[star rating=”5″] NATE – A ONE MAN SHOW. By Natalie Palamides. Netflix.
MEGAN CHORITZ reviews
Meet Nate – your stereotypical masculine man just trying to be better.
Even though the kinds of friends who recommended Nate sit on the very edge of the fringe, I was still unprepared for this original, uncomfortable, hilarious and thought-provoking piece of live performance, billed as stand-up, but definitely not that. In fact, there were times that I had to look away. And there were times that the laughter was so cruel it felt like pure, unadulterated bullying.
Nate is Natalie Palamides’ male persona, who drives onto stage on a mini motorbike. Dressed in an open lumberjack check bomber jacket, camo pants and massive black boots, with a black wig, moustache and chest hair. Under his sunglasses is a massive black eye. He/she is revolting. After doing a bunch of macho things; posturing, handing out beers, throwing a drawn penis-adorned wooden plank down, Nate takes on the audience. It is insidious and manipulative. And brilliant and terrifying. And it looks like the most natural thing in the whole world, until you see how carefully planned and constructed it is.
Violent, grotesque and hideously familiar
Everything that is toxic masculine behaviour is exposed. I don’t know how the live audience managed. I am not sure that they did. I hardly managed. This is violent, grotesque, deeply unsettling, borderline abusive (it is a very fine line), and an incredibly deep consideration of human behaviour.
I know many who would not manage this. It is literally in-your-face. It is raw, mad, provocative, ugly and very, hideously familiar. The audience is not let off. The few audience members who end up on stage are put through the ringer and it is bad. Very bad. Inappropriately bad. Unforgivably bad. And yet, the whole issue of consent is dealt with right at the beginning. Nobody knows what they have signed up for, Nate is a loose canon and anything that can happen does.
Funny thing is, at the end I cried. I cried properly. I cried for men and women and myself. I cried for Natalie Palmides and for Nate and for the whole audience. Because even when this stuff is laugh-out-loud funny, it tears you to pieces, and reminds you how deep the shit we are in really is.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you, but Nate is compulsory viewing.
What: Nate
Where: Netflix
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