Kate Berlant is on the Fringe interview

Written by: Si Hawkins
Published: Sunday 5th August 2018

You never can tell who's going to turn up and make their Edinburgh Fringe debut in any given year. For every dozen fresh-faced young Brits cobbling together their first hour, there's an acclaimed US comic with a string of enviable credits on their resume, also taking the plunge.

Take Kate Berlant, who's very much in the latter camp: her admirably original improvisational stand-up is being lovingly fashioned into an hour-long show, CommuniKate, which will happen at Edinburgh's Assembly George Square Studios for the whole Fringe, which is pretty cool.

Back home Berlant has appeared in fine TV shows like Comedy Bang-Bang, Transparent, Search Party and Bojack Horseman, but perhaps most interesting to comedy nerds over here will be her recent appearance on the US version of Taskmaster. Which started out, of course, at the Edinburgh Fringe. She did rather well, too.

Berlant's myriad talents can also be found on Netflix, in the showcase series Characters, where she introduces the appallingly pretentious artist Denise St Roy and her almost-as-awful entourage. It's a tour de force, and surprisingly a bit of a one-off, as we'll find out.

The question is, with all that going on, why do the Fringe? Mere hours after her plane landed, we asked her some questions...

So, why are you doing the Fringe?

You know I asked myself that last night [laughs]. This festival is always something that I've heard about and thought 'wow, what a challenge.' In the past I was going do it, but something came up or I've talked myself out of it. But right now, I feel like it's impossible to find this kind of opportunity to perform, anywhere, so the pure creative challenge of it is what I'm in it for.

Whatever happens, you must come out of a run like this as a better performer?

That's what I felt. Even if I humiliate myself, if the shows are brutal and people tarnish my name, at at the end of the run I highly doubt I would ever regret it, or not be better.

And I can't wait to see shows, and of course it helps that Edinburgh itself is so beautiful, I don't think I would do a [month long] festival If it was in, say, Cleveland, Ohio. No disrespect to Cleveland, but that helps. If you do badly, the romance of the city almost saves you.

I really enjoyed your Netflix special, the way you worked various characters into it - were they all characters you'd already been doing?

No - the exact opposite. I don't do characters per se; doing stand-up, people call it a character, which you can understand, but I relate more to 'persona' - even stand-ups who are like 'this is my life, man', that's also a persona.

I don't do characters really, so when I got the opportunity my first impulse was, 'I've got to turn it down.' I was terrified, I didn't have a bunch of characters that I'd been working. But the process was so fast; very quickly write it, then the whole shoot was like three days.

Having seen that special, some of your live audience probably assume that you're doing characters?

I saw that yesterday, 'character comedian' - how dare you! But I can't blame people for thinking that. No, my stand-up, it's been described as 'weird. Is it even comedy? What is it?' I think because I tend to free associate, improvise. The format of this show is an opportunity to improvise, but there are things I'll repeat each night, and I have a language and a style, it's not like I just get up there. But it is quite a loose show.

So every show is unique?

Exactly. For myself, that's what keeps it interesting. Sometimes I think 'god, I wish I had a script' - not that that's easier, it's hard to write a compelling script. But it is a way for me to be sharp and 'present,' not to be too cheesy. So if you have an off night, you just blame the audience! I'm kidding. You just get back on the next night. That's the thing about this festival.

Having to keep ploughing through the same script each night does sound boring, by comparison...

Absolutely: with my show, no two shows will be the same. So it's a risk, but also a defence mechanism against pain.

Your poster suggests that there's also some psychic stuff going on?

So the psychic element is something I've been experimenting with lately, and its ultimately a tool to keep the show improvised. I do these 'psychic readings' - if I get things right it's fun, and if I get them wrong it's funny. It's a win-win. And this is very low-stakes psychic reading. It's not 'how did your brother die,' it's 'have you consumed wheat in the last 12 hours?'

I haven't arrived at a conclusion, 'am I psychic?', but I've gotten enough stuff right. I was in Dublin last week and a woman in the front row, I guessed her sister's name and her sister's husband's name on the first try. You can't imagine the reaction of the crowd, but I was like, 'can you please react more?!' I was excited, and that's what matters.

So I wrongly assumed that maybe you were playing Edinburgh due to doing Taskmaster, as Alex Horne started it in Edinburgh originally.

Really? He's so great.

Didn't you win it?

I sure did!

How competitive does it get?

It was very fun - I personally am not someone who likes games, competition, but I found myself wanting to do well. It was dumb but fun.

What was the weirdest task you did?

I think the weirdest thing that I'm also proudest to have done well was while riding a horse, painting a portrait of a horse. I actually have the painting, and I gave it to my parents, and it's displayed in their home. That was absurd, but also difficult, but so absurd that if you take it seriously you'll embarrass yourself. That show is a great idea.

You're now in Edinburgh - seen any strange festival stuff yet?

The only weird thing was arriving and realising that there are lead pipes, which threw me into an absolute panic. But now I've adjusted, I realise I will survive.

Having done the Netflix show, are you finding that you've got fans in random countries now?

Yeah, I've been totally amazed when I see a tweet that someone's in Korea watching my Netflix special, or Brazil - that's the world we're in, the internet! I'm so lucky to have that [special], because it's my own: people will send me screengrabs of it in different languages.

My hope is that absurdity, things that are silly, will 'transcend language' - ha! Actually my work tends to be about language, and about talking, but at the end of the day I always resort to physical comedy, too.

We'll have to check back in with you in a month, see where your audiences for these Fringe shows came from...

I'll be like 'nobody came!' But no, it's funny, I went to the venue today, and it's all a mysterious language to me, I don't know what I'm walking into. It's scary, but very fun.