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COPYRIGHT 2006 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.
Sandra Bernhard's latest exercise in ambivalence is called "Everything Bad & Beautiful" (at the Daryl Roth). As she stands before us, in a slinky patterned dress, with a coiffed cascade of copper hair, the first words out of her large trademark ruby lips are "Please don't look at me." Of course, like every tease, she means the opposite. Bernhard is a connoisseur of sour. She prides herself on her ability to draw poisoned water from the purest well. But her comic masquerade does little to hide the envy she feels for most of the things she mocks. As the title of the show suggests, Bernhard is presenting herself here as a renegade diva. Her first song--a full-throated version of "Beautiful," Christina Aguilera's hymn to the demoralized--reinforces her persona as a maverick outsider. But the lyrics also unwittingly broadcast the defensiveness behind Bernhard's imperialism: "I am beautiful / No matter what you say / Words can't bring me down / I am beautiful in every single way / . . . So don't you bring me down today." Of the many requirements of the diva--requirements...
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