Sandra Bernhard

by Ashlea Halpern

Watching Sandra Bernhard command a stage, you realize how easily her detractors get all fired up, even when it's over nothing. This Saturday the oversexed, under-hyped, trash-talking, anti-celebrity celeb will again shower Philadelphia with a hail of caustic bullets.

Bernhard's had a hell of a time making herself a household name. Her career is tough to pigeonhole -- she's published three books, cast her mug in countless films, bared for Playboy, propositioned Letterman, joined the ranks of unlikely MAC cover girls RuPaul and k.d. lang, starred as the lesbian-next-door on the blue-collar sitcom Roseanne and bitched mercilessly about the Material Girl.

Loathe her or love her, Bernhard's back, tongue sharpened and lip curled, with another balls-to-the-wall, one-woman shtick poised to gun down anything Republican, anything celebrity and everything corrupt. She last stormed Philly in January when she brought "Inshallah" (Arabic for "God willing") to the Keswick Theatre, raising difficult questions about Sept. 11 amidst a flurry of expletives. The "Hero Worship" summer tour is a similarly scathing dig: irreverent, foul-mouthed and loaded with searing social commentary.

Littered with covers of schlock-rock anthems like "Holding Out for a Hero," the show combines campy cabaret with venomous stand-up, stomping on both the war effort and pushy civilian patriotism. In one routine, she unabashedly suggests launching her own show on the Al-Jazeera network and follows suit performing a vulgar facial striptease.

Bernhard knows no bounds, nor does she care to. Bombs away.

“Hero Worship,” Sat., June 15, 8 p.m., $22, The Trocadero, 10th and Arch sts., 215-922-LIVE.

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July 25, 2002
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