Interview: Tamarie Cooper And Kyle Sturdivant of RHINOCEROS at CATASTROPHIC THEATRE

Eugene Ionesco wrote Rhinoceros in 1959 in a reaction to the fascism, conformity, and senseless violence that surrounded him during World War II. Now, it is coming back to the MATCH, thanks to Catastrophic Theatre, who is reviving it after having done it at least twice before. The production will star George Parker and Kyle Sturdivant, who revisit their roles from Catastrophic Theatre's 2017 production (and we suspect the one before). It is directed once again by Tamarie Cooper and runs at the MATCH from September 18 through October 10. BROADWAY WORLD writer Brett Cullum got a chance to talk to director Tamarie Cooper and star Kyle Sturdivant about bringing this classic to life. 

 

Brett Cullum: For anybody that doesn't know, what is the show about? What's the story of RHINOCEROS from Eugene Ionesco?

Tamarie Cooper: The simple premise is that you discover a town where, one by one, slowly, first they see some rhinoceros running through the street, and then it becomes clear that people, the citizens, are turning into rhinoceroses themselves. There is a character named Behringer, our "anti-hero hero," who is basically fighting against this and watching helplessly as not only his coworkers and strangers but also his closest friends become rhinoceroses, until he is left as perhaps the last human on the planet.

Kyle Sturdivant: It's fun!

Tamarie Cooper: It's hilarious!

Brett Cullum: Yeah, it sounds like a laugh-a-minute riot fest right now. It's a classic work of surrealistic theater and the absurd, with a lot to say. But why bring it back? You had it in 2017; it was a hit, so why now? Why rhino it all up again?

Tamarie Cooper: It was something that just shot out of my brain when discussing with Jason Nodler, my co-artistic director, what shows we were considering for this current season, and it just wasn't even something we debated. It just sort of was like, well, we need to do Rhinoceros again. It's been about 10 years, and when we did it in 2017, obviously, there had been a recent political shift in our country. I know there was an article that came out last year about the plays that we should be doing right now, and Rhinoceros was on that list, along with The Designated Mourner, and a few others. I will say that for me personally, obviously, there is a connection to the political landscape in our country, and some of the things that I personally feel, where I'm witnessing things that seemed completely unacceptable or unimaginable to me, that are just sort of becoming the regular routine of the world, and I'm feeling kind of like I'm letting it just happen.

What do I do? How do I—what do I do with something that seems so impossible, and now we're just sort of all like, oh, well, that's just how it is. So that would be my own personal access to it, but I think Ionesco himself has said it isn't just about fascism, and it isn't just a political statement. If anything, he'll argue this play is apolitical, and that it really is about the individual versus groupthink, versus any sort of ideology, or dogma, or mass hysteria. And you can transfer that to many different things. You could talk about technology right now, and what's happening with people, and how AI, or just the way we are now, are married to our phones, and how it's maybe dehumanizing us. So there's a lot of entry points.

I think the other reason for me personally, why I want to direct it, and why I've been the director of this piece now multiple times for my theater companies, is that Ionesco brings up these very scary and deep feelings, thinking concepts, all filtered through a comedic lens. I am always going to be game for something like that happening through comedy, because I think it's an easier way for people to engage with it and think about it. And then, of course, it's a very physical, theater of the absurd. I have these amazing actors who are such great comedians and have such great physicality, and I do think the play does sort of demand a physical life. Like, when you read it on the page, and then when you see it come off the page, it's two very different experiences.

Brett Cullum: Well, Kyle, what does it feel like to come back to it as an actor? I mean, coming back in and re-engaging with this material?

Kyle Sturdivant: Well, you know, the funny response, of course, would be, I feel old. But there is truth to that, not just the negative side of that. Yes, it is physically harder at times, but also comes nine more years of life experience, bringing to the part, and nine more years of political upheaval. I think this time, it's fun to play because the comedy's there, you just have to play it, but there are so many more levels this time. There's so much more personal experience. It's much more grounded this time, and I'm glad Tamarie's making me do it a third time.

Brett Cullum: Third?

Kyle Sturdivant: We both did it in 2003, with Infernal Bridegroom Productions, and then in 2017, so I think this is the year she's bringing out all the things she's afraid I might finally be getting too old to do. So, like, Rhinoceros, and then the food love from Tammy's show. I'm really having a great time this year because it's so grounded in real, personal experiences, and in a way that I feel like my first two performances lacked.

Tamarie Cooper: Well, Kyle's just—I mean, I think we all do get better the more we do things, right? But he's just at the top of his game right now, I think, as a performer. And it is a more nuanced—I'm gonna say nuanced, and then you're gonna see it, and you're gonna be like, what is nuanced about that?

Kyle Sturdivant: Nuance for me.

