One sits in constant fear at the show, “I get it, but does everyone else get it? Are we all enjoying this?” At one point, the popular sitcom star sitting next to me leaned to her companion and whispered, “I don’t get it.” But before you know it, the show is over and the evening has whizzed by in a whirlwind of accents (performed to varying levels of accuracy) and I think (sitcom star next to me and a few avid theatre-with-a-capital-‘RE’ patrons aside) most of us got it and loved it.

I can’t overstate what a joy it was to see Berlant perform live. Her character work has stolen shows like The Other Two and I Think You Should Leave and watching her on stage was a masterclass in how sometimes more is more. Director Bo Burnham’s wit is palpable throughout the performance and these two powerhouse talents have seamlessly melded to create a genuinely theatrically-rich performance with deceptively simple staging and design that packs a profoundly powerful punch. I tremble to think of how this show could forever change the aesthetic of the Moth’s story hour if seen by the wrong people. These are the sort of fresh creatives we need to bring the work of major regional theatres into this century— sorry to all the CALARTS alums.

The biggest success of the piece is its biggest risk; it contains the kind of no-holds-barred cynicism and biting reflection of self that makes parody worth seeing. It is terrifying to watch this show within 100 miles of Los Angeles. The theatre is almost definitely packed with people whose solo shows at Hollywood Fringe at least partially resemble the framework Berlant is homaging and the through line of the struggling actress who cannot be trusted near a camera must strike a chord for anyone actively choosing to live here. From the lobby to the merchandise stand and the program plastered with centerfold spreads, Berlant has embraced a character that reflects an ugly self-obsessedness many of us may recognize in ourselves. As with her work on Netflix’s The Characters, Berlant highlights hideous little truths about the world we live in. At times, amidst the uproars of laughter, one felt the oxygen escape the theatre as the audience sat with bated breath. These valleys made the next laughs hit even harder.

Brava to Berlant!

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