PUSS PUSS is a clown character comedy that follows Natalia Sledz’s feline persona as she delights in being petted by audience members, enjoys a tuna dinner, braves the bath, and indulges in some catnip. The show contains amazing moments of comedy, but on the whole, isn’t a consistently amusing show.
The show follows the scaredy cat Puss in her mission to shirk cat-like characteristics and instead become ‘the WAP she was born to be.’ However, I did not feel that this goal was made clear throughout the show. Without this baseline of context, the audience remain oblivious to Puss Puss’ goals — consequently, the show feels messy and unstructured. It succeeds in having Puss Puss act randomly, but absurdist comedies are challenging to execute well, as randomness in itself does not automatically equate to entertaining.
There are moments where Natalia Sledz’s wit shows, through creative and original gags that earn audience bemusement. However, there are also far too many dull moments. The concept may have had the merit of being novel or even avante garde at Fringes past. But, in the current comedy landscape, the show is not funny nor boundary pushing enough to warrant an hour of the audience’s time.
A number of sections are drawn out in a manner that dilutes their effectiveness, even if they do contain humorous kernels. The overall product is unpolished and too convinced of its own zaniness. Transgression and eroticism can be great sources of incredible comedy, and in some moments of this show they are. However, such instances are too few and far between amongst the rest of the show. It is well known that sex sells, and often exceptionally well at the Fringe. But, while many of the risque jokes begin humorously racy, they often overextend, making them tedious. Dragging a joke out causes predictability to ruin the punchline; an audience can only laugh over one joke for so long. Further, much of the random moments are, in my opinion, simply unfunny — sometimes things being gross and weird isn’t funny, it’s just gross and weird.
To me, this show felt outdated, low-substance, and as though it was trying too hard to be absurd and silly (and was too reliant on being so making it worthwhile) to the detriment of its entertainment value. The show does not follow a performer authentically embracing being a cat in a manner that would be rewarding, but rather the joke of the show is that she is pretending to be a cat in a smug and not consistently engaging manner.
PUSS PUSS is like a rock with a fair number of rough, unmined gemstones within it. Unfortunately, it’s showing at a festival with a number of shows on offer that are cut, polished, and set jewels.
PUSS PUSS is running until 30 August at Dexter at Underbelly, Bristo Square. Buy tickets here.
Image by Tom Noble, provided to The Student as press material.
