Displaying items by tag: Mary Williamson

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. 

"Maybe it's the wanting we want" muses Vershinin in The Hypocrites' version of Chekhov's 'Three Sisters'. At once this new adaptation by Geoff Button (who also directs) is contemporary and charming. Button seems to run with them theme of supressed desires in his production that feels ever-relevant in our #FOMO world (fear of missing out).

If it's only the wanting we want, will we ever be content with what we get? Chekhov leans towards no. Perhaps disappointment is all those who dream are ever rewarded with because they refuse to live in the present. These three sisters seem to have a lot depending on their future in Moscow. As an audience we see that they make no strategic moves to achieve their dreams, which makes their longing all that much more pathetic.

Sadness is personified in color by set designer William Boles. In the first opulent scene, the set is heavily accented with purples and pinks, but when Natasha (Erin Barlow) enters the picture, her love of green brings sadness with it. In each scene as Andrei (Joel Ewing) loses a little more of their estate, a purple accent is pulled away. By the end of the play the stage is washed in green.

While the dialogue of this play is pretty morbid, forcing its audience to confront the delusions we tells ourselves in order to keep living, somehow the cast makes it a lot of fun. There's great deal of chemistry. That's not to say that the punches don't come when necessary, they're even subtle. Mary Williamson's Olga is strong, but it's really Masha (Lindsey Gravel) and Irina's (Hilary Williams) play.

Hilary Williams' outburst at the top of the second act is when the play takes a decidedly darker direction. She has a panic attack, instead of a melodramatic tantrum. Applying a diagnosable pyscological condition to this fragile character is much more convincing than most women are portrayed in literature during this period. It says more about gender inequality and Irina's anxieties than just dismissable female hysteria.

Lindsey Gravel's Masha is a real surprise here. She's sneaky, and likeable in her moodiness. By the middle of the play, her character's future is the only one that seems certain. Costume designer Jeremy W. Floyd does a wise thing by having her Fyoder (D'Wayne Taylor) hand her a green coat. It's a symbol that shows the rest of her life is going to be miserable, but what choice does she have?

Hypocrites' "Three Sisters" is the perfect production for those who fear the classics. For purists it may seem shallow, but really, who wants to sit through three long hours of people complaining? The translation is accessible and the emotions are real. The aesthetic is unique and fresh, without having to modernize it. It's important for this play to remain in a time period in which women were still considered second class citizens. Without these restrictions, we'd be wondering why the heck they don't just move to Moscow and stop whining already?

Through June 6th at Hypocrites Theatre. 1329 N. Milwaukee Ave. 773-398-7028.