By Alex Wukman

I hate to admit this but, for years I had studiously avoided going to see any of the Tamarie Cooper shows for various reasons, most of which involved me being a self-righteous ass.For much of the 2024s I thought, like most 20 somethings do, that any “yearly theatre experience” that had been going on since the 1990s had to be moldy, outdated and was only attracting audiences because of the cult of personality. And like most 22-year-olds, I was wrong. Tamarie Cooper’s new show, the United States of Tamarie, is fantastic. From the opening number America is Awesome, which has 29-95 blogger Joe Folladori showing off some of his non Mathlete related musical chops, to the sublime self satire of Born Again Texan; Cooper and company create a musical amusement park that helps to remind Houstonians why she has endured.

In a show subtitled An All-American Revue (Made in China) that’s being performed in an age when politics and parody are damn near indistinguishable, it is almost impossible to divorce the content of the play from the larger political discourse. So it is with a great amount of respect, and some envy, that I say that Cooper, who is credited with writing the libretto, and Patrick Reynolds, who is credited with writing the book, managed to studiously avoid some of the problems in modern political humor. In Obamaland they were able to poke fun at some of the TEA Party’s more outrageous claims, such as President Obama is a Manchurian Muslim, Socialist who was born in an African country where 78 percent of the population self identifies as Christian without sounding like members of the John Birch Society.

In the follow up to Obamaland, appropriately titled Happy Liberal Land, Folladori skewers the idea of a country run exclusively according to Liberal ideas and in the process answers a question that was asked earlier this year, specifically “Can the Left Laugh at Itself.” The only problem with the show is that the biggest laughs came to early. The song “Old Glory,” which was c-owritten by Reynolds and John Duboise, steals the show very early in the first act and sets the bar incredibly high. Almost a little too high for the rest of the show. What problems there are are minor and don’t prevent the show from going on to be one of the best musical comedies performed in Houston for years while offering a hip alternative to Stage’s mega hit The Great American Trailer Park Musical, which has already been extended and will most likely be extended again before the summer season is over.

The United States of Tamarie: An All-American Revue (Made in China) runs Wednesday through Satruday until August 20 at Diverseworks, 1117 East Freeway, For more information and tickets call 713.522.2723 or go to catastrophictheatre.com.

Tamarie Cooper out and about (photo by: George Hixson/courtsey Catastrophic Theatre)

By Alex Wukman

Summer in Houston means a few things: shorts, mosquitoes and musicals. From the big budget musicals of Theatre Under the Stars, who close out this season with Urban Cowboy, and Broadway Across America, who bring back the world famous Lion King, to smaller companies like Stages, reviving their smash production of The Great American Trailer Park Musical, summer in Houston is a time for musicals. In fact it was five years ago this summer that Catastrophic’s previous incarnation debuted what many consider to be their most well known play Speeding Motorcycle.

And this summer Catastrophic Theatre will offer the 14th installment of what has alternately been called Tamilalia and the Tamarie Cooper show. Any critic attempting to comment on this semi-annual event is faced with the question of how do you review an institution? How do you comment on something that has come to epitomize Houston’s summer musical theatre season?

Cooper has become a legend in Houston theatre circles based upon the strength of her musicals. They have drawn praise from critics and audiences throughout Houston both for their high energy music and highly original subject matter. As the Catastrophic theatre website states “over the years [Cooper] has taken on everything from love to camping, speakeasies, time travel, domesticity, neuroscience, and cocktail parties”

This year’s intallament, The United States of Tamarie: An All-American Revue (made in China), sees Cooper taking her unique vision and applying to the American political system. After almost a decade-and-a-half of summer shows the question of burn out is inevitable. And Cooper recognizes that which is why, after welcoming a new addition to her family in 2024, Cooper feels that balancing the demands of family and art has giver her a chance to recharge a little.

“I’d feel like I was getting pigeonholed by [the shows] if I had do to one every year,” says Cooper. Another way that Cooper keeps it fresh is to bring in new collaborators. Despite being filled with names well known in the Houston alt.-theatre scene, like Sarah Jo Dunstan and Jodi Bobrovsky, the United States of Tamarie marks the first collaboration between Cooper and musical director Miriam Daly.

Daly, a Houston local, is a renowned musical director who previously worked on the off-Broadway smash Tony n’ Tina’s Wedding and Death: The Musical. She’ll be joining Catastrophic regulars like Kirk Suddreath in the onstage band and combining her take with Cooper’s, admittedly, old-school outlook.

“I used to love those old school musicals [and] all of the shows have a bit of a send up of the old style musical numbers,” says Cooper. She goes to cite such icons of musical theatre as Guys and Dolls as one of her primary influences. Cooper goes on to explain that throughout the years she has been careful of ‘sequel creep.’ “There’s always this idea that it has to be ‘bigger, louder, faster and funnier;’ but I have this formula that works for me,” says Cooper.

Tamarie Cooper keepin it real...awkward (photo by George Hixson/courtsey Catastrophic Theatre)

Cooper explains that initially she drew heavily from her own experiences. “I used to joke that I take all the things that people pay money to tell a therapist, put them in a musical and charge people to come see it,” says Cooper. Another aspect that separates The United States of Tamarie from most other shows is the length of the run.

