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Fans
of the phalli might have caught Kristeen von Hagen's ebullient
riffs on pop culture and relationships when she opened for
Puppetry of the Penis across Western Canada. The 26-year-old
Victoria native, who appears at the 16th annual Vancouver
International Comedy Festival, was also recently named best
female standup comic at the Canadian Comedy Awards, an experience
she describes as a "total fiasco".
"I wore this ridiculous outfit because I didn't think
I was going to win," she tells the Straight from her
hotel room in Ottawa, where she's performing. She describes
her look as "a velour tracksuit/lounge suit kind of thing,
tan and white, sunglasses, a big gold chain with a money sign
on it, and big white shoes".
"And then I ended up winning," she recalls with
embarrassment. "I was like, 'Oh, God.' "
What the hell, though. It's the Comedy Awards, not the Oscars.
"It threw a little life into it, I'll tell you that,"
she says.
It's all pretty heady stuff for a girl from Oak Bay. As a
fellow alum of Oak Bay High, I can attest to the fact that
we're all sick to death of hearing about Nellie Furtado, David
Foster and Atom Egoyan, graduates from archrival Mount Douglas
Secondary. Oak Bay has Debra Kara Unger, Geoff Courtnall,
and now Von Hagen. She simply must do us proud.
"That's now my real plan: to oust Nellie Furtado,"
she says. "We;re from Oak Bay. We're a step above."
A step above, indeed. So one can imagine what her parents
think of their daughter, who's not afraid to use her potty
mouth when she's on-stage.
"My parents are okay with it," she insists. "They're
entertained. When you start doing well and actually make money,
too, that another encouraging thing. When I was just, like,
some troubled loner telling jokes for no real cash, they'd
be like, 'Maybe you should do something.' But now I've got
the award, I went to Just for Laughs last year. They're a
little more, 'Okay, this seems more legitimate.' "
She has a line in her act, though that probably stemmed from
her folks' initial embarrassment over her chosen profession:
" People are always asking my mom, "So, what does
your daughter do?' And she's like, 'Oh, she's a drug dealer.'
Anything but talking filthy."
Von Hagen is one of several women playing the festival. Her
own show on August 2 will be shared with a couple of guys,
standups Jason Lamb and Nelson Giles, but a special Girls
Night Out on August 4 features an all-chick lineup, including
festival favourite Elvira Kurt, Mary C. Matthews ( who's making
waves in Boston and San Francisco), Torontonian Lex Vaughn,
and the farewell performance of the 30 Helens, Vancouver's
all female comedy troupe.
Some Female comics resent being put in an all-woman show,
deeming it patronizing or ghettoizing. Von Hagen sees no problem
with the practice. "There are always a pretty good energy
to it," she says. "Some women are like, 'Ugh.' I'm
like, 'It's still a show.' I mean, often there's all-men shows
just by accident, or there's only one women on the show. I've
done so many shows where I'm the only woman, so it's a nice
change of pace." It will certainly be a change of pace
from sharing the stage with tow naked guys in Penis. Von Hagen
seems pretty comfortable with the arrangement; one of the
puppeteers is in her hotel room heckling her -- although he's
not naked. "I wish; he'd be much more handy that way,"
he quips.
Von Hagen, who started out at a bar in Victoria when she was
18, has achieved so much in her short time as standup, it
seems she can do no wrong. "When you have these goals
set out, and then you accomplish them, you think, 'If I keep
dong this, I'll probably do more.' It's kind of alarming."
The logical next step is the big market south of the border.
Von Hagen has played the U.S. on occasion, and wants to eventually
move down there to further her career. But for the moment,
she's doing pretty well where she is.
"I'm quite comfortable here," she says. "People
get my comedy and we have the same references. I've been there
(the U.S.) a few times. And there's a lot more great people
doing standup, but there's a lot more crap people, too."
Too often, comics jump at the chance to play a wacky neighbour
on a sitcom and never get back behind the mike again. Not
Von Hagen.
"I like doing standup a lot, which is rare," she
says. "Usually the girls want to get out of the standup
and get into TV. I mean, I'm not against doing that kind of
stuff either! I'm a flexible young lady. But I do enjoy standup
as an art."
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