Kate Berlant, photo courtesy of the New York Times
Performance Studies Alumni Kate Berlant's (M.A. '11) new show Kate has been written up in the New York Times. The new solo show is a departure from Kate Berlant's usual stand-up comedy, and explores a new theatrical format for Berlant.
The reviewer says of Berlant's style, "In more than two decades as a critic of live performance, only a handful of times have I stumbled upon an artist so radically different, so thrillingly alien, that it scrambled my sense of the possible. Kate Berlant was one. It was at a sparsely attended stand-up show in 2013. Following a couple of setup-and-punchline craftsmen, her entrance felt less like the next act than an interruption. The first thing that stood out was her singularly silly physicality, herky-jerky, gesticulating clownishly, a parade of buffoonish confidence. Flamboyance baked into every gesture, her hyperarticulate monologues, which could also spiral, delivered stream of consciousness nonsense with the gravity of a religious epiphany."
The article goes on to say, "Her comedy reflects her background studying experimental performance at New York University by day and performing at open mics by night." and in a nod to her time in Performance Studies, the reviewer notes, "The more I saw her, including the first time she did a half-hour set, I started noticing common themes: The performance in everyday life, the space between reality and artifice, confession and disguise."
Kate will run at the Connelly Theater now through October 8, 2022.