American alt.comedy star comes to London

As we file in to the Soho Theatre, the arty monochrome film playing on screen sets Kate Berlant alongside such heavyweight stagecraft luminaries as Sanford Meisner and Konstantin Stanislavski as ponderous thoughts about the nature of theatre flash up. Already we have ascended a stairwell, passing dozens of dramatic portraits of Berlant, a written statement of her artistic intent and even the comedian herself, sat motionless in dark glasses right by the door, a sign reading: ‘Ignore me’ draped around her neck.

Everything points to a satirical takedown of the pretentiousness of theatre and the raging ego of a narcissistic performer wanting to be taken seriously, which is already a well-established comedy subgenre. Then a Cockney cleaner takes to the stage for some knowingly clunky foreshadowing. Though I say ‘Cockney’, Berlant’s accent wanders around much of the Northern Hemisphere, just the first of so many wildly unfair in-jokes about her limited thespian competence. 

In overwrought flashback, she portrays a troubled childhood as the daughter of a demanding Spanish mother (with a ridiculous Irish accent) crushing her artistic ambitions, and an absent Jewish father she’s trying to impress. The porch in of her Santa Monica home becomes her stage, the crickets in the yard her audience. She dreams one day the world she imagines could be her reality, were there not some terrible secret holding her back.

The joyously self-indulgent show wears its clever, meta nature on its sleeve. Supposedly poignant lines are self-conscious and smug, delivered with a too-measured insincerity. Meanwhile the script parodies tropes such the naif lost in New York being spotted by a bigshot or the personal trauma any solo theatrical project must, it seems, mine.

The narrative of overcoming hurdles on the road to success is so full of clichés that even mocking them is familiar territory. Indeed the earnestness of this vanity-project performance, fighting with tech issues and trying to impress a talent scout in the audience, inevitably invites comparisons with Liz Kingsman’s hit Fleabag parody One-Woman Show. 

Although Berlant his many familiar marks, she also puts her own twist on things, such as the physical comedy of an hilarious nightclub scene, each move far too deliberately choreographed. But the most inspired device is having a camera on stage display her amazingly expressive face in supreme close-up.

A running joke is that her ‘crass style of indication’, with every emotion writ incredibly large, is unsuitable for screen work. Yet when an unseen casting director points this camera at her, the wobbles and contortions –even the supposed restraint – that she goes through are incredibly funny. Her cartoonish face makes a punchline out of the subtlest movement, let along the exaggerated ones she revels in here, especially when she valiantly battles to conjure up a tear on cue – an act of appropriately fake sincerity that becomes the Holy Grail of her acting ambitions.

The expected narrative also gets derailed, with some surprising rug-pull moments suddenly changing the shape of the show, which it’s probably a spoiler to discuss. The ever-tricksy hand of director Bo Burnham can surely be detected here, as well as in the way subtle jokes are smuggled intrinsically into the production, not just the witty script or Berlant’s incredible performance. 

This bold and knowing show very much catches the zeitgesty backlash to the increasingly performative nature of life and the commodification of alleged candour, either on stage or just on social media. That makes it a hot ticket, even with seats costing up to £49.

It may not be sincerely meant, but Kate is more artistic in its own way than much of the genre it is trying to parody. Already a proven cult hit on the New York stage, that success already seems assured in London too. 

• Kate Berlant is Kate runs at the Soho Theatre until September 30.

Review date: 6 Sep 2023
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Soho Theatre