Review: "Pretty Beast": Hear Her Roar

Pretty Beast

Written and performed by Kazu Kusano

Presented by FRIGID New York at The Kraine Theater

85 E 4th St, Manhattan, NYC

February 18-March 1, 2023

Kazu Kusano. Photo by Matt Misisco
The contrast suggested by the title of comedian Kazu Kusano's solo show Pretty Beast, currently part of the 17th annual FRIGID Fringe festival, gestures towards the resistance that she encounters as a woman pursuing a career viewed as insufficiently feminine, especially in her native Japan. When she is younger and a class clown (and also likes, unconventionally, to play sports with the boys), her classmates call her "Otoko-Onna" ("boy-girl"); and when she becomes a party girl at the end of high school, her atypicality frightens away the opposite sex. Her acting teacher tries to force her into his own traditional mold, and recommendations to settle down and behave appropriately for a woman comes from even closer and more hurtful quarters. When Kusano, now based in Los Angeles, moves to the United States to pursue acting, the sexism that she faces is compounded by the only parts available to her being, as she says, ninjas and whores. Of course, racism does not disappear with her switch to comedy, as her early, hilarious mockery of some stereotypical reactions from white audience members shows.

But if "pretty beast" describes Kusano and her embrace of penis jokes over propriety, it equally looks to her mother, a beautiful woman who was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia when Kusano was born and whose mental illness deeply impacted Kusano as she grew up (including in how her imitation of her favorite comedy show is tied in part ot the fact that the show made her mother laugh) at the same time as it was taboo to discuss it outside of the family. Her father, meanwhile, is gone for long periods for work and includes Kusano in some age-inappropriate activities and conversations when he is home. These circumstances play a large role in Kusano's discovery of a feeling of power in making others laugh, and Pretty Beast skillfully interweaves these various threads together and mixes storytelling with dashes of stand-up in recounting that journey towards comedy-as-superpower. Kusano's jokes are sharp, her impersonations, especially of family members, funny and immersive, and her embodiment of her inner guilt and insecurity as a kind of zombie-like figure effective. Ultimately, Kusano's energetically uproarious story is one of courage, persistence, and self-determination. You don't have to be a comedian, or pretty, to find Pretty Beast relatable; what is important, as Kusano reminds us, is that, whether we admit it or not, all of us are fucked up.

-John R. Ziegler and Leah Richards

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: The Immersive "American Blues: 5 Short Plays by Tennessee Williams" Takes Audiences on a Marvelously Crafted Journey

Image
American Blues: 5 Short Plays by Tennessee Williams Written by Tennessee Williams Directed by Jim Niesen Presented by the Irondale Ensemble Project at The Space at Irondale 85 South Oxford St., Brooklyn, NYC October 27-November 26, 2023 Shadenia Savid in Moony's Kids Don't Cry . Photo by Natasha Rotondaro In 1948, Tennessee Williams published American Blues , a collection of five one-act plays, and a remarkable new production of this collection by Brooklyn's Irondale shows that these works have lost none of their power to both entertain and challenge audiences in the intervening three-quarters of a century. Comprising plays written in the decade between 1936 and 1946 - Moony's Kids Don't Cry (1936); The Dark Room (1939); The Case of the Crushed Petunias (1941); The Long Stay Cut Short, or, the Unsatisfactory Supper (1946); and Ten Blocks on the Camino Real (1946) - American Blues represents the second part of Irondale's American Century, the first install
Read more

Review: Nancy Redman’s "A Séance with Mom" Conjures Mother-Daughter Hilarity and Love

Image
A Séance with Mom Written by Nancy Redman Directed by Austin Pendleton Presented at Chain Studio Theatre 312 W. 36th St., Manhattan, NYC April 20-23, 2023 [Update 5/1/23: shows added May 24-June 4, 2023 (no performance May 29)] Nancy Redman Nancy Redman appears onstage, a simple table in front of her, a walker off to the side. Within seconds, we are immersed in a séance involving two then three then four characters—all emerging from only Redman. Redman plays Nadine, a woman who has something urgent to address with her dead mother, Gussy. Redman manages multi-faceted character work, each character in conversation with the other, complete with different gestures, accents, and mannerisms. The effect is riveting and, ultimately, deeply cathartic. The heart of the show comprises Nadine’s mission to reach her mother through a séance in order to talk. An unwitting rabbi plays the bumbling gatekeeper to the spirits in the séance, while Nadine’s something—actually several somethings—to tell her
Read more

Review: From Child Pose to Stand(ing) Up: "Yoga with Jillian" and "Penguin in Your Ear" at the Women in Theatre Festival

Image
Yoga with Jillian Written by Lia Romeo Directed by Andrew W. Smith Presented by Project Y Theatre and Richard Jordan Productions in association with The Pleasance June 2-17, 2023 Penguin in Your Ear Written and performed by Eliza Bent Directed by Jess Barbagallo June 10, 2023 Part of the Women in Theatre Festival , presented by Project Y Theatre at A.R.T./New York Theatres Michole Biancosino. Photo courtesy of Project Y Theatre This June, Project Y Theatre Company presents the eighth annual installment of its Women in Theatre Festival (WIT), which showcases new work by women and maintains "more than 50% female representation of all artists involved." This year, the festival includes a lobby installation project, titled In the Betweens , from scenic designer Chen-Wei Liao, through which audience members pass on their way into the theater proper. One first chooses first between "light" and "dark" rooms and then moves into "the gardens" before re
Read more