Tamarie Cooper: Certainly is more, and there's just—and the same thing happening with George Parker, who is Behringer, the other lead, is, you know, the two of them have also—we've all known each other for so long, and it is very rich to be able to come back to something and start from where you left off, even 10 years. So we're already building on something that was a foundation, and I've watched the video from last time, and of course, we were very proud of that production. There are elements that are definitely a remount. We have not changed the set design; we have several actors reprising roles. But it does feel very different at times, too. It does feel richer.

Brett Cullum: We've probably been dancing around this a little bit. Kyle, what do you play? Tell me a little bit about your character.

Kyle Sturdivant: Oh, well, I play Jean, who I think is a kind of classic character in the playwright's repertoire. He's very concerned with appearance, social mannerisms, and is sort of an intellectual thinker. But I would say that pretty much everything is on the surface of what he—how he values life and friendships, and everyone else should be on that same level. And then, whatever was happening to these people starts to happen, and he's one of the first ones to go. He has a physical transformation on stage, not literally. There are no costumes, there's nothing like that. It's just me and my body and whatever, but I think he was more susceptible to the change because of his philosophies, in the way he's thinking. It's kind of a pretentious fop at times, which I always like to play. But this time, I think I really wanted to focus on why is he friends with Behringer, and focus on their friendship, too, which is also important.

Tamarie Cooper: Yes. And Kyle is, it's a wonderful thing to behold him transforming into a rhinoceros. He is our resident animal actor. He was Trevor, the chimpanzee, when I directed him in Trevor. He has been—well, you just saw him in Beautiful Princess Disorder as Shamu, right? The killer whale. What else? I think there's one more.

Kyle Sturdivant: A dinosaur, or a dinosaur, yeah.

Tamarie Cooper: You know, so he's my go-to for if you need to become an animal on stage. Again, just speaking to your physical comedy skills.

Brett Cullum: Yeah, and of course, he wasn't Shamu, he was Tilikum. It was the killer killer whale. It was the one who killed the trainer.

Kyle Sturdivant: The sweetie pie, yeah.

Brett Cullum: I so digress. I love Kyle in anything like that; he's a handsome animal. In Houston, I think that physical comedy is... Kyke is one of its masters. I don't see anybody else even hitting that level sometimes, and it's just amazing to watch. And of course, you recently had the Tamarie show, where you guys got to do the—what did you call it, the food?

Tamarie Cooper: Food LOVE! 

Brett Cullum: Food love? I always called it the FOOD BALLET. 

Tamarie Cooper: It is absolutely a ballet!

Brett Cullum: Yes. And it's one of my favorite sequences. For anybody who hasn't seen it, it involves a lot of consumable items, and Kyle and Tamarie kind of express their love for them. 

Tamarie Cooper: It's one of my favorites. My favorite seven-minute work sample. Yes, I'm like, here it is. This is what's in my brain.

Brett Cullum: So you're saying that there's not really a transformation? The poster is so striking.

Tamarie Cooper: There is a transformation, but in the original play, it was written, and it's been done this way many times, where the actor, Jean, as he's transforming, goes into his bathroom, which would be offstage, and they'd have a team that would quickly put green, you know, or gray grease paint makeup all over their body, and then attach, like, a prosthetic horn so that you were truly seeing more of the actual rhinoceros. We never did that in our productions. We always chose the ones I directed to leave the monster in the audience's imagination. I think we've all learned that from a good thriller, that it's probably a lot more powerful when it's left in your mind, as opposed to seeing it on stage. You don't see any physical rhinoceroses in the production.

Brett Cullum: Well, one of the things that I find so fascinating about Catastrophic is that it feels like you hit on a lot of political landscape things that are happening with your seasons. And it's not like you're necessarily doing a show that immediately addresses it. I mean, you're not doing a straight-out parody of it. It's just you pick these shows that speak to today's world so eloquently. This is a classic, this is from the '50s, it's something that's studied and everything else like that, but it does feel a little bit dangerous and comments on our time, which I think is one of the things that you guys are strong at. Do you always feel like that's kind of a part of your company's DNA?

Tamarie Cooper: I think that we often, with our plays, ask questions, not necessarily provide answers, or are we even trying to provide the answers, but we will ask some of the more existential questions that come out in our work. That's just something that I think is more unique to Catastrophic. And I think that's scary for some people because they want the answers in their entertainment, right? And we purposely often leave things more to your own interpretation. And I do think that if it is, in this play, talking about being human versus mob thinking, or mass hysteria, or groupthink, that does touch into that bit of identity, you know.

