The Art of the Catch with Exploration: Live!
Charlie Bardey and Natalie Rotter-Laitman on stand-up as theatre.
In pixelated boxes across New York, Montréal, and California, we meet Charlie Bardey and Natalie Rotter-Laitman, the comedy duo behind Exploration: Live! We're used to hearing them in our headphones or seeing them on stage at The Bell House. But here, in the geometry of the Zoom grid, they appear side-by-side on screen, anchored on opposite coasts.
Natalie wears oversized glasses that catch the afternoon sun as she sits outside; her fingers rework strands of her ponytail as she listens. Charlie arrives lightly flushed from running errands, noting the thick Sunday heat. His headphones dull the hum of a passing train, which we half-hear as the two fall into their rhythm of affectionate riffing, their thoughts completing mid-air before landing.
Their shows are built on slips of paper—ideas handed off to each other on the podcast or to audience members at live shows. From these short prompts, they mine the unexamined ordinary, things that feel unnoticed until Natalie and Charlie say them out loud. Charlie swivels in his chair, pen in hand. "It's good to have an imagined audience. I'm seeing stuff all the time, and I'm like, 'Natalie would think that's funny.'"
Natalie lets the silence stretch until her nod lands like punctuation. Though writing and performing have different audiences, their imagined audience is always triangulated between each other and whoever's listening. On stage, the presence of a room that laughs becomes the guide: "There's more of an impetus toward a laugh when we're performing live," Charlie says. "We're really trying to be funny on stage." The podcast is looser and less beholden to punchlines.
"Yeah," Natalie adds, "if we're getting into something interesting, even if it's not funny, we'll stay with it." Listening often feels like being the third person in the room.
The gaps become a part of the rhythm. "When we lose each other," Natalie says, "it's like, okay, what happened? Do people experience this thing about this thing? Or who—"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Charlie jumps in. "It's like there are three people: me, Natalie, and the audience. Sometimes it's two against one." The gaps invite the ridiculous, a dropped line that still lands in the other's hand.
Charlie recalls talking about beans on stage and announcing an enzyme he'd recently learned about. "I was like, it's called... Beano. I'm saying that, like, it's this big discovery. And everyone—including Natalie—is like, 'We know about Beano, sweetie.'"
"We know Beano," Natalie deadpans.
They treat stand-up like theatre. "You'd think comedy could work anywhere," Charlie says, "but no—it's theatre. Lighting, rhythm, even what we're wearing matters. You have to think about all the presentational elements of being on stage."
"It's not about dressing nice," Natalie clarifies, "it's about being deliberate." If the audience is too well-lit, they clam up in their reactions. "It calls into question the entire structure of performance," Charlie agrees. "Even when I'm playing myself, I'm still costuming and lighting myself."
The scaffolding of their work holds because the choreography was built over years of friendship. "We were really young starting out," Natalie says. "I don't exactly know what the voice was, but I know that a lot of the time it didn't count out like I wanted it to. It probably sounded a lot more like a bunch of people I admired."
Charlie nods. "We built up mutual trust, patience, and faith in the process. If I said something that didn't work, I know Natalie would pick it up, or if we both weren't finding it, just trust that we would get there." Years together have tuned them to each other's frequencies; each riff and pause carries the trace of the other.
"I'm going out in the world and I'm bringing Natalie everywhere because I'm talking like her," Charlie says. Natalie nudges for an example, and he points to a shared intonation when storytelling at parties.
The conversation turns to what role they'd take in a circus. Charlie considers thoughtfully. "I've always dreamed of doing gymnastics. I want to be doing flips and stuff. I don't think it's my natural skill set."
Natalie doesn't let him self-deprecate. "I think you should reach for the stars because it's fake," she says, reassuring Charlie into a laugh. "Yeah," he agrees. "Why count myself out? That's my answer."
Natalie adds, making a swinging motion, "I think I would want to do trapeze, to fly—that would be fun to do together." She gestures towards the air. "And you're flipping me."
Charlie is all in. Without missing a beat, he replies, "I can be the one who catches." ◆