In the first minutes of The man of my life, Katherine Levac warns that the jokes in her second solo show are very gendered. An intriguing preamble that will prove itself, in the best possible way. With finesse and intelligence, the comedian plays with clichés, gets impatient with preconceived ideas, has fun with her own imperfections and traces the path between who she was and who she has become.
When Katherine Levac reveals to you at the end of her show who is “the man of her life”, you will not necessarily be surprised, but you will probably be touched by the words, invested in her story and entertained by her ease in making people laugh . Throughout the hour and a half or so that leads to the final segment (without punch, but so well written), where she comes to mention the title of her show, this is also what she will do: while addressing subjects that we expect, she masters both her angles of approach and her way of transmitting them to us and thus manages to be more than convincing.
Let me be clear here, there is nothing wrong with the fact that we could have predicted that Kat Levac would talk about motherhood and homosexuality (among other things) in her new show. Her identity as a mother, in a couple of women, is too rich not to take the foreground of her monologue.
It is very often pleasant, when it is done well, to see an artist draw on what she is to extract laughter. But the young thirty-year-old is of course more than a mother and more than a woman who loves another woman. And she has previously been quite other than these things. This is what his show is made of.
And when approaching his life, the comedian punctuates his numbers with comments on life, with a capital V. On the place of women in society. On the role of mothers. About the people who so want to know how she lost the weight gained during the pregnancy of her twins. On those who will wander through his house for sale during open houses simply to snoop around. On the judgments regarding the Botox that so many people use (and that she had injected into her forehead).
Moreover, her body, which she would do anything (even bathe in her own pee) not to show in public in a swimsuit, is fertile ground for gags that are always successful. She talks for a long time about how her post-breastfeeding breasts became “tea bags”, “new duo-tangs”. She later explains that her vagina is much less firm since giving birth, as a user predicted in a Facebook post, in an unkind comment. She talks about masturbation and she talks about hosting the Les Olivier Gala last year, when her menstruation that evening was made up of blood clots as big as eggs. Everything goes and it’s pretty awesome.
The men and women of Katherine Levac
PHOTO DOMINICK GRAVEL, THE PRESS
While tackling subjects that we expect, Katherine Levac masters both her angles of approach and her way of transmitting them to us and thus manages to be more than convincing.
Deeply feminist, Katherine Levac takes us into the depths of her apparent perfection. In her deadpan, sarcastic and sometimes cutting tone, she talks about her frustrations and vents. Her admirers congratulate her on everything she does, but she doesn’t need compliments. The truth is that she lacks free time, she didn’t know how to handle her babies when they were born, and she lost weight because her kids are in daycare and she has gastro. for eight months.
“It’s important to say that it’s difficult,” she says. She talks about her lover Chloé Robichaud and makes her a character in her stories, for our pleasure, particularly when she discusses work-family balance.
But the show is called The man of my life and we see that there are many men in the life and career of Kat Levac. Because she has “never been single” and has dated men for a long time, her stories of heterosexual relationships (with “regional guys”, especially) fill her show abundantly.
Kat Levac is the queen of silences (letting such long gaps weigh in her rhythm serves her wonderfully), but also the queen of gags recited at full speed, always well punched. It is almost without taking a breath that she pays a touching tribute to her mother (and to all mothers), who gave her everything.
She will say at one point that those who were not born in 1989 may not understand one of her references. Sometimes his commonplaces are not that common – Party in the USA from Miley Cyrus to Taylor Swift concert tickets to Lorelai Gilmore’s character. His generation will surely understand each allusion, others might get lost.
Katherine Levac says it bluntly and realizing how lucky she is: to be on stage, to present this show, it’s not her priority, not anymore. The young mother is blessed to be able to do this, but now knows that some things matter much more. For someone who, by her own admission, craves attention and always wants to please, this new realization must have brought a pleasant wind of change. For our part, we advise comedy lovers to make it one of their priorities to go see The man of my life.
Visit the comedian’s website
The man of my life
On tour in Quebec