Sandra Bernhard is quick to unleash fiery burns on social media and on her weekly SiriusXM radio show, “Sandyland” (airing at 1 p.m. Thursdays), but she prefers to “put the entertainment before the politics” in her live performances.
“I always do a little bit because it’s fun and you want to get it off your chest,” she tells The Post. “But I don’t want to do a deep dive into politics — I never have. The low simmer of what I do is inherently political and liberating; that to me is more important than hitting people over the head with the obvious.”
The cabaret chanteuse will bring her observational comedy and music back to Joe’s Pub Thursday night for “Sandy’s Holiday Extravaganza — A Decade of Madness and Mayhem,” marking her 10th year of hosting a year-ending string of shows at the venue, culminating in performances on New Year’s Eve.
The 64-year-old singer and comedian rose to fame with her 1998 one-woman Broadway show “I’m Still Here … Damn It!” and her previous off-Broadway hit “Without You I’m Nothing.” On the acting front, she has straddled both comedy and drama with recurring roles on shows including “2 Broke Girls” and “Roseanne” and as a series regular, playing nurse Judy Kubrak, on Ryan Murphy’s FX drama “Pose,” which chronicles drag ball culture in the 1980s and 1990s.
Bernhard has lived in Chelsea for two decades with her longtime girlfriend, Sara Switzer, and daughter Cicely, 21, a college senior. She spoke with The Post about finding new material, marking her shows’ anniversary and avoiding snark when sounding off.
What does your regular Joe’s Pub gig mean to you at the 10-year mark?
It’s exciting because you’re bringing people together during a time of year that’s always a little daunting for people. Whether you live in New York or are visiting, or whether you are seeing family or on your own, the holidays are hard on people. They’re just emotional and it’s a year that’s ending and you’re trying to set the tone for the new year. It’s nice to be in a place where you have a person who can throw it down and look at it. Even if I’m just rapidly going through my own life, it’s sort of like a nice reflection of where you’re at and where we’re all at, as kind of a collaboration.
What makes your show different from old-school cabaret?
I developed my style back in the ’80s. I was doing something that I thought was kind of a break from the cliché, drawn from lots of different performance and style elements and melding it together. To me it’s always been a hybrid of cabaret, rock ‘n’ roll, post-modern musical comedy — like a bouillabaisse of all those different styles mixed together, all the things that influenced me growing up. I love having all of that at my fingertips.
Is it difficult doing the show after 10 years?
It always ends up fun and sort of daunting at the same time because putting new material together is not easy. A lot of performers kind of do the same thing over and over again, and I’m very hard on myself. I don’t want to do that because I think people have high expectations of me. Maybe I have higher expectations of myself than people do of me but, nonetheless, I like to keep it fresh.
How often do you find yourself listening in on conversations on the street for material?
Oh, constantly. I’m forever jotting things down that I’ve just heard. That’s one of my favorite things to do, and New York is so ripe for that. Every corner you turn, especially now with people on their phones or Bluetooth, people just talking out into the air, making these proclamations.
Are you obsessed with anything right now that you might talk about at Joe’s Pub?
There’s not enough time to cover everything, and I try not to give too much away. But one of my favorite things this year is interspecies friendships. I’m an avid follower of the Dodo. For a lot of people, it’s been a big escape this year to look at the triumphant animal videos and the beautiful relationships between species. They manage to do it, instinctively, and yet for human beings, it seems to be getting harder and harder. I find that to be inspiring, really, that a dog can hang out with a Shetland pony, or a raccoon can cozy up to a duck. It’s sort of whimsical and crazy — and yet, kind of the truth. Why can the animals do it and we can’t?
What is something you’ve appreciated about working with the cast of “Pose”?
Having myself been in New York during that time, and having witnessed what it was like to be in the periphery and to be transgender and to be on the streets — all the things they portray on the show — now the actors are triumphantly playing themselves and becoming more accepted and part of the fabric of Hollywood. Being accepted as actresses is a big, big deal. It’s 30 years of very rapid and yet methodical change in our approach and the psychology of our society. That’s been really very inspiring to see up close.
Last summer, you told The New Yorker, “I’ve gotten less shady. People still want me to be bitchy, but I don’t enjoy it anymore.” Are you more sunshine and less shade these days?
I just think the way society is with social media it’s very easy for people to be snarky, and that’s not something that serves me at this point. I’m a natural social commentator — but what’s snarky, what’s bitchy? I think that before social media it was easier to do that because people saw you in your entirety; it wasn’t just a blurb on Twitter or something. So unless people come to see me live and they see the whole picture, I try not to be just smug and sort of off the cuff on social media. I don’t think it works there at all. And I don’t want to get into a pissing contest on social media because you don’t know the person; it just doesn’t make any sense.
But hopefully you’ll be able to bring out some of your inner snark in the show.
When it calls for it, and it’s smart, it’s always there. But you have to temper it today because there’s too much blowback for no reason. When you just wander around being bitchy — what does it get you, you know? But I’m as sharp as ever onstage and that’s where I put my energy.
“Sandra Bernhard: Sandy’s Holiday Extravaganza — A Decade of Madness and Mayhem,” at 7 and 9:30 p.m., Dec. 26-30 and at 9 and 11 p.m. on Dec. 31 at Joe’s Pub, 425 Lafayette St. Tickets are $70 for shows through Dec. 30, $155 and $205 for New Year’s Eve shows.