Displaying items by tag: Kasey Foster

The Oscars might be over, but this “Best Actress” is just getting started. Welcome to the weird world of the Grelley Duvall Show, or Alex Grelle. His unique approach to cabaret has amassed quite a fanbase over the years. Suffice it to say, there’s nothing else quite like it. In two acts, Grelle and his team blend his favorite female performances with highly choreographed musical numbers set to toe-tappin’ hits performed by a live band. 

Directed by Kasey Foster, “Best Actress” tells the origin story of the Grelley Duvall Show and what inspired a young Alex Grelle and his creative partner Jesse Morgan Young. Their obsessive knowledge of pop culture as seen through the lens of queer millennials is unmatched. They throw anything from a given day on cable TV in the 1990s into the blender and it’s up to the audience to keep up. The irreverent humor, costumes, and slickly produced video segments add up to an evening of hilarious deep cuts and surprise cameos.

To be honest, not all experimental cabaret style theatre is good. Rest assured Best Actress is not that. Rather it’s a 2-hour musical extravaganza with solid gold choreography by Erin Kilmurray and Kasey Alfonso and a kick-ass band led by (and featuring the vocals of) Aunt Kelly. Alex Grelle is a certified triple threat: he can sing, he can dance and he can kick. The team he’s assembled for this production has made something really special for anyone really, but especially for the pop culture obsessed, vintage shopping community.

Joining Grelle onstage is a powerhouse ensemble - Kara Brody, Madigan Burke, Lolly Extract, Darling Shear, Patrick Stengle, and Mary Williamson - plus a handful of puppets that feel like characters in their own right. And make no mistake: Grelle isn’t the only one throwing kicks. This cast matches his energy beat for beat, putting on quite a show. Again, Killmurray and Alfonso’s choreography is killer.

Grelley Duvall Best Actress is one of those shows it’s almost best to not know much about going in. It’s also one of those shows that should just run open-ended for a while, because once you see it, you’ll be trying to explain to people for weeks what exactly it was. 

Through April 12 at the Chopin Theatre. 1543 W Division St. 773-278-1500

This review is proudly shared with our friends at www.TheatreInChicago.com. 

Jules Verne wrote one of the first science fiction novels in 20,000 Leagues Under the Seas, the story of three travelers who find themselves imprisoned on the Nautilus, a submarine captained by the megalomaniacal Captain Nemo. The novel was light on political detail, though Captain Nemo occasionally claimed to use his supremacy in the seas to right wrongs committed on land, especially those perpetrated by colonial powers. Nemo’s reasons were more fully articulated in Verne’s follow-up, The Mysterious Island, elements of which become the framing device for this Lookingglass Production, adapted by David Kersnar, who also directs, and Althos Low (aka Steve Pickering). Ensemble member Kersnar shows a deft hand and strong familiarity with the resources he can muster to bring the undersea world of the novels spectacularly to life, though the attempt to explain Nemo’s vengeful politics weighs the production down.

At its heart, 20,000 Leagues Under the Seas is an entertaining yarn, filled with hair-raising encounters with monsters, encounters made more terrifying by the fact that they take place in the unforgiving confines of the world’s oceans, with their more ordinary terrors. Kersnar and Low have done a remarkable job of bringing this world to the stage, staying true to Verne’s vision while making updates that make the story more accessible to contemporary audiences. One of these is changing the gender of the marine biologist who recounts Nemo’s travels and scientific discoveries. Pierre Aronnax and his aide-de-camp, Conseil, are recast as Morgan Aronnax and Brigette Conseil. This proves to be a strong choice in terms of storytelling, as it makes a little sense of Aronnax’s initial sympathy for Nemo, as both have felt the sting of being underestimated by those in power. The creators have assembled a team of artists and designers who are up to the task of bringing the tour of the seas to the stage. Todd Rosenthal’s set contains a toy-theater proscenium for the wide-angle shots of the ocean, from the sinking of ships to the horrors of the drowning sailors to the view from the windows of the Nautilus. The Nautilus itself is realized as an exterior platform that rises and tilts precipitously as the story demands, and hints at the confinement of the underwater craft that can be accessed only through a small hatch. Costume designer Sully Ratke combines story-telling and function, creating designs that capture the altered states of the characters as their journeys unwind, as well as their backgrounds and social stations. Props by Amanda Hermann avoid getting too steampunk, but capture the Victorian aesthetic of the novel, reminiscent of the original illustrations. However, it is the more ephemeral design elements that really transport the audience to the depths: sound designer Ric Sims and lighting designer Christine Binder immerse the audience in locations from New York City, the decks of various water crafts, to the depths of the seven seas. Floating in this aural and visual landscape are the puppets designed by Blair Thomas, Tom Lee, and Chris Wooten and athletic actors performing Sylvia Hernandez Di-Stasi’s brilliant aerial choreography, which allows the characters to float and dive beneath the waves. The puppets themselves are worth the price of admission: lifelike and magical at once, they float behind and off the stage to invite audience and characters fully into the terrors and wonders of the oceans.