Kyle Sturdivant: Oh, yeah. I think the themes of this play are quintessential queerness. It speaks to individualism versus populism. Individuality, the strength of the unique person versus group mentality. And, I mean, that kind of theme resonates even harder now with the queer community than it did before because you see so many other people jumping on the bandwagon of supporting political statements and laws just because their president or governor says it's good for you without even thinking about it, you know, like bathroom issues or whatever. And, you know, this—I think the strength of this play is that it triumphs, or I think it decides on the edge of the individual person being able to think for themselves, and how that's important in our society.

Brett Cullum: We've got George Parker, and you've got Kyle Sturdivant. Who else is in this that I might know? Who else is on board?

Tamarie Cooper: Abraham Zapata, you know, Abe Zapata. He's done a ton of work with us as well. He's very funny, and some people are doubling in roles as well, so he plays two different parts, but he's just very funny as the boss at the printing office where Behringer, George Parker's character, works. Jovan Jackson is playing Dudard. And Jenna Morris Miller, who's also been in several Catastrophic productions, is part of our core artist; she's playing Daisy, sort of the ingenue, right, the female lead. We've got Rebecca Randall, Sarah Jo Dunstan, and Mara McGee.

Kyle Sturdivant: You're forgetting Noel and Karina.

Tamarie Cooper: And Noel and Karina! So, Noel Bowers and Karina Pal Montaño-Bowers are both reprising their roles from the 2017 production. A fun little thing for me is that they are actually married. Karina is playing the old gentleman, so I love having a little bit of drag whenever I can. And she's got a nice, good, bushy mustache to wear this time, too. And she's married to Noel, so it's really fun, because they're both delightful humans to begin with, and then also very, very funny. And anytime that we can put them together in any kind of theatrical production, just obviously the bond that they share in life will translate into how they play with each other on stage, too.

Brett Cullum: It's become a theme in Houston theater lately, though. So interesting. Married couples are torturing each other. The Alley did Misery.

Tamarie Cooper: Yes, with Chris and Elizabeth.

Brett Cullum: Yes, but then they did Girl on the Train! Back to back, and it was like they each got to take their revenge on each other. It was just wild.  And then Kim and Philip, Kim Tobin and Philip Lehl have obviously done a lot of—

Tamarie Cooper: A ton.

Brett Cullum: Yes. And then, currently running right now, Mildred's Umbrella, Rhett Martinez is directing his wife in a play where she kind of awakens a feminine love side.

Kyle Sturdivant: I can't imagine directing that.

Brett Cullum: So it's always fun to see the married people just really go off the rails with their relationships and this. So I will enjoy this. And Karina does look really cute with a mustache. I have seen some of the pictures, so—

Tamarie Cooper: Such a cute old man. I keep telling her I just want her to come over to my house in her costume. I'm gonna feed her soup, and she's gonna tell me stories.

Brett Cullum: Please, that's the next show. That's what you just need. You need to just do that one. But I'm excited. This launches your season, obviously, season opener, which everybody's in the throes of. So we get Rhinoceros, and it runs September 18 through October 10 at the MATCH, which—you're in Matchbox 3, correct?

Tamarie Cooper: This one's in Box 3.

Brett Cullum: Okay. Yeah, it's kind of your traditional space, your traditional home.

Tamarie Cooper: Occasionally, we'll do a show in Box 1. We did The Designated Mourner over there recently, and we've done Candace's show, a few others over in Box 1, before. It's nice because Box 1 is really intimate, but it also has less playing space, and with a 10-person cast and a stampede of invisible rhinoceroses, you need more space.

Brett Cullum: Oh, and Kyle playing a rhinoceros, I mean, come on, we've got to have lots of—

Kyle Sturdivant: I don't want to hurt anybody, you know. Need some space.

Brett Cullum: But please do, because, oh my gosh, I have to tell you, when I saw the imagery of the poster, I kind of thought it was kind of sexy, and a very strange—I was telling T, I think—did T Lavois Thiebaud design the poster?

Tamarie Cooper: T does, yeah.

Brett Cullum: Yeah, I asked her, I was like, "Why is this kind of hot?"

Tamarie Cooper: Our plan this year for our graphic design with T is to, for each show,introduce photography of the actual casts. So, this was the first really fun one. I'm really very, very happy with this imagery, how it came out. And George, too. As much as I'm boasting on Kyle for his physicality, George Parker is also just—he has a face made of rubber.

Kyle Sturdivant: Oh, yeah, just look at his face in that poster. Like, he's got it. I could just eat him up, maybe that's why it's so sexy.

Brett Cullum: It is! Thank you both so much, and thank you for doing this, and endangering yourself by doing this one more time.

Tamarie Cooper: We'll say yes again in 10 more years, so this may be it.

Kyle Sturdivant: Retired and on Medicare, maybe.

Tamarie Cooper: He might actually be able to retire, whereas I think I'm gonna have to make theater until I literally, like, my brain is completely gone, and I fall over.

Kyle Sturdivant: Better hurry.