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Hr AS I ! V
Sandra B^r^hard’s
(ro'oy A v >d tarry
C omedian, actress and commentator Sandra
Bernhard has never strayed from her uncon
ventional, "in-your-fare" approach to perfor
mance. Bernhard, 47, is back on the road with her
latest comedy/musical tour de force, a politically-
charged sort of variety show called "Hero Worship"
celebrating her commitment to irony and
American culture.
"It’s a mixture of monologue and political
scurrying with my personal little travelogue, and I
usually weave in between the music and the
songs," Bernhard says. "The show was originally
inspired by the events of 9/11 and the proclama
tion that irony was dead and you weren't allowed
to be on the edge anymore because it just wasn’t
politically correct or acceptable. You weren't
allowed to criticize the government, conveniently
for them It's a response to the obvious.
Everybody seems to have been made into a hero. I
think hremen and policeman are cool people, but
that's what they do. They go into burning build
ings and save people. They feel compelled to do
these jobs and throw themselves into danger. I’ve
met a lot of fireman guys and a lot of them are a
little cynical about it all; a lot of them think it's
bullshit That s the point of the show the
exploitation of the term."
"Hero Worship" mixes Bernhard's sharp
tongued stand-up comedy with musical perfor
mances. The show includes a full rock band com
pnsed of New York musicians.
"They're on stage with me all night It's like a
rock shows meets., whatever I am 1 I'm a hybrid
of all the different worlds "
Bernhard takes jabs at the Bush administration
and pulls no punches on the war on terrorism,
religious and political extremists and fanatics. She
skewers tacky trends in the mass media and in
American pop culture—from plastic surgery and
supermodels to Enron and cable television net
works And Bernhard makes tun of everyone in
equal measure
"It s what s in front of us," she says And l try
to take it to the next level; that's what the show s
alt about. My show s certainly more political than
it s ever been It kind of happened organically "
“I was quite disappointed in how everything
panned out with Bill Ctmton," she adds "1 actu
ally thought he was a good president, but he was
irresponsible He was kind of schmucky. stupid,
classless and tacky. And the way the Bushes fina
gled their way back tnto the White House was
quite shocking Now, of course, they've been
busted open like a rotten watermelon *
Sandra Bernhard should be a famhar face to
anyone with a fair knowledge of television him
Ballard lesemann
WHAT Sandra Bernhard s
"Hero Worship**
WHERE Coca Cola Roxy Theatre. Atlanta.
(404)233 7698
WHEN Saturday.June22.9pm
HOW MUCH 121
and stage over the past 20 years. Since her bieak-
through film debut as a psychotic fan in Martin
Scorsese’s 1983 The King Of Comedy, she's
appeared on television's "Roseanne," "The Larry
Sanders Show," "Space Ghost Coast To Coast" "Ally
McBeal," "Will & G-ace" and "The Sopranos"
among many others. She's had her own A&E
senes. The Sandra Bernhard Expenence" and
earned raves for her on- and off-Broadway shows,
including "Love Machine," "I'm Still Here... Damn
It!" and "Without You, I'm Nothing." She gained
and lost fans when she rubbed elbows (among
other body parts) with Madonna on David
Letterman's show. She even hosted a few specialty
shows on MTV. Despite all the exposure on the
large and small screens, Bernard remains fiercely
skeptical about corporate media and the enter
tainment industry in general.
"I have to point my finger at Hollywood for
buying into it all and for not raising the bar intel
lectually," she says. "That's why I try and do the
work I'm doing in as many forms as are available
to me. The movie network is pretty much a joke.
Hollywood doesn’t have any opinions. They're ter
rified. They're lemmings.
They're also dangerous
because they do allow
mediocrity to propagate...
it's disheartening."
The performer is almost
as disillusioned with the
state of the broadcast news
industry as she is with
Hollywood.
"I think it's total
schlock and junk," she
exclaims. "It's right up
there with the WWF. It's
sensationalistic. I don’t
believe any of it. I get most
of my news from he New
York Times and the New
Yorker—or when I'm in L A.
I'll listen to National Public
Radio m the car—and leave
it at that. I grew up on that
kind of reporting from
Cronkite and Bnnkley and
those people—on that level
of intelligence. They were
figures; people you looked
to and counted on. If you
watch a lot of current news,
it kind of shakes you up and leaves you for a
loss...
"The problem i> there s just not enough con
nection to recent cultural history," she says. "If
you ask any kid who Maria Callas was. they
wouldn t even know When we were growing up,
we were learning about the turn of the last cen
tury—classical music and art and culture. Now,
there's just so much information.., I don't think
schools can possibly reach back to the '40s or *>0s
and bring these kids up to date. It's all moving
too fast."
But that's Bernhard's gig: find the humor and
irony in the sorry state of American culture and
bong it onto the stage in her own, off-kilter
comed’c style.
"It just kind of comes to me, I don t really try
to force it I just walk down the street and ideas
kind of hang there before me. And I translate that
into the show "
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