Unlike most alt-theatre performances, which often seem to close a week after they open, Cooper’s run is always at least six weeks long. She explains that the last Catastrophic show to receive such a lengthy treatment was Blue Finger. Cooper’s show, which runs from July 15-August 20, often marks the end of summer in spirit if not in temperature and has been known to help culture goers prepare for the onslaught of the new fall seasons. However, the announcement of another installment of the wildly popular Tamarie Cooper franchise has been overshadowed by news of an almost monumental proportion from the fringe performance community.

Culturemap has reported that Catastrophic Theatre is one of four organizations that is planning to relocate to the new $22 million Independent Arts Collaborative in midtown. When completed the facility will not only house Catastrophic but will also be the new home of Suchu Dance, Main Street Theatre and arts hot spot Diverseworks, whose warehouse has anchored the north downtown arts scene for years even though the air conditioning has to be turned off during performances.

Liocated a few blocks from the Continental Club, the Mink and the Ensemble the IAC will allow a sort of one-stop shopping for people who don’t want to risk getting their car burglarized in the mean streets of the East Downtown warehouse district; or who want to be able to grab a post performance cocktail without having to drive all the way back to midtown. However, despite the optimism in the initial announcement no projected completion date has been given which gives it at least one thing in common with the Tamarie Cooper franchise.

The United States of Tamarie: An All-American Revue (Made in China) premieres July 15 and runs until August 20 at Diverseworks, 1117 East Freeway, For more information and tickets call 713.522.2723 or go to catastrophictheatre.com.

By Alex Wukman

There are plays that are entertaining for both the audience and the actors. There are plays that challenge the audience or actors, either through the difficulty of the script or the themes that are explored; and then there’s Catastrophic Theatre’s production of Sarah Kane’s play Crave.

The performance doesn’t so much begin as unfold; the audience is admitted into a smoky theatre filled with a diffused light that offers little clue as to when, or even where, the play is set. It could be on a fishing pier in a British coastal town with an oddly descriptive name, like  Walton On The Naze or Broadstairs, in 1995 or it could be  inside someone’s mind. The costumes and the four actors offer few clues to the location or period of the piece–a middle aged man in a shirt and tie, a younger man in a dress shirt and jeans, a young woman in a sweater non descript pants and flip-flops and an older woman in a chiffon dress.

As the audience members take their seats the actors stare out, each reflecting a different state of emotional agitation. Director Jason Nodler chose to let the beginning of the play occur organically, with the actors starting Kane’s script after the buzz of conversation dies down, rather than creating an artificial barrier between the reality of the play and the reality of a Houston street. And once Kane’s script begins it overpowers any thought or expectation. As Ian Shuttlesworth, writing for the Financial Times, stated of a 1998 performance Kane paints “fierce, impressionistic portraits of the turbulence in human hearts.”

The impressionistic nature of the writing–four voices revealing only pieces of conversation, monologues, Biblical references or direct quotes from T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land–leaves almost everything open for interpretation and debate. From who these people are, Kane’s script only identifies them as A,B,C and M, to whether the work even qualifies as a ‘play.’ Because the play lacks any recognizable plot, action and only the vaguest of characters ritics and reviewers have often likened Crave to a spoken word poem; in fact Catastrophic’s own program notes describe the piece as “a tone poem for four voices.”

Looking at only the formal elements of the piece fails to acknowledge the emotional truth in the language. To say that since there’s no clear three-act-structure, no character progression, no easily discernible climax or denouement it can’t be a play ignores the beauty of the audience participation that Kane’s writing requires. Because, at the end of the day, the thing Crave is most like, from an audience perspective, isn’t a standard piece of drama or a classic poem–it’s a partially overheard conversation. An intriguing overheard conversation that makes the listener wonder just who these people are and what they are talking about. It’s a conversation that encourages the can’t-help-but-eavesdrop-because-you’re-on-your-cell-phone-on-the-bus audeince member to construct his or her own story around the characters and the snippets of conversation that they seem to share. And to have a theatregoer leave with that feeling, and for that feeling to carry on for days, is an accomplishment in our easily distracted society.

Crave runs until June 4 at Diverseworks Art Space, 1117 East Freeway. For more information call 713-522-2723 or visit catastrophictheatre [dot] com.

Friday night, Houstonians will get another opportunity to see the lauded original production by Houston local Jason Nodler and drama company, Catastrophic Theater. Hunter Gatherers is riveting, ribald, and anything but your average theater experience. Alex Gilbert from 29-95 said this about the play, “It’s cerebral, it’s visceral, it’s hysterically funny. I don’t mean that in a stuffy, traditional-theater sense — I mean really funny and full of food for thought… An unusually intense and entertaining evening at the theater.”  The plot chronicles the journey of four unassuming partygoers from stuffy to savage. Past productions have been wildly popular so make sure to get your tickets now; opening night audience members will also be treated to a pre-show party. Don’t miss out.

–Jack Daniel Betz