Who will be self-important for the self-important maker-fun-of-ers?
Kate Berlant's show, KATE, and some real pretension on my own part
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SHOWS:
Comedy Store Belly Room (LA). March 28th. more details soon!
Bergamot Comedy Festival (LA). April 1st-5th. more details soon!
Comedy Loft (DC). May 28th. featuring for the great Sam Salem. Sam is one of my famous friends, and he’s hopefully famous enough to sell out this 250-seat space but if not, maybe I can be that famous for him instead.
Hello Sternal Journalists!
Last week, I went to see Kate Berlant’s one-woman show, KATE, which ended its run at the Pasadena Playhouse today. If you’re familiar with Berlant’s work, it was very much in her typical lane. If you’re not familiar with her work, you can get the gist of it here.
It’s basically a sub-genre of alt standup built around this queer, woo-woo confidence that Berlant and frequent collaborator John Early developed and refined in the 2010s. I don’t actually know, but I feel like it must be an amalgam of many theater-y, artsy professors and peers they were were exposed to at NYU. The Broad City girls also did this sort of thing and I’m not sure who started it.
Anyway, KATE is a project that uses the Berlant-Early-theater-nerd-machisma-thing to its fullest extent. She’s playing (as per usual) a version of herself who takes her very real work very seriously.
The show is a series of interconnected monologues and stories and intentionally pretentious audio-visual choices, all of which are meant to build towards a moment (spoiler alert) where Berlant cries on command. The meta-story of the show (double spoiler alert) is that an exec from Disney+ was supposed to be in the audience and apparently hasn’t shown.
When Kate (the character) realizes this, she has a breakdown which results in a lot of fun breaking-the-fourth-wall self-deprecation that provides the release and audience sort of always craves from a Berlantian performance.
It’s a very good show. What I am about to say is not a criticism of the show. If you have an opportunity, see the show. I hope it’s available digitally one day because, while Berlant books plenty and is highly regarded in comedy circles, I think she deserves much more recognition for the way her and Early’s influences have changed comedy.
That being saaaaaid, I couldn’t help but think as I was leaving that this whole show was a show about the silliness of the pretentiousness of art. Arguably, much of the Berlant-Early shtick is a satirization of self-serious artists. This is great and I love it. AND looking around at the Pasadena Playhouse, it occurred to me that the people in this audience were the types of people who, ten or twenty years ago, would have been going to see the serious, pretentious art this show was satirizing. NPR types, to put it lightly.
And so if the people who like pretentious art are at your show which satirizes pretentious art, are you not making a new type of pretentious art? Again, this is not a criticism or a dunk of any kind. I’m sure Kate Berlant has thought about this and can articulate and explore this a lot more in-depth than I can. But it also creates a paradox where the pinnacle of pretentious art is the satirization of said pretentious art. So pretentious artists start only creating the art that satirizes the pretentious art and so! One day! Are we gonna run out of pretentious art to satirize in order to make our pretentious art?
Or, as the tone of this newsletter whose greatest accomplishment to date was called “Hot Dog On a Train” might suggest, are there always going to be some people who take themselves too seriously and I’m making up a hot take because I needed something to write today?
Who knows! Interested to hear your thoughts, though, and for now…
Argylle. Film. Ya know what, I think I liked it. It was batshit and made a lot of crazy choices that were inarguably not great, but it also took a lot of big swings and was fun except for the middle. I also went to see it after a friend’s birthday at a brewery, so my taste was compromised. I would say it’s more of a 62 on RottenTomatoes, not the 32 it currently has.
Texas Hold ‘Em. Song. New Beyonce song. It is fun.
Come a Little Bit Closer - Spanish Version. Song. I was putting together a little Sunday morning oldies playlist on Spotify and stumbled across the Spanish version of this Jay & The Americans song you may have heard in Guardians of the Galaxy or on Washington, D.C. radio station, Oldies 100. I like listening to songs I know in languages I don’t.
Recruited to Play Sports, and Win a Culture War. Article. Insightful story about Florida’s New College and attempts to “de-wokeify” the progressive student body by creating an athletic program and bringing in students from more conservative schools. Crazy story, optimistic ending.
Alrighty, that’s all for this week!
Sending love!
Julian!
For making it this far, here are a couple pictures of the men’s bathroom at the Pasadena Playhouse during Kate. I genuinely very much enjoyed this touch and, even though I know it was over the top for satire reasons, I think more shows should go crazy like this
P.S. I spend anywhere between two and twelve hours a week on the Sternal Journal. If you enjoy receiving it (and are RICH) consider becoming a paying subscriber. For just a few bucks a month, you can provide me with a bit more time to come up with fun topics, poems, and interviews; and you with probably fewer typos (Update: I have gained some paid subscribers since originally writing this bumper and I don’t think it’s had a meaningful impact on typos. Workin’ on it!)