If you know anything about Houston theater’s summer season, you pant for Tamarie Cooper’s annual revue at Catastrophic Theatre. She’s been at it for 30 years, and Tamarie’s Greatest Hits, Volume 3, a world premiere, is her 29th iteration, a compendium from her past ten summer shows.
It’s a hodgepodge of musical numbers, silly skits, and a skimming romp through her psyche, from childhood, love affairs, aging, and love of performing. Mostly, her love of performing. Nobody performs better than Cooper, whether self-deprecating or paying heartfelt tribute to her band of crazies who surround her. Her vaudeville entertainments are valentines to herself, which is fine with me, for she’s one of Houston theater’s best.
Here she does it all – writes the book (with co-author Patrick Reynolds), supplies lyrics to songs (written by Miriam Daly, Joe Folladori, Erin Rodgers, and Alli Villiners), directs, choreographs, sings and dances. She’s her own Zeigfeld, Lin Manuel-Miranda, Fosse, and Jerome Robbins. She also has a direct cosmic connection to Carol Burnett and Lucille Ball in her mastery of physical comedy, her exquisite timing, and a mugging not seen since Imogene Coca. She’s an absolute pleasure to watch as she skips through her greatest hits. Her size is lovingly mocked – mostly by her – but she can still do a mean split…two of them!
The show is uneven; the songs aren’t very memorable, yet they work in this grab-bag context; the comedy is low; but the cast works overtime to keep us mesmerized so we forget most of the lesser points. Ah, but the high points are high indeed, little gems scattered among the paste.
The ending of Act I is hard to beat. “Food Love,” from 2016, has Tamarie and Kyle Sturdivant (her lifelong friend and colleague who is the only actor who can steal her spotlight, which she gladly allows) in a low-rent parody of Tom Jones’ salacious seduction scene, where Albert Finney and Joyce Redmond greedily devour a chicken as prelude to sex. But here, the duo takes the idea and runs rings around it. First with fries, then the burger, then the big gulp, all timed to the music, then cheese puffs and string cheese squirted up and down their bodies. Hilariously lewd and exquisitely gross, it’s the high point of the first act. Silent comedy gold.
Act II comes alive with Greg Dean as the dark and smutty clown Mortando with his hand puppet Lucky Pierre, from the 2017 edition. With greasy black wig, ashen face, and red smear of a Joker’s mouth, he kills his accomplice only to sever his own wrist. Both are taken away in stretchers, but not before he sings a bastardized “Bridge over Troubled Waters,” as if Bertold Brecht and Samuel Beckett had children. Disturbing but funny as hell.
Then there’s the game show parody of “$100,000 Pyramid” with existentialist Frederick Nietzsche (John Dunn, who tap dances quite admirably) as clueless contestant – brilliant. Or, the best Broadway song of the lot, “Find Your Sunshine,” an upbeat number with the entire cast tapping their hearts out in cartoon sun suits. Cooper’s witty costumes throughout bring their own smiles.
Though bumpy, Cooper’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 3 moves with a spirit that is infectious if not always side-splitting. Look for Catastrophic regulars Abraham Zapata, Walt Zipprian, Clarity Welch, Rebecca Randall,. Mara McGhee, Chaney Moore, Jenna Morris Miller, Bryan Kaplún. Sara Jo Dunstan, Dillon Dewitt, and Raymond Compton. The band is very fine: Brett on bass, Erin Rodgers on piano, Kirk Suddreath, drums, and Alli Villines, music director and ukelale. Especially good is Ryan McGettigan’s space-age Las Vegas-inspired set, like the iconic Flamingo Hotel. I was expecting Liberace to make a special guest appearance.
You can’t help but like a show that has dancing egg rolls, a hot sauce sung by a hot McGhee, a Whataburger gospel chorus, an ‘80s homage to “The Mall,” and a singing storage unit (Sturdivant again, stopping the show).
As a quick trip down Cooper’s kinky memory lane, it’s perfect summer entertainment: breezy, cool, R-rated. Did I mention the singing poop?
Tamarie’s Greatest Hits, Volume 3 continues through August 1 at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays; 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays; 2:30 p.m. Sundays. For more information, call 713-521-4533 or visit catastrophictheatre.com. Pay what you can.
