Comments (0) Best Actor - 2011
Matt Kelly
If you saw thunder and lightning over Catastrophic Theatre early last season, you witnessed the volcanic performance of Matt Kelly in Jason Nodler's whiplash adaptation of Bluefinger, The Fall and Rise of Herman Brood. This rock opera dissected the Dutch cult singer/artist/druggie/sex addict in the most theatrical way possible: with imagination, wicked wit, sonic boom and a performance of a lifetime. As wild man Brood, Kelly was a walking train wreck, seeming to get more dissipated as the show progressed. While his life destructed, there wasn't a moment when your eyes left him. He was that mesmerizing, whether wailing heavy metal, getting a blow job and shooting up simultaneously — which deserves its own award — or melting down in the most spectacular fashion. Like a dream rush, tortured artist Brood came at us in oblique little scenes, with music the binding tie. With medical precision, Kelly's razor-sharp performance was overpoweringly physical and, without question, absolutely star-making and terrifying at the same time.
