Making his Edinburgh Fringe debut, Michael Kunze talks with Katerina Partolina Schwartz about his show - Infinity Mirror - Mitch Coony and the nature of comedy in Britain and America.
I’m in the business of spreading joy
What’s the elevator pitch for your show?
My show, Michael Kunze: Infinity Mirror is a one-man sketch show about an actor’s rise and fall in Hollywood. I’m really excited about the show, I’m really excited to share it with people. I believe in the show, I think it’s really fun. I think people will have a great hour of laughter if they come. I’m in the business of spreading joy, so that’s hopefully what I’ll be doing.
How did you first get into comedy, particularly this kind of sketch comedy?
In high school, my acting class put on a sketch review with sketches from Saturday Night Live and stuff like that. And I was obsessed with Saturday Night Live, there was, like, classic Hans and Franz about two Austrian bodybuilders, which is a thinly veiled Arnold Schwarzenegger impersonation, but it was really funny and I just loved it. It really felt like the right thing for me, so I think that was the first time where I was like, “Oh this is me.”
Infinity Mirror is your Fringe debut, what are you looking forward to the most?
Every time I go to Edinburgh Fringe, and I’ve been in the past – not with solo shows – I just get so inspired by everyone making work up there. I’m just really looking forward to doing my show for hopefully big audiences that are really comedy-savvy. Also, just seeing a lot of work is really inspiring with people taking big, creative risks and pushing the envelope. It’s easier to follow the rules and try and do things that you think that everybody will really like, while in Edinburgh you see people who really just do their own thing so well and if it’s a really good show people will respond. So, I’m excited to see what’s next for people.
Where did the character Mitch Coony come from?
I was walking down the river near where I live on the Thames, and I was listening to podcasts as I often do. Do you ever listen to a podcast and imagine that the person asking the questions is asking you, like what I would say if I was doing the podcast? I sometimes do that where I pretend that I’m being interviewed and I just thought that was like a funny character thing, and the more people I told it to, they were like, “Oh yeah, sometimes I pretend to do that.” And I think it’s a really universal thing, like imagining ourselves being interviewed and imagining ourselves talking about ourselves. For me, at least, the character came about this guy who’s an actor who’s very self-involved and thinks he’s being interviewed all the time, and is always kind of speaking in these sound bites, in these interview-ready stories.
What was the writing process like this show?
I originally was writing loads of little character sketches and stuff, sharing them with my writing group, and doing them about town. Kind of last-minute last year, I decided to bring it up as a little work-in-progress. I didn’t actually have the Mitch Coony character, and I was looking for a throughline, so I was like, “Oh what if all these characters that I’ve been writing are just various roles that an actor has played?” and so it all came together through that backwards. So I started from the material, just having loads of tiny sketches and then kind of pulled it back and brought it in this whole narrative element, and then I did that. This year I’ve been working with a director and really throwing out loads writing stuff. Sometimes I have a funny idea that I think will work or sometimes I do a lot of improv. I have a big background in improv comedy so sometimes I’ll just record myself improvising on a topic and kind of look for what comes out and see what’s shing and all that. I like to improvise.
What do you hope audiences take away from your show?
I hope that there’s something for everybody. For people that want to laugh, they’re gonna have an hour of just pure joy, pure fun and they’re going say, “I really enjoyed that show and I don’t have to think too hard about taking away a deeper message.” And if there’s some people who connect to the character story and thematically what I’m going for, then that’s great. I’d love people to remember, to walk out of the show and go, “That show was smarter than I thought it was going to be and I laughed really hard.”
Is there a difference between how the US and the UK approach comedy?
100 percent. American comedy is so much different than UK comedy. UK comedy is so self-deprecating and there’s such an emphasis on politeness and transgressions against politeness, cringe, and awkward humour. And that stuff does exist in America, but I think America can be a bit louder and more in your face and really emotional, whereas in British humour a lot of the comedy comes from restraining the emotion and trying to restrain the emotion and failing.
