Star Inspired by Workshop for Retarded : Friends of Actress at Heart of Play

Tabi Cooper, star of the play “Andrea’s Got Two Boyfriends,” has a few boyfriends of her own. Girlfriends too. They are a jovial group the actress met last year at the Glendale Self Aid Workshop for the mentally retarded, where she spent two months researching the play.

Because the play deals with retardation, practically no one, including the workshop staff, thought it would be a hit. But, almost 10 months after opening, the production is still playing to full houses at the Eagle Theater in Beverly Hills.

That keeps Cooper busy four nights a week. But she still finds time once or twice a month to visit her new-found friends on Glenoaks Boulevard. After all, Cooper said, they taught her how to play Andrea, the funny and touching main character in David Willinger’s play.

“Tabi’s pretty special,” said Carole Jouroyan, executive director of the Glendale Assn. for the Retarded. When Tabi visits the residents there, “she goes around and remembers their names and takes a personal interest. She makes them feel better,” Jouroyan said.

At the workshop, employees are paid for simple tasks such as sorting newspapers for packaging. The association runs the workshop and nearby Hamilton House, a residential home for the retarded.

At times slapstick and compassionate, but never condescending, “Andrea” focuses on the trials and tribulations of a 30-year-old retarded woman who has two suitors, named Ritchie and Freddie, who also are retarded. Playwright Willinger based the story on his sister, Andrea, who lives in a home for the retarded in Upstate New York.

For the role, Cooper first drew on her memories of an uncle who was retarded. In addition, Cooper said, she and the other actors in the play devoted several months to research because they wanted to go beyond mere behavioral mimicry and get at the complex inner workings of their characters.

“It was scary at first. The play could have been taken so many different ways. But I knew if I was going to play a retarded person, I just damn well better know what retarded people are like,” Cooper said.

With that goal in mind, Cooper and her co-stars, Robert Fieldsteel and Chris Pass, visited homes and workshops for the retarded. There they studied speech patterns and body language, observed petty fights and enduring friendships and took notes at lunch hours and talent shows. Often, they just hung around with residents to sop up the rhythm of their daily lives.

Cooper said the actors spent the most time at the Glendale Workshop and Hamilton House because its staff proved most receptive. They also did research at the Burbank Center for the Retarded, Tierra del Sol in Sunland and Villa Esperanza in Altadena. Clients at those homes range from mildly to severely retarded, Cooper said.

Models for Characters

Weaving bits and pieces from various residents, Cooper and her co-stars constructed the complete characters of Andrea, Ritchie and Freddie. At Hamilton House, for instance, Cooper recalled one resident who walked around the kitchen with a purse tightly clutched around her shoulder.

“She wasn’t going anywhere, she was just holding onto her possessions. And that’s how Andrea got her purse,” Cooper said, referring to her character’s obsessive concern with a handbag.

Earlier this month, when Cooper made one of her periodic visits to the workshop, life suddenly imitated art when Roxanne, a spunky 19-year-old who has not seen or heard of the play, announced to a visitor: “I’ve got two boyfriends.”

Cooper was delighted. She drifted from group to group, greeting old friends and examining new baubles. At a dress rehearsal for a talent show at the home, she yelled encouragement to the retarded participants and clapped fiercely.

Spur of the Moment

In their research, the actors discovered that the retarded love to sing and dance unabashedly. In the play, Andrea and Ritchie lock arms for a romantic dance and sing “This Land Is Your Land” while Freddie, who is left on the sidelines, mopes disconsolately with a basketball.

“Retarded people are totally spur of the moment. They’re natural actors; they love to be on stage,” Cooper said.

Apparently, such was not the case with Cooper, who grew up in the Fairfax district of Los Angeles and said she suffered for 26 tortuous years before getting up the nerve to try acting.

At UCLA, she earned a bachelor’s degree in design and worked for a while in the garment industry. But, in her spare time, she hung out with actors and attended cast parties.

“Every time I went and saw a show . . . I got a headache because I wanted so badly to be on stage,” she recalls.

A Move to Acting

Finally, she confided in a friend who teaches drama and he began to tutor her privately. Later, she moved to New York and took lessons at Lee Strasberg’s Actors Studio, supporting herself by performing in dinner theater on Long Island. She eventually moved back to Los Angeles and worked in small playhouses.

It was then that Cooper realized she enjoyed doing research for her character roles, which have included a journalist and the wife of a comedian, almost as much as she enjoyed acting. “I’m a research fanatic,” she said.

In fact, Cooper began researching the role of Andrea before she even auditioned for the part. She observed self-care centers around the San Fernando Valley. She even asked for a sample of the real Andrea’s handwriting.

Initial Skepticism

It paid off and Cooper got the part of bossy and neurotic Andrea. Research then began in earnest, but in the beginning there was some skepticism on the part of Glendale staffers.

“When Tabi first came to us, we thought the play was a great idea but wondered who would go see it,” Jouroyan said.

But, when Jouroyan and her staff attended a performance, “We laughed, we cried, we identified some of the characters with some of the people we work with.”

The Glendale retarded group has not seen the play, and Cooper admits feeling uncomfortable with the idea.

“They could feel betrayed, they know us all so well,” she said.

‘Some Saw Themselves’

But she said several other groups of retarded who have seen the play “laughed their heads off.” At first Cooper felt a bit squeamish acting out the role of a retarded person in front of them, she said. But, three weeks later, when Cooper was invited to speak to the group, she found that they had understood the play and remembered almost every detail.

“Some saw themselves in it, and others said, ‘No, I’m not like that,’ ” Cooper said.

Playing Andrea is an emotional and physical strain, she said. Often, Cooper is unable to eat or sleep normally and becomes tense and nervous.

“Andrea carries tension in her neck and shoulder. I’ve been going to a chiropractor a lot more since I’ve been playing the role,” she said.

Commenting on the rage that bubbles up in Andrea, Cooper said: “All I have to do is relate to my personal experience. I was an angry kid. You don’t have to be retarded not to be accepted.”

But Cooper believes in the play’s motto, which Ritchie says over and over as the lights dim on stage, “Ya gotta do the best you can.”