Klass Struggle

Performer: Tracy Klass

Director: Riaad Moosa

Venue: Old Mutual Theatre on the Square

Until: February 25

Rating: ***

The female comedian is still a rare commodity in SA, so Tracy Klass is always a welcome experience.

What’s also interesting is this show is directed by popular comic Riaad Moosa, whose film, Material, is currently on circuit.

His signature lies in how he makes fun and creates a window on to the Muslim community through his own personal anecdotes, thus breaking certain misconceptions along the way.

Klass does the same thing by zooming into her own experiences as a 50-year-old single Jewish mother of three. She is the life of her own party in this amusing performance.

She starts off noting the youngsters in the audience before going on about how she is always mistaken for Helen Zille in Cape Town, where she lives.

Klass’s content is age-specific, so some will relate more than others to certain stories, but this does not compromise the quality of the humour.

What’s special is how inclusive she gets by elaborating on certain Jewish phrases that might not be understood by a non-Jewish audience. The young audience is also considered and here the role of technology in modern society is the catalyst.

She muses about how her kids tend to remove “the technical support” by putting her phone on silent or changing her ringtone to an Outkast tune without her knowledge, while she’s organising her son’s bar mitzvah with the rabbi, for example.

Her gag about how with the help of a GPS, Moses could have reduced the 40-year trip of taking Israelites to the land of milk and honey to a 40-minute one, offers some belly laughs.

But with her age-specific content, it’s ironically her material on ageing that takes the cake. And maybe this has something to do with the fact that this is something that she is going through now, so it’s fresh and engaging.

She ends the show with a bang, proving she’s a comic in a “Klass” of her own.

A fun night out.