Jack McGee
Hidden away in the basement-esque Cavern Club underneath Allen St, Clarissa Chandrahasen’s debut hour Flawless is the best kept secret of the International Comedy Festival. Entering the venue for opening night, I’m shocked to see an audience of less than a dozen people. It is a Tuesday night of course, but after hearing sensational word of mouth from her set at Loud and Queer on Saturday, and seeing Chandrahasen handing out flyers after other shows earlier in the festival, I expected a better turnout. The small audience has me worried, knowing how hard comedy, or really any performance art, can be without people to feed off. Ten minutes into the show, I’ve laughed any of that worry away. Looking at Chandrahasen’s wry smile, you can tell that she’s shed any nerves as well - if she ever had any to begin with.
Flawless is remarkably consistent. With the exception of the last couple of minutes which I felt were less strong, every other joke lands with ease. Chandrahasen is wonderfully restrained in her delivery. She exudes confidence in her words, rarely feeling the need to overplay anything. She trusts the audience to get the joke, which keeps us very engaged. She dangles a joke in the air, the audience leans forward into it, and recoils with glee when the punchline arrives. There’s a great rhythm to it. A couple of times, I feel like an idiot, getting the joke about ten seconds after everyone else does, which of course, makes it ten times funnier.
Still, this is Chandrahasen’s first hour, and it does show. Namely, in that it’s not actually an hour. It’s less than forty minutes. In most scenarios, I will be the first to advocate for shows that are sub sixty minutes. If you head out on a full moon, you might catch me hiding in the lighting grid at BATS, screaming “less is more” at unsuspecting theatre practitioners. This is not the case with Flawless. The show feels like it has twenty minutes of steam left in it, and then ends abruptly. The call-back that Chandrahasen wraps the show up with is funny, yes, but substantially less funny than a lot of other moments scattered throughout the show. It feels anticlimactic and is a big let down after the material that precedes it.
Alongside this, Chandrahasen’s transitions between bits are fairly rough. Often Chandrahasen will lose momentum, and we’ll be pulled out of the show briefly, before easing our way back in. Admittedly, Chandrahasen’s comedy is very segmented by nature. She leans towards small stories, or jokes, in quick succession, instead of 5-10 minute long narrative excursions. This means she has a lot more transitioning to do then a lot of comics, which unfortunately highlights this awkwardness.
In terms of material, Flawless sticks to a loose, tongue-in-cheek theme, of Chandrahasen being, well, flawless. This is used as an umbrella to talk about home ownership, dating, breakups, sex, and even a little politics. Frankly, it doesn’t matter what Chandrahasen is talking about, she finds a way to make it all funny. Her escapades as a home-owning-lesbian in her mid thirties couldn’t have less crossover with my own life experience if she tried, yet everything feels innately human, and relatable. The comically-self-assured-character Chandrahasen assumes on stage is endlessly empathetic. A quick list of my favourite sections from the show include the parallels between coming out as a homeowner and a homosexual, using Co-Star as a Lesbian dating app, that salt baths are a crime as you shouldn’t be taking a bath if it’s not already salty from your tears, and a Pixar-movie-esque late night meeting between all of the apps on Chandrahasen’s phone.
This show probably had the smallest audience of any I’ve ever reviewed, and that’s frankly absurd. Chandrahasen’s low-key delivery, frequently accentuated by a hair-tuck-behind-the-ear, is masterful. Go see Flawless. Nitpicks aside, it only fails to live up to its name because there’s not enough of it.
Still, this is Chandrahasen’s first hour, and it does show. Namely, in that it’s not actually an hour. It’s less than forty minutes. In most scenarios, I will be the first to advocate for shows that are sub sixty minutes. If you head out on a full moon, you might catch me hiding in the lighting grid at BATS, screaming “less is more” at unsuspecting theatre practitioners. This is not the case with Flawless. The show feels like it has twenty minutes of steam left in it, and then ends abruptly. The call-back that Chandrahasen wraps the show up with is funny, yes, but substantially less funny than a lot of other moments scattered throughout the show. It feels anticlimactic and is a big let down after the material that precedes it.
Alongside this, Chandrahasen’s transitions between bits are fairly rough. Often Chandrahasen will lose momentum, and we’ll be pulled out of the show briefly, before easing our way back in. Admittedly, Chandrahasen’s comedy is very segmented by nature. She leans towards small stories, or jokes, in quick succession, instead of 5-10 minute long narrative excursions. This means she has a lot more transitioning to do then a lot of comics, which unfortunately highlights this awkwardness.
In terms of material, Flawless sticks to a loose, tongue-in-cheek theme, of Chandrahasen being, well, flawless. This is used as an umbrella to talk about home ownership, dating, breakups, sex, and even a little politics. Frankly, it doesn’t matter what Chandrahasen is talking about, she finds a way to make it all funny. Her escapades as a home-owning-lesbian in her mid thirties couldn’t have less crossover with my own life experience if she tried, yet everything feels innately human, and relatable. The comically-self-assured-character Chandrahasen assumes on stage is endlessly empathetic. A quick list of my favourite sections from the show include the parallels between coming out as a homeowner and a homosexual, using Co-Star as a Lesbian dating app, that salt baths are a crime as you shouldn’t be taking a bath if it’s not already salty from your tears, and a Pixar-movie-esque late night meeting between all of the apps on Chandrahasen’s phone.
This show probably had the smallest audience of any I’ve ever reviewed, and that’s frankly absurd. Chandrahasen’s low-key delivery, frequently accentuated by a hair-tuck-behind-the-ear, is masterful. Go see Flawless. Nitpicks aside, it only fails to live up to its name because there’s not enough of it.