From Curb Your Enthusiasm to DAI (Enough) and more, Iris Bahr loves an awkward laugh
Credit to Author: Stuart Derdeyn| Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2019 18:54:04 +0000
Iris Bahr
When: Nov. 12-13, 8 p.m.
Where: Norman and Annette Rothsetin Theatre, 950 W. 41st Ave.
Tickets and info:chutzpahfestival.com
Some comic actors are studies in fragile egos. Some are masters at inhabiting characters.
Iris Bahr called her first memoir Dork Whore. She thought it encompassed exactly who she was at the time, a 21-year-old fresh out of the Israeli Army headed out to backpack through Asia and, well, the title is a bit of a giveaway. So much for that fragile ego.
In her Lortel Award-winning solo show DAI (Enough), the actor plays 11 different characters in a Tel Aviv cafe moments before a suicide bomber enters. The show had a hit run on Broadway, toured the world and she performed it in front of 100-plus ambassadors and delegates at the UN. She will perform parts of the show at her appearance at the 2019 Chutzpah! Festival.
As well, Bahr will touch base with such wacky web-series creations as cracker “Preggo Tips” advice-giver Rae Lynn Caspar White, Soviet Union mail-order-bride-turned-suburban brothel owner Svetlana Maximovskaya, and, perhaps, even revisit her recurring role as Rachel Heinemann on Curb Your Enthusiasm. As Variety has observed: “Bahr has more voices than a symphony orchestra has strings.”
Bahr chatted with Postmedia News in advance of her Vancouver appearance:
Postmedia: You studied neuropsychology and religious studies at Brown and graduated magna cum laude. Then you went on to neuroscience and cancer research at Stanford University and Tel Aviv University. Is this a common career path to comedy?
Iris Bahr: I’ve always been fascinated by the human condition, the human psyche and everyone’s eccentricities because everyone thinks their own mishegas (craziness) are unique, but they are pretty universal. Doing research, I found it fascinating but realized anyone else could be doing it. I wanted to bring something else to the table to heal and entertain and expressing my own voice, and performing was something I loved.
Q:You inhabit many characters from many different walks of life in your work. How did you come to be so good at developing them?
A: Science gave me some pretty excellent insights into how to observe human behaviour and I went through a pretty long period living all over the place and being exposed to a lot of different people, places and worlds. I have several different lives, in a way, and that has led to me having this kind of splintered identity. I was the child of Bulgarian immigrant parents who moved me to Israel and then New York, put me in orthodox school even though they weren’t practising and when other kids were going to Synagogue, my dad was taking me to the Guggenheim and eating pork salami. It was odd.
Q:It’s a fine line between caricature and character. Are there any methods you have developed to ‘keep it real?’
A: Every actor wants to get to the emotional truth of the role. I like to get to the emotional truth of the characters and carry them into their ongoing developing story. One of the reasons I think so many people found DAI so powerful was that the format was designed to get you to know all these people and then it’s revealed that they are all going to die and the impact is significant. There is a pretty significant amount of existential dread, as well as a great deal of humour if you know the inside jokes.
Q:What is the inside joke that we should get from the Rae-Lynn episode about how to have intercourse during your third trimester, which has four-million-plus online views so far?
A: I was pregnant, bored and in Tel Aviv looking like a truck. I was just massive. It was Purim and I didn’t have anything to wear but, as you do, I had a mullet wig at home. So I figured, “Let’s whitetrash this action,” and I put the wig on, paired it with a bra, sweatpants and an empty beer bottle, and went to the party. It was a hit and the next day my southern intellectual was born. She’s evolved and she’s no dummy, even if she does have 34 children and lives in a trailer.
Q:You also teach solo performance and public speaking. Be honest, is that just more access to mining potential new characters?
A: No, it’s been something that I really just fell into and have grown to truly love. First, it was working with other artists to hone in their solo shows and, from there, introductions brought in people from all different careers like banking and so on. Perhaps because I always entertained the idea of being a therapist, I really started to get into helping others find and release those things that hinder them from being at their best. It’s wildly rewarding.