Ride the Cyclone

"Ride the Cyclone" began its life as a song cycle turned cult classic by the Canadian theater company, Atomic Vaudeville. In its current incarnation at Chicago Shakespeare Theater, director/choreographer Rachel Rockwell and CST's Creative Producer Rick Boynton have further developed the book, music and lyrics by Brooke Maxwell and Jacob Richmond for an outstanding American debut.

The wonderfully twisted story revolves around six members of a perennially second-rate high school choir from the tiny Saskatchewan town of Uranium. After the unlucky half dozen meet an untimely end on a runaway roller coaster, they find themselves in a wonderfully creepy, decrepit carnival limbo. There, the Amazing Karnak, a mechanical fortune teller, makes a cryptic, constantly shifting offer they can't refuse: The chance for one of them to return to life. What results is part John Hughes, part Joss Whedon and something wholly original.

Each character is a stereotype on the surface -- a stereotype explored and exploded through masterfully crafted songs in wide variety of styles. The rigid overachiever (and not-so-secret mean girl) celebrates her own superiority in an up-tempo-bordering-on-manic pop musical number; the magnificently bitchy gay boy lives out his Marlene Dietrich-fueled fantasies in ripped fishnets via a number Kander and Ebb wish they'd written; the transplanted Ukrainian's auto-tuned gangsta rap bleeds into a folk song and a love ballad rolled into one.

And all of that comes before the Stephen Hawking-level genius boy out-Bowies Bowie in a wonderfully bizarre concept album about space cat people condensed into a single song, or the mysterious Jane Doe absolutely nails a Weill/Brecht-inspired masterpiece. Right down to the soulful, feel-good, mousy-sidekick-finds-her-groove song that brings the contest to its climax, everything about the material and the production is perfect.

As each contestant takes center stage, the other characters, minimally transformed through meticulously chosen props and costume pieces (costume design by Theresa Ham, wigs and make-up by Melissa Veal) layered over their Catholic school uniforms, become the chorus for whomever is in the spotlight.

In just under two hours, the audience is fully invested in all six stories, each told beautifully and economically through a combination of song, movement, and incredibly thoughtful use of the carnival setting and the framing device of mercurial, largely indifferent conduit to the supernatural.

Scott Davis's scenic design lends the small upstairs theater at CST an atmosphere not quite precariously balanced between intimate and claustrophobic. Greg Hofmann's lighting, Mike Tutaj's stunning projections, and sound design by Palmer Jankens (additional sound design by Brooke Maxwell and Jacob Richmond) keep the audience fascinated and leaning ever closer into things from which they'd rather look away.

Bringing it all to life is a superb, tightly directed, truly collaborative cast. Tiffany Tatreau's Ocean O'Connell Rosenberg is so hatefully perky and yet so wrong-headedly well meaning that the palpable loathing of one classmate and the apologetic, unwavering (if cringing) support of another are equally believable.

Kholby Wardell's rendition of Noel Gruber takes the character far beyond flamboyance and an endless supply of cutting insults to explore the heartbreaking longing and insecurities, both peculiar to him and shared by his classmates.

Russell Mernagh initially seems like he has the least to work with as Mischa Bachinski, but it's simply that the absurdity and pathos of the character's story unfolds more slowly and the actor's patience with the material more than pays off. Similarly, Lillian Castillo's Constance Blackwood appears at first to bear the burden of comic relief. Castillo never shies away from providing that much-needed levity, yet there's a sweet, constant melancholy to her performance that's key to keeping the plot's ultimate (and inevitable) resolution from feeling at all cheesy or overly simple.

Even in a cast bursting with talent and a play that boasts nothing but compelling, three-dimensional characters, though, Emily Rohm's Jane Doe stands out. The idea of a headless, unclaimed body standing in for the "invisible girl" is brilliant in itself. Rohm's performance more than does the concept justice. Through entirely black eyes, an almost expressionless china doll face and perfectly unnerving jerky movements, she is terrifying, tragic and almost overwhelmingly moving.

"Ride the Cyclone" plays through Nov. 15 at CST's upstairs theater on Navy Pier, 800 East Grand Avenue, Chicago. For tickets or information, call 312-595-5600 or visit www.chicagoshakes.com