Issue 03: The Serious Business of Being a Female Comedian
The Serious Business of Being a Female Comedian
It’s not often that you see a female live stand-up comedian, and certainly, they’re few and far between in Hong Kong. The success of The Marvelous Mrs Maizel, shows that there is a market for women who burst through restraints and say what they might otherwise fear to say in “polite” company.
I first saw Maitreyi Karanth perform live when she opened for a visiting comedian in Hong Kong, about 5 years ago. Since then, she has continued to make her mark. An actor and producer, she saw the possibilities of extending her real life persona to comedy at the age of 44. I actually met Maitreyi at, of all things, an HR event, where she and I were both guest speakers, and we’ve stayed in touch since.
I thought that she’d have some valuable things to share about her journey into stand-up comedy, starting with how she discovered her passion for comedy. Maitreyi says she had no idea what stand-up comedy was about, until she’d been invited to give an open mic a shot by a friend. Her love of the stage and writing leapt into the fore, et voila, a comedy star was born!
Being married and having lived outside India for 22 years allowed Maitreyi to bank a host of anecdotes as fodder; all her own experiences, with of course, loads of embellishment, as expected of comedy. “How much and where do you practice?” I ask. Maitreyi says she practices in her room, but not often. “I just need to get the flow in my head. Which joke in which order, and I’m good to go”, says the intrepid Ms. Karanth. Having a natural flow between ready material and spontaneity is necessary, it would seem. She mixes her act up for the element of surprise, taking aim at her husband (a lovely man and her biggest supporter) and moving into cultural differences, politics or women’s issues, to name a few.
After her very second open mic Maitreyi was spotted by famous comedian, Saurabh Pant, and asked to open for him twice. She has headlined in Bangkok, Singapore and India, and has also opened for Tom Cotter, Gina Yashere, Atul Khatri, Amit Tandon, Tom Rhodes, Sean Patton and Zakir Khan. Entertainers thrive on audience participation and enjoyment, and Maitreyi is no exception. She joyfully relayed her most memorable moment at the Zakir Khan show, “the amount of applause and laughter was deafening. I absolutely loved it”, she says.
Curious as to her most embarrassing moment, Maitreyi’s honestly response was, “I once went totally blank during a competition. I was doing so well and suddenly out of nowhere I went completely blank. I had to dig deep and bring something out but it was a very surreal experience”. Don’t we know the feeling! The trick it seems is to keep going, regardless!
Her favourite comedians? “Ricky Gervais, Sarah Silverman and Billy Connelly. Personally I love very non-PC comedies. My best friend Allan is the best comedian in the world. The guy comes up with some brilliant stuff, but most things you would not be able to say on stage unfortunately.”
A 2017 study shows that there is an enormous disparity with respect to gender representation in comedy. There is a 70:30 ratio in the UK and an 80:20 ratio in New York, though this is a vast improvement over the 97:3 ratio back in 1989. I asked Maitreyi about her first hand experience of being a woman in comedy, “You do have to work much harder to earn respect and be a part of the ‘team’.” She says, ruefully. “Sometimes the bias comes from the audience too. Especially if you have “adult” content… I have never done or not done anything because I am a woman, and have in the past found it difficult to answer questions about representing women in whatever it was I was doing. But comedy changed that for me, and not because I was asked about it more (I was), but because of the response I got from female audiences. I had women coming to me after and telling me how happy they were to see a woman come on stage after a string of men. One lady said “I love that you are so open about making fun of your husband and saying things we all secretly want to say”. I had another lady that came up to me and said she watched me live in Singapore and was so proud to see a female comic. All these responses made me think about representation. This is perhaps why I also became more sensitive to what goes on backstage as well.”
It gives her a secret thrill to see peoples’ expressions when she tell them she’s a comedian.. “definitely better than when I used to tell them I was a math’s teacher!” she grins.
Some words of advice from our star Comedian to girls desiring to explore a career in comedy: “I would say put your head down and do your thing. Go out there on the stage and let the audience decide if you need to keep going or not, don’t let back stage drama or gender politics get to you. Just do your thing!”
Maitreyi is currently producing her own shows and is a regular at the Takeout Comedy Club, she is always exploring and on the look out for exciting new opportunities.
Check out Maitryi on Facebook: www.facebook.com/maitreyicomic/
