Comedian and musician Charlene Kaye’s new solo stage show “Tiger Daughter” begins with a home video of her younger self playing “Fur Elise” on the piano. After a few bars, the melody is quickly picked up by an electric guitar as Kaye bursts onto stage, surrounded by a cloud of fog. She’s sporting hot pink pants with tiger stripes along one side, representing the bold and authentic way she carries herself while acknowledging how being a tiger daughter has shaped her.
Introduced to music when her mom signed her up for piano lessons as a child, Kaye switched her focus from piano to the guitar as a teen, kickstarting the artistic career she has today. The contrast between the video of her childhood self and her striking stage entrance perfectly highlights the main theme of the comedy show — the contrast between the expectations of her “tiger mom” and her own aspirations as a touring musician. Aided by a PowerPoint and the occasional musical interlude, Kaye asks both the audience and herself, “do you have to understand someone in order to love them?”
Kaye’s stage presence throughout the show is as colorful as her initial entrance. As she recounts her excitement at performing in big venues, she dramatically flips her hair back and forth, exclaiming, “I’m fucking famous!” By setting up punchlines about family interactions and then clicking through her PowerPoint to reveal the corresponding text message conversation that incited her observations, her comedic timing proves to be impeccable. Later, she recreates her 15-year-old self’s performance of a Ludacris song at an open mic, perfectly capturing the stage fright that is both amusing and embarrassing in retrospect. Despite being a seasoned performer, Kaye’s persistent passion for musical self-expression and humility about her fame allows her to effectively capture the emotions behind the experiences that led her where she is now.
She brings this same energy to anecdotes about her mother, Lily. For a second, when Kaye introduced Lily, I thought that she was backstage at the show, ready to do a joint performance. While this wasn’t the case, the vibrancy with which Kaye describes her mother makes her larger-than-life personality shine through the slideshow; it feels like she was actually there. Lily’s goofiness is felt throughout the room as Kaye shares stories of her mother’s requests that she Photoshop her face onto portraits of other beautiful women and as Kaye details her habit of making “thirst traps at medical establishments.” Kaye affirms that Lily is a lighthearted person in this holistic portrayal, along with affirming her role as a mother.
Kaye also delves into her own mistakes — like an ill-advised perm — and finds the heartwarming side to them, like her mother’s subsequent offer of $200 so they could have matching bobs. At every outing throughout the next year, her mom asks strangers if they look similar. Not only does Kaye highlight the closeness of their relationship, but she demonstrates how her mom wants to find common ground between them. Lily, who once participated in singing competitions as a teen, also recorded a cover album for which she enlisted Kaye to produce, asking afterwards how to make her album more widely known. These situations represent Lily’s desire for mutual understanding, which she hopes to accomplish by putting herself through the same experiences as Kaye.
While Kaye describes the fun moments in her relationship with her mom for a majority of the show, she becomes more open about the bumps in their connection towards the end. She details a conflict concerning her career choice and performs one verse of a song she wrote in response, referring to Lily as “the closest stranger (she’s) got.”
Then, after a period of no communication between them, she received a letter from her mom, which begins with heartfelt praise and ends with asking Kaye to Photoshop her face onto yet another beautiful woman. Whether or not Lily truly understands Kaye’s career choice, she is doing her best to support and express her love for Kaye in her own way.
Kaye ends the set by stating that the reason she’s sharing all of this about herself is in hopes that someone will be able to relate. Being able to articulate our complex personal experiences, perhaps to others in similar situations, is a powerful tool to begin healing; it allows us to start having these difficult conversations with loved ones that we don’t always understand. “Tiger Daughter” is a hopeful message to tiger daughters — and to everyone with complicated familial relationships — that seeking understanding with those closest to us will not only help us find common ground, but a better understanding of ourselves along the way.
Daily Arts Writer Kristen Su can be reached at krsu@umich.edu.