Sandra Bernhard’s skinny-ass struts on stage wearing a “practical” slinky black dress, swinging her arms to Neil Sedaka’s “Laughter in the Rain.” Pitchy, but exuberantly so, she really does love the rainy days on a “Sassy glamorous Sunday afternoon” with no traffic in her former hometown of dry Los Angeles. She delivers what we come to expect in her latest show Sandrology: monologues about supermodels, celebrity dish, and politics. She dogs on bad TV, as well as references her famous connections, with tongue firmly planted in cheek. The actress who beat out the likes of Meryl Streep and DebraWinger for a role opposite Robert De Niro in The King of Comedy thirty years ago mentions her recent stints on GCB and Hot in Cleveland. She offers anecdotes about meeting Kristin Chenoweth (“Honey, she ran into my arms. Of course, I had to pick her up first.”), Patti Smith, and Princess Diana. She namedrops Ron Perelman (he can get together a very gentile cross-section of friends), Natalie Maines (the talented songstress has a filthy barbecue), as well as her tempestuous relationship with Rita Wilson, of all people, and getting in one good Madonna dig. Taking stock of her voracious TV-viewing appetite, she laments the lack of opportunities for the communal experience with last year's royal wedding, and shits on Glee and America’s Next Top Model, complete with Tyra Banks impersonation. Imagining Nicki Minaj tweeting to Jane Eyre: “Them chicken fries be smoking.”
Bernhard keeps her celebrity obsession in check, though. Never one to feel shame or refuse to admit defeat, she gives props to Cindy Crawford for calling her out on expressing skepticism regarding her use of her own line of Kmart bed-sheets. Having had to deal with knocked over collections of potpourri during the ’94 LA Earthquake, she gives a healthy amount of stage time to her old plumber, rhetorically inquiring, “Who am I going to call, Naomi Campbell? Is she going to show up with a wrench kit?” The comic lobs jabs at infomercials, overpriced superfluous luxury items and does a gimmick with actual celebrity-branded products, slightly mockingly pushing her own products (“I have some old Playboys that I bought online”). She recommends her fans travel to the ATM machine for the “cash only transactions … If you get mugged along the way, please go back and get some more, I don’t give a fuck.” 
I didn’t know the sarcastic foul-mouth (which has softened with age) was from infamous Flint, Michigan (why should I?), nor that she grew up partly in Scottsdale, Arizona. She was so easy to write off as having a "New York" persona, where she now lives with her partner and daughter Cecily, enduring a love/hate relationship with mid-to-upscale grocery stores (“mislabeling” bulk items to save money). Now staying with a friend in Brentwood, she muses on her old neighborhood in The Valley (they ran out of street names, so they called them things “like Klump and Kling with a ‘K.’”) Her environmental crusades against chemicals come into play. “I’m getting all the toxic elements out of my house and pushing them into the street. What you do is your problem.” The comic reflects on burgers made with ammonia (“take a shit and clean your toilet at the same time”), while also making light of pharmaceuticals; glosses over politics including popular Republican targets Bristol Palin and Michelle Bachmann (who she referred to as being such a fag hag, the Minnesotan went right up and married one); and lends her detached criticism of Israel and religion (“I’m going to stick around for the rapture and collect all the clothes”) while getting a little more heated about “sneaky Christian businesses.” She was asked to participate in evaluating a music competition and ironically "going back to Egypt during Passover as a judge.”
Bernhard reaches the pinnacle of her comedic powers over halfway through riffing on Lady Gaga. Despite her vocal shortcomings, she delivers a perhaps unintentionally moving and simultaneously knee-slapping (and most in-tune of the night) rendition of “The Edge of Glory.” Reaching out her hands every which way on her imaginary piano, she repeats the chorus refrain ad nauseam in an infinite number of interpretations. You can pretty much project whatever you want onto the number and experience any chosen feeling. Acknowledging her own fan base while talking about a certain alcohol brand, she keeps it real with, “A vodka company supporting a gay cause? Sort of like Gerber giving a shout-out to babies.”
Her modulated delivery of jokes (to keep her going through the full-length set) often devolves into randomness, such as new invention, the Rapkin (“It starts the evening as a cashmere flow and ends the evening as a napkin.”). Contrasted with the first half, non sequiturs galore fill up her set as she carries on. It’s an almost two-hour show with enough solid material that it could easily be trimmed down, but the need for Bernhard to tramp back in wearing a derby and white Tshirt over a black leotard, tights and heals was too irresistible. The 57-year-old (her birthday is today, so does this make this post an unofficial Cinesnatch Happy Birthday Suitless post?) sweeps around her three-person band playing the tambourine and everything else to an instrumental of George Michael’s “Freedom! ’90,” and then punts her leg halfheartedly to a mash up of Apollonia 6 (“Sex Shooter”), Foster the People (“Pumped Up Kicks”), mixed in with a jocular, mordacious version of Aerosmith’s “Janie’s Got a Gun.” On the simple, clean black stage, she also covers Bruce Springsteen (“4th of July, Asbury Park, (Sandy)”), REO Speedwagon (“Can’t Find This Feeling”), and “Before the Parade Passes By” from Hello, Dolly! She’s frequently off-key, but having such a good time, it’s pretty forgivable. Though, her rather abrupt exit and the audience packing it in just as quickly was a bit unusual. I’m not familiar with her previous stage work, but if your politics aren’t on the far right and/or you can endure a good ribbing while a liberal makes fun of herself (which just made me realize the potential problem with conservative comics: their lack of self-deprecation), you should check out Bernhard at the REDCAT. You can buy tickets here, but leave your DVDs and CDs at home and bring cash! Act quickly, the show closes on the 10th. 
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