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University Daily Kansan, October 29, 1981
Page 13
Comedian backs feminism in one-woman show
By CATHERINE BEHAN Staff Reporter
Kate Kasten has a kit of gadgets to show just how miserable your lover made you after your last fight.
For the unbelievably low price of $24.95, you can buy "Fightco, the guilt tripper."
Before you forget how long and hard you cried, put on the convenient tear-collecting cups that fit snugly below your head. It takes eight hours of tears without a drop.
Don't let your blood pressure go down before measuring it with Fightco's accurate blood pressure measurer. This handy gadget records how high your blood pressure soared and prints it on your arm for later reference.
Then, make sure you record your food deprivation or overeating due to stress by swallowing the handy litmus paper that shows with varying colors exactly how messed up your digestive system has become after your fight.
THE LITUMP PAPER is actually a rolled-up piece of multi-colored ribbon, and as Kansas City comedian Kastein
KURT JACKSON/Kansan Staff
Kate Kasten
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pulls it out of her mouth, her audience almost feels the "test paper" being pulled from deep in their bowels.
Kasten's commercial-like skirt is just a part of her one-woman show that not only amuses, but also informs.
now thru Sun., Nov. 1
The stage today is her kitchen for a private showing. It is cluttered with boxes and baskets from which she takes different costumes to support her characterizations, including one of her most popular, Susan B. Anthony.
She watches the bubbles float to the ground, smiles pleasantly, puts the bottle back into her bag and primly asks an unseen job interviewer. "Will that be sufficient? I believe the want an adult who is anyone who is mature and—bubbled."
Kasten, alias Anthony, walks onto the stage carrying a large bag, takes out a bottle of soap bubbles, pulls out the bubble directly through it, make a cloud of bubbles.
THE IMAGINARY interviewer apparently ask Anthony whether she would like to be referred to as "Miss" or "Mrs," and she answers, "Why don't you call me what everyone else calls me, 'Radical Feminist,' abbreviated 'R.F.' and pronounced 'rough.'"
Her closely cropped hair makes it easy to put on her Susan B. Anthony wig on stage, and her thin, hollow-cheeked jaw. Her mildy irrit of personalities during her show.
The 35-year-old comedian has been doing feminist political comedy for about five years but is only now getting regular bookings.
"I get kind of frustrated because there's not a lot of time to write and perform," Kasten said.
Kasten holds two part-time clerical jobs and tries to do as much performing work.
Kasten was born in Chicago and raised in Des Moines, Iowa. She has performed before groups such as the Midwest Women's Festival; before a state conference of the National Organization for Women; and,
AS HEI BOOKINGS increased,
Kasten helped her friend Georgia
about two months ago to help her
promote the show.
"I performed four, five, six times a year and never really promoted it much except by word-of-mouth," Kasten said.
recently, at the Knasas Women's Connection in Topeka.
"In nine months, we hope to be touring." Kasten said.
Because Kasten is a feminist, her work comes from a feminist viewpoint. Arrow said, but she would like to be more inclusive and have them enjoy her comedy.
"It'll take a year or so before we feel secure enough to quit our jobs, and we would have to tour."
"She doesn't do what she calls 'oppressive humor.'" Arrow said. "She hates mother-in-law comedy and discriminatory jokes."
Kasted then, "The exciting part is doing comedy in a different way—something that is a surprise, something a little odd."
AND KASTEN'S COMEDY is different. She finds her ideas from real-life situations and suggestions from her friends.
There is no costume for this skit.
Kasten just lies down on the stage and says, "I used to have this great, white biking."
One skit is actually just a description of how Kasten used to sunbathe when she was 16.
Unfortunately, she was a little thin,
so she would perch on her elbows to fill
out her stomach.
She was a little ashamed of her flat chest, so she concentrated on sticking it out.
Then, she was a little self-conscious of her thin calves, so she would cross her ankles to flesh-out her calves.
BY THIS TIME, Kastan is concerted but filled-out, and she says," All this for six hours on the concrete."
And Kastan loves her work.
"It's just amazing," she said. "I'm 35."
Kasten's partner moved from Kansas City after the two had worked as a team for a year and a half.
now and I started when I was 31 with a partner, and I love it so much."
Kasten said she decided to go with the act alone and restructured her scripted work to use single-person skits or skirts with an unseen partner.
"I'm fairly comfortable with it now. I just want to do it more often," Kasten said.
She said she had loved theatre for a long time. She said that she was involved in school theatre until she was about 13 years old.
"I went to school and I don't really know what happened, but I just got away from it," she said.
IN 1971, Kasten left the University of Kansas a few credit hours away from getting her master's degree in clinical psychology.
psychology
"I was in college seven years when I finally left," she said.
Kasten's mother is a clinical psychologist, and it seemed natural to follow in her mother's footsteps.
"But I realized that if I had really loved psychology, I would never have left it," she said.
Her mother wasn't terribly upset about Kasten leaving school, and, in fact, supports her daughter's work now, Kasten said.
"She loved this performing stuff," Kasten said.
However, Kasten didn't go directly to perform after leaving KU. She went to Kansas City, Mo., to get involved in the feminist movement there.
"I got into speaking and outreach programs, lived with women in the movement, started writing and then I finally found plays," she said.
"It was kind of an evolution."
It was Kilda's elevation
AND LIKE Kasten's recreation of
Susan B. Anthony, her work carries a message.
"I want to use my characters as a vehicle to point out things." Kasten said.
Another comedian who works on
characterization, and who usually perform alone, also is Kasten's hero-
"I would have to make so many compromises, and change how I am and that's what you're doing this thing for," she said.
Kasten said she might be able to make more money by changing her routine to appear to appeal to popular audiences in places like New York, Hollywood and Las Vegas, but she refuses to change her kind of humor.
THOUGH HER COSTUMES might not cost a lot, promotion does, and Kasten and Arrow don't know how to meet the costs.
"I never wear stage make-up, and I don't leave the stage to change costumes. I just pull a new character or a present gadget out of the basket," she said.
"I learned a good lesson once—stick with what you want to do and who you are, even though sometimes it's hard for you to know if you're doing it well."
Kaster said she and Arrow tried to do their job well. She said she needed Arrow to handle the promotion side of her job, and it was not good at promoting herself.
While Arrow sells Kasten, Kasten works on her scripts and the order of her skits for the next show.
SHE LIKES to perform for about 200 to 300 people, and she works to give each audience a show they can think about after they go home.
“She is naturally brilliant in characterizations.” Kasten said. These are full developed characters in the plays, and they are not stereotypes.
"I have a lot of respect for her, but I don't really do that kind of work." Kasten said. "I do situations with a few characters."
Because she has fewer characters. Kasten's expenses are not as high, and she does not rely on costumes.
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