Lookingglass dives into Jules Verne's '20,000 Leagues Under the Seas'

“20,000 Leagues Under the Seas” - ★ ★ ★ ½

From its exquisite “Eastland: A New Musical” to the rollicking “Treasure Island” to the grand examination of obsession that was “Moby Dick,” maritime tales have served Lookingglass Theatre Company well.

Now comes the company's latest oceanic-inspired effort, the visually arresting, often thrilling albeit overstuffed “20,000 Leagues Under the Seas.” Adapted by David Kersnar and Steve Pickering (under the nom de plume Althos Low) from Jules Verne's titular novel and its sequel “The Mysterious Island,” it is essentially a 19th-century adventure tale in which the ingenious Captain Nemo takes a pair of French academics and a Canadian harpoonist on an underwater world tour in his prototypical submarine the Nautilus.

Actually, that's a rather superficial description of the play and its morally ambiguous central character. A defender of the oppressed, fiercely opposed to colonialism, Nemo (the ever-passionate Kareem Bandealy) takes to the seas where he recognizes no law except his.

“I am not a civilized man,” he says. “I have broken with humanity.”

But is he a hero or a villain? The help he provides to Union soldiers - who use a hot-air balloon to escape a Confederate prison, then crash on a remote island - suggest the former. The decades he spends in his super-submersible Nautilus - destroying ships, murdering crews and plundering cargo - suggest he's something else: a criminal, a killer, a terrorist whose desire for vengeance has perverted his quest for justice.

Unfortunately, Bandealy's complex, charismatic Nemo is absent for much of the largely expositional first act. Fortunately, director Kersnar is a skilled storyteller whose accomplished creative team - including set designer Todd Rosenthal and puppet designers Blair Thomas, Tom Lee and Chris Wooten - punctuate the talky narrative with the kind of masterful visuals for which Lookingglass is known.

Rosenthal's massive set suggests a 19th-century frigate then transforms into a prototypical submarine (thanks to the clever use of hydraulics and Christine Binder's unnerving lighting). From its portals, characters observe exotic sea creatures (courtesy of Thomas, Lee and Wooten), including a cleverly realized giant squid, whose near fatal attack (choreographed by the great Sylvia Hernandez-DiStasi) is both frightening and humorous. Kudos to Hernandez-DiStasi, whose elegant aerial choreography makes a mini-ballet of a pearl-diving excursion.

Kersnar and Pickering tell Verne's adventure in a flashback sparked by the arrival of the stranded Union soldiers at the scuttled Nautilus, where they discover Nemo on his deathbed. Most of the action, which unfolds 16 years earlier, is narrated by renowned French professor Morgan Aronnax (Kasey Foster), whose loyal assistant is Brigette Conseil (Lanise Antoine Shelley). In Verne's novel, the academics are male. Here, in an effective, timely twist, they are experts forced by convention and insecure men to conceal their gender.

The U.S. Navy recruits them, along with a resolute Canadian harpoonist Ned Land (Walter Briggs), to join the crew of a warship whose mission is to eliminate whatever is destroying ships, disrupting international trade and wrecking the global economy. After their own ship falls to the Nautilus (a thrilling wreck that left me slack-jawed at Sunday's performance), Nemo holds the trio hostