●●●●○

Natalie Palamide’s Nate is about a ‘hard man’ called Nate. Palamides plays Nate and through the course of the show takes us through the motions and operations of her character’s life and worldview. This begins with Nate’s entry upon stage riding a mini-motorcycle, bare-chested but with liberal Sharpie-markered chest-hair drawn on, a headband, wire-haired black wig, cargo-pants and tartan logger jacket making up the rest of the look. After an extended gag of ‘chug-drinking’ cans of sparkling water that involved consensual touching of the breasts of various women in the audience (by Nate), the remaining audience, had they been asked at this point, would presumably have made an informed guess that they were on course to watch a straight up woman-impersonating-man gross-out show. 

But something more complex happened. Softly softly, gently gently – and oh so unexpectedly – something of Nate’s deeply buried humanity was revealed. Palamide’s talent was to keep suspense in the room – most of the sketch took the form of improvised jokes that involved the audience, so that where we were being led was never obvious and never seemed inevitable when we landed. For instance, it was a surprise to all when a heavily tattooed audience member, following major encouragement from Nate, got up from his seat and assumed the character of Lucas on stage. ‘Nate’s oldest Buddy’ then proceeded to assist the lead with getting dry after his shower. Which was an intimate and comic scene – either a subtle suggestion of homoeroticism underlying even the ‘hardest’ of male friendships, or of the actual normativity of physical closeness between grown men. 

Gnarlier applications of the ‘hard man’ persona were thought about too. The audience witnessed a bizarre enactment of Nate’s first date with ‘Mrs. Jackson’, his art teacher. Here, on the fictional Cliffs of Moher, both she and Nate drink too much – she passes out during consensual sex. Realising this, Nate brings her home, and gets her to bed. Nate, next puts the question: “was I wrong?”  to the audience. Though the audience decided that in the context, he wasn’t. It was his earnestness and need to engage in dialogue that was the takeaway for any other context. Mrs. Jackson also wanted to engage in conversation and claimed that she had forced Nate to sleep with her in the first place. The claims by both characters were obviously fraught, but it was their injection of the possibility of conversation into a space that is often polemic that stuck. 

Nate made a comic figure of the hard man, de-mythologised him, and also humanised him. In short, the traditional trappings of ‘masculinity’ were explored and broken down into fragments. Some fragments the audience may choose to renew and some they will presumably want to cast aside. Nate was also very funny.