 |
Christopher Kelly
When Chris Kelly walks into a room he is impossible to miss- partly because there's a good chance he's the tallest person there and mostly because he has such a vibrant and unquenchable personality. This makes him excellent for comedic roles, but our first collaboration was high tragedy, with Chris winning the title role in No Nude Men's production of Edward II. Already an accomplished drag performer, emcee and poet, Chris had been dabbling in acting, playing Hiram Spane in San Francisco Community College's production of Bad Habits, Todd in The Author's Voice at Studio ACT, and Vinyl in ESP at the Theater Couture in New York City. He'd also done some film- Baul Gan, Hello Pretty and Midnight, but Edward was to be his first serious dramatic role (and his first lead) and it was a privilege to work with such a dedicated actor at such a pivotal point in his career. Chris gave the role his all, easily expressing the character's rage and self-pity in varying degrees while never losing his sympathetic edge and, in particular bringing great dignity and nobility to the death scene. Working opposite him as Warwick, for I ended up cast in my own first production due to an absentee actor, I got to experience first hand how Chris really gives everything he can to his fellow actors, endowing each moment in a show with an intensity and presence that not only allows you to focus on him, but demands that everything and everyone else do the same: really, the epitome of a scene stealer who makes you better by forcing you to rise to his level. Not surprisingly, we've continued to work together since, and after he took time to appear in the East Bay in a production of Doug Hettinger's Macbush, Chris returned to No Nude Men to create the role of Armand in Troijka, in which his hysterical death scene was the principal show stopper each night of the run. Taking time out to appear in The Philadelphia Story with the San Leandro Players, he then originated Francisco in Love Egos Alternative Rock. The later is, to date, my favorite performance by him, marked by numerous highlights, particularly his sex scene with Gina Seghi's Naomi and his various onstage catfights and reunions with Ryan Hayes' Nikolai. Again, Chris displayed a great deal of virtuosity, keeping his character loveable and yet relentlessly funny, and as a pair the gay managers often outshone everyone else in the play, making people root for them even as they were vaguely disgusted by their selfishness. Returning once more to play Enrique in No Nude Men's rendering of The Exiled, Chris was finally completely in his element, offering a sexy, slimy, vaguely insane Enrique who you just loved to hate and yet hated to love- and also managing, in the heat of passion, to break a chair one night. So far, this is my only major complaint against him, though Chris might have one with me for having failed to cast him in a lead since Edward, but it tends not to matter where you put him in the line-up because he always makes it a starring role. He has since continued to prove this time and time again, most prominently with a role in the Steinbeck Presents production of Star-Crossed, in which he played the twin brother Katherine Capulet, played by Dove Model Sigrid Sutter, doomed to die in his sister's arms while confessing an incestuous desire for her. The night I saw the show they added a steamy last kiss that made you sit up and re-evaluate everything you had been watching for the last two hours- a bold choice on the part of the actors, but no real surprise if you know Chris Kelly. He followed this success with another, more subtler role in No Nude Men's 2005 production of Phaedra, playing the tutor Theramenes and sporting both a British accent and more facial hair than previously seen by fans of the company. Sinking into the quiet passions of the play, Chris's highlight came in the second act each night with his delivery of one of the longest speeches in classical theater, recounting the death of Lee Marcotte's Hippolytus as he is dragged across a rocky beach by his own maddened horses. Haunting to watch and to listen too, Chris firmly established that he could not only carry a role outside of his normal retinue of comedic characters and sexual miscreants, but he was also capable of moving an entire audience with no more than a good text and better intentions, filtered into his most focused and astounding performance to date. So, in typical No Nude Men fashion, we followed this up with Chris's silliest role yet, this time as a flagrantly flighty and queenie Boyet in Love's Labors Lost. Impeccably dressed and usually laden with shopping bags, Chris would flounce around the stage for two hours every night, gossiping with the girls and flirting with the boys in a characterization so un-Stuart that I actually had people feel a need to point out how gay the part was- like Chris and I didn't know what we were doing, or like it wasn't worth it considering all the laughs he got. Despite the un-PC characterization, his expert handling of the dialogue and inexhaustible energy continued his legacy of being an audience darling and further underlined for me that he really can do no wrong provided you find the right role for him. And there's always a role for Chris Kelly. Even in our gender-bending production of Hamlet which only had three roles for men (Gertrude, Ophelia and Guildenstern) I made a last minute decision to have the Ghost played by a man in drag and experience taught me that the smartest drag queen in San Francisco was already part of my troupe. Chris saw the role as terrifying and approached it with the mentality of an actor, not a drag queen, stripping it of camp and opting for a horrifying gender confusion that mimicked the Ghost's plight of being stuck between worlds. Even people who didn't like the show loved Chris, enthralled by his performance which, though largely confined to one scene, was absolutely unforgettable. Of course, at this point we expect no less from him, which is good since he always manages to deliver.
Back
to characters |
|
|
