REVIEW: Coolidge displays ample comedy chops

By Diana Nollen

CEDAR RAPIDS - Erase any images you've drawn from seeing Jennifer Coolidge on screen.

This savvy character actress is not Stifler's Mom, the boozy floozy cougar from the “American Pie” movies. Nor is she the ditsy shy manicurist from the “Legally Blonde” movies. Or the crazy-like-a-fox golddigger who hired an undercover cop to kill her husband in TV's “The Closer.”

She's smart, funny, wicked and beautiful, with delicate facial features not plumped up by any artificial means.

She displayed the character behind her characters to the cheers of a sold-out audience Thursday night (2/18) at Penguins Comedy Club in the Clarion Hotel, 525 33rd Ave. SW. To accommodate the crowd, the show moved from the club's permanent venue to the larger North Ballroom around the corner, which seats 200.

She strode onstage a few minutes late, clad in a knee-length black dress that displayed her ample endowments, no doubt to the delight of the grown-up boys who fell in love with Stifler's Mom in 1999.

“I've just come back from Venezuela and I don't have any clothes appropriate for your town,” she said, adjusting the skimpy bodice to guard against wardrobe malfunctions.

“I stopped in Fort Lauderdale to go to my daughter's wedding. That came as quite a surprise, since I didn't know I had a daughter.” Ba-dum-bum. “I remember in college I took some really wicked (expletive deleted). ...”

With that, she was off and running through 45 minutes of hilarity, dishing on why she's trying to leave Hollywood and imploring the audience to heckle her so she could try out the “surefire heckler stoppers” another comedian passed on to her. They can't be printed in a family publication, but they would stop anyone in their tracks.

Not totally trashing Hollywood, she fondly acknowledged the films that brought her fame.

“‘American Pie' made every 15-to-18-year-old boy think I would sleep with him,” she said. “I just want you to know - I will, because I'm single now. I'm in Room 1518 and I have the new ‘Avatar' video game.”

She talked about the ways Hollywood has changed. She's no longer the only one willing to choose the “weird best friend” roles. At a recent audition, she said her competition included Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bundchen and “that girl in the bottom of the pit in ‘Silence of the Lambs.' I said give it to the girl with the lotion. She's going to be skinned alive by a transvestite!”

She dished on so many show biz topics, from Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian making other girls with no talent think they can be successful, to facelifts, drugs, dieting and Penelope Cruz's magic spell over her leading men.

All of her stories ended with blistering smart zingers.

If Coolidge does leave Hollywood, she'll definitely find a new home on the comedy circuit, coming full circle to her fledgling days in sketch comedy troupes. She's got the chops to make that happen.

Local comedian Doug Thompson opened the show with a bang, riffing on parenting techniques, pickup lines, Iowa winters, dogs, unfortunate choices in Mother's Day gifts and replies to the query, “Do I look fat in these jeans.” Tossing in some spot-on vocal impersonations of Dr. Phil, Bill Cosby and several Muppets, he can hold his own in the spotlight.