BERN NOTICE
Heads up: Sandra Bernhard is back and roaring into town for her one-woman show at the MCA
Sandra Bernhard is known for dishing out acerbic wit from her famously massive maw. And while the 58-year-old has built her 40-year career around an unapologetic approach to comedy, that’s only one side of Bernhard, who’s also an actress, singer, writer and mother. She’ll show audiences the full picture when she brings her one-woman show, “Sandyland,” to sold-out crowds at the Museum of Contemporary Art Dec. 5 and 7. “It’s very eclectic, what I do,” she says. “It takes in all the styles and influences from stand-up to cabaret to rock ‘n’ roll to burlesque. I’m interested in the alternative art world and theater. I just blend it all in.”
That unique mixture of influences stems from Bernhard’s time-tested, multi-faceted career. After getting noticed for her stand-up back in the ‘70s, Bernhard made it big with her role in Scorsese’s 1983 flick “The Kings of Comedy.” She quickly parlayed her newfound fame into an offBroadway show called “Without You I’m Nothing, With You I’m Not Much Better,” which later became a movie. But arguably, Bernhard’s most important role was as Nancy Bartlett on the sitcom “Roseanne,” where she broke ground by playing one of the first openly gay characters on TV.
In “Sandyland,” which Bernhard describes as a “road trip through my life,” she’ll take the audience through landmark events, as well as her international travels, high-class fashion shows and fabulous Hollywood parties. “[I’m] taking you on a journey that nobody else can,” she says. While some of the performance focuses on the day-to-day details of raising daughter Cecily with longtime partner Sara, it’s also “very of the moment politically and culturally,” says Bernhard. “It’s the world how I see it. With ‘Sandyland,’ it’s like, pay your admission and get on the ride.”
The show represents something of a resurgence for Bernhard, who concedes she fell off the radar over the past few years. “I wasn’t taking it easy; I had terrible representation,” she says. “But [now] I’m back in it in a major way.” As proof, Bernhard has a slew of new projects in the pipeline, including a guest arc on ABC Family’s “Switched at Birth,” where she’ll play an art teacher who inspires the main character, Bay. “It’s a little more serious [than my other roles],” says Bernhard.
Facing her comeback, she’s more confident than ever. “I think in many ways, I’m more settled than I was in my 20s, 30s and 40s. You can’t keep running and looking and searching in that vague way like you do [when you’re younger],” she says. “I keep evolving. It’s fun and exciting and I love what I get to do. I call my own shots.”