Review: Mania Her Gift To All In HOLIDAY SPARKLE 2021 At The Laurie Beechman Theatre

Heigh-Ho, My Merry Rainbow Tribe! Bobby Patrick, your RAINBOW Reviewer here. Putting the silent T in cabareT to bring you all the T!

Well my dahlings, Sunday night found us at the Laurie Beechman Theatre for the first time since the panDAMNIT to catch the act of one Ms. Tammie Brown in her HOLIDAY SPARKLE 2021. This drag artiste was an early contestant on RuPaul's drag race (season 2) and again on All-Stars 1, which are the two highlights of lady's career of which Bobby is aware, and would have been enough to get us into any theater, let alone experiencing the bliss of being back at The Beechman. Like a mad Ann-Margret, the Lady took the stage wearing a wild ginger wig that we think was torn from the pages of Carol Channing's playbook because Bobby swears Ms. Brown was wearing the thing backward. In a matching matchstick-red crochet mini-dress, Miss Tammie was a veritable ball of fire as she flung herself about the stage in her madcap mania, pulling out all the stops in her every effort to entertain for nearly ninety minutes. Ms. Brown's opening number, GINGERBREAD HOUSE started off the rails owing to a glitch in the booth, but she picked it up and ran with it completing the number from mid-stream and then continued to mine some comedy gold commenting on the gaff here and there throughout. Now my lambs, Tammie's comedy stylings could best be described as a stream of consciousness, if the stream you're in is rushing from Niagra Falls through dangerous rapids, bumping into rocks at every possible opportunity. There is nothing safe in the journey you take with Tammie Brown. Stopping to sing songs that are completely by-the-by, the real show is between Tammie and her audience, as her devoted fans love to shoot these rapids with her.

There is "structure" to what the lady does, indicating that the drag diva sat down and formulated a plan before she got to the theater, but it is, for little Bobby anyway, an almost incomprehensible structure that works within its own bubble causing a catalytic reaction with her audience that, for the most part, proves entertaining. Tammie Brown knows where she's going when she hits the stage... even if her mind sometimes takes wonderful, wild, wacky side trips on her way to getting there. In other words, her particular stream of consciousness works for those who swim in that particular stream. For the rest of the audience who might just want to check out the RPDG alum, it can be rather a case of getting on the train or being left behind. With original songs like SHIMMY SHIMMY, HIT ME WITH YOUR LOVE STICK, TIGER LILY, and SEXY, SEXY, ORANGUTAN, La Tammie made the most of her limited range with a little bit of rap, some beat poetry set to music, and some comedically peculiar subject matter, all of which the audience ate right up and went back for more. Having seen her on the YouTubes or the RuTube, much of Tammie Brown's show is exactly as peculiar as you might expect, and that is why so many people love her. She doesn't make sense, and that's what makes her funny: the weirdness of Tammie is irresistible... but it's not all.

Sometimes, during her non-sequitur-infused monologue, Tammie would open up her pink passion smeared lips, and out would come biting political humor and social consciousness... but only for a moment before she slunk back into the land of whack a mole wackadoo. Especially impassioned commentary came at the expense of Greg Abbott, Governor of Texas - Tammie's home state - as the unapologetic Ms. Brown took repeated shots at the Republican politician, and even at his wheelchair, to gleeful squeals rolling up from the crowd and, like most of the true comedy in Tammie's act, the commentary springs up like weeds, breaking through the berserk banter, before disappearing until the next sneak attack. To quote the Lady herself, "You never know what's gonna come out of my mouth but it's the truth."

The act, HOLIDAY SPARKLE 2021, touched on some holiday themes without really being a holiday show. In Ms. Brown's unique hands it's more like a combination of stand-up comedy, coffee shop poetry reading, avant-garde performance art, all with the fact that Tammie performs in drag making it a drag show. If Tammie did the show as her alter-ego, would it be as wildly accessible and acceptable to her throng of fans? Or is the performance art brought to the people by a lovable lunatic whose music everybody hears, or at least wants to hear, simply because she is, indeed, lovable and a lunatic? These are the questions Little Bobby must leave with you since, TBH, we found ourselves a bit left behind on this river rapids ride. Maybe it's old fogey-ism, maybe this queen needed a little more sleep, but to ding where a ding needs to go, for us, it was a little like being left outside of an inside joke. This is not to say we didn't laugh, we did... but most of the time we were unsure of why. So with all that in tow and keeping our own baggage on our own carousel, Tammie Brown's HOLIDAY SPARKLE 2021 might have been a bumpy night, but we are glad enough we fastened our seatbelts and give her a solid...

3 ½ Rainbows Out Of 5.

Tammie Spins Her Webby: HERE

Tweet Her Twitters: HERE

Stalk Her InstaPictograms: HERE

Ande Followe On Ye Olde FaceBooke: HERE

Keep Up With All Things At The Laurie Beechman: HERE

All Photos By Yours Truly, Bobby Patrick

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