The play begins with a group of refugees from the American Civil War meeting the man who enabled them to survive their escape, Captain Nemo, now older, alone and questioning his prior life as a terror of the seas. It then flashes back to where the book begins, introducing French professor of natural history Morgan Aronnax, who receives a last-minute invitation to join the crew of the USS Bainbridge, under Captain Farragut, who is commissioned to seek and destroy whatever is terrorizing the seas—be it craft or creature. Aronnax postulates a giant narwhal in a scene that brilliantly establishes her character and her position vis-à-vis her male colleagues. Kasey Foster does an admirable job of injecting charm into the generally no-nonsense and humorless professor, who is almost as single-minded in her pursuit of knowledge as Nemo in his pursuit of vengeance and domination. Kareem Bandealy is hampered by a script that does not allow him to fully realize the zealous evil of Nemo—despite his powerful presence and overbearing bluster, he gets bogged down in the scenes that switch to introspection and long-winded revelation. Scenes that allow him to do this while perpetrating acts of terror (the sinking of a naval vessel, for example) serve the plot much better than dinner time polemics and elegiac remembrances of his role in the Great Mutiny of 1847, which led to the losses that spurred his vengeance against imperialism. Rounding out the quartet that forms the center of the narrative are Walter Briggs as the cheeky Ned Land, a harpooner brought on board the Bainbridge to help destroy the monster responsible for the deaths of so many sailors, and Lanise Antoine Shelley as Conseil. Briggs brings the right balance of swagger and empathy to his role, and Shelley makes a good audience foil for the occasionally delusional professor, pointedly and humorously reminding her of the realities of their positions as women in a male world, and then as prisoners (not guests) of the mad Captain Nemo. Nemo’s “guests” also prove themselves to be up to the physical challenges of taking on human and cephalopod foes (Shelley has a brilliant and harrowing encounter with the latter). The rest of the cast—Thomas J. Cox, Joe Dempsey, Micah Figueroa, Edwin Lee Gibson and Glenn-Dale Obrero--provide some of the most striking moments of the evening and fill the stage with a multitude of supporting characters. Cox anchors the crew of Civil War wanderers and helps flesh out the alternate narrative. Joe Dempsey makes an impression as Pencroff, whose gratitude towards Nemo fuels his understanding and as the surprisingly open-minded and humorous Captain Farragut. Edwin Lee Gibson brings stalwart nobility to Cyrus Smith, one of the men who encounters Nemo in the first scene, and a roguish pragmatism to the self-serving constable who allows Ned Land to board the U.S.S. Bainbridge with a little persuasion from the Captain. Micah Figueroa and Glenn-Dale Obrero also fill the ranks of the Civil War escapees (with a humorous turn from Figueroa as the naïve Harbert), as well as handling the bulk of the fighting and diving, including an amazing sequence of pearl diving that captures the best of Lookingglass’s take on Verne’s novel—providing spectacle and social commentary in a seamless melding of physical theater, puppetry and characterization.

It’s not perfect, but 20,000 Leagues Under the Seas has enough to satisfy young (tweens and up) and old. Though it tries valiantly and not always successfully to engage with the political themes of human rights and colonization, ultimately it is buoyed by a strong sense of good old-fashioned story-telling. The breathtaking special effects, aerial dance, puppet magic, and a committed and capable cast who can match the acting and physical demands of the spectacle more than make up for some ponderous philosophical ballast. There is enough food for thought to inspire conversation, but the focus, as it should, remains mostly on the undersea journeys of the Nautilus and its willing and unwilling crew members’ battles with Kareem Bandealy’s power-hungry Nemo and the natural perils of the seas. It is well worth hopping on board to witness the sea battles, sea spiders, fish, squid and other undersea wonders dreamed up by Lookingglass’s team, under the assured direction of David Kersnar.

20,000 Leagues Under the Seas runs through August 19, 2018, at Lookingglass Theater, 821 N. Michigan. Performances are Wednesdays-Sundays at 7:30 pm, and Sundays at 2:00 pm. For tickets and more information, visit www.lookingglasstheatre.org or call 312-337-0665.

*Extended through August 26th