Making his Edinburgh Fringe debut with his show Infinity Mirror, Michael Kunze joins Pepper&Salt to discuss his foray into sketch comedy, the show’s structure and, of course, Citizen Kane.
How did you realise that sketch comedy was the right style for you?
I just enjoyed it; it feels it’s weird to say that doing character comedy feels like the rightest thing for me. I’ve trained as a dramatic actor and I’ve been dramatic acting, but comedy just always felt somehow more true to myself as a person, more true. I feel for me, getting a laugh is the most purest form of good feeling in my life. If I can get someone to laugh, it just makes me feel really great about myself and comedy is – to get a bit potentially wanky about it- it’s a gift to give to somebody. So, a laugh just feels really good, I love it.
What would you say is your favourite sketch?
There’s an SNL sketch where Ryan Gosling is playing this guy who’s slowly losing his mind when he discovers that the film Avatar uses the font Papyrus. I just love it so much cause it’s such a little thing that the Avatar logo is with the font Papyrus and he’s just slowly losing his mind over it and it’s really dramatic, very pensive. I think he’s such a great performer, he really gives his all to everything and I really like comedy that’s like that where the performer treats it almost as if it’s a dramatic role and that highlights the comedy a bit more. In Ken, he’s just giving it his all and that makes it so much better than if he was a bit winky at the audience. To my taste at least.
How far does the idea of a play within a comedy extend in this show?
There is a narrative, I do love a good narrative. There is a version of this show where it’s just a bunch of sketches, and I think it’s fun. I personally prefer things that takes you on a journey and go on a narrative story and I think that giving Mitch Coony an arc in all of this will hopefully make people engage a bit more with the material. I see a lot of shows that are so funny, so funny and you’re laughing, you’re laughing and then around 35 to 40 minutes in, you’re like “Oh I don’t know if I could keep up this pace.” I think a narrative really allows you to surprise people and take them on a journey past that kind of hump which I’ve seen in shows sometimes.
This show seems very Citizen-Kane-esque in its description, is that parallel on purpose or did something else influenced this show?
Oh, that’s funny! I wouldn’t say so much Citizen Kane, even though for a while I thought about how to give Mitch Coony a Rosebud type situation. Recently I’ve been kind of sharpening his voice, and I listened to Matthew McConaughy’s audiobook of his memoir, and it’s so funny. Obviously he’s very serious, but he’s such a character and I just love that. Right now, I think the stuff that I’m writing for this show is kind of influenced by that. He’s a storyteller and he’s got this whole folk philosopher kind of thing, that’s influencing me a lot right now. Mostly though, it’s kind of my life, you know. Mitch Coony, my name is Michael Kunze, and the name is just a very thin veil for myself and it’s like kind of, dealing with rejection and pain and trying to feel lonely and just trying to make people laugh too.
In Shakespeare, the role of the fool and the king are very distinct, with the idea that a fool can’t be a king and a king can’t be a fool. How do you think this applies to the modern context?
There’s this real moment right now in comedy where people look to comedians for like moral guidance, and the look to comedians to be the role of the truth-sayer. A lot of comedians I know are the last people you’d want to take advice from, and I think it’s interesting that people are really looking to comedians for guidance on how to lead their lives and I’m the last person to tell anybody how they should lead their lives, so I definitely tend towards the fool side of things. I think the idea of speaking truth to power is really powerful in comedy and it’s a really good thing to be able, but it’s also like, I don’t know how much comedians are speaking truth to power at the moment cause a lot of the time they’re just saying what everybody is thinking or how much effect they have on the so-called ‘kings’ of our society. Like the amount of people speaking truth to Donald Trump, I don’t think they’re getting through to him, or any of those people who are in power. I don’t think they care what the comedians are saying. It would be great if the clowns could keep the kings in check, but I don’t think that’s really happening, I don’t think that’s happening in our current moment.
By Katerina Partolina Schwartz
Photo Credit: Hudson Hughes
Pepper & Salt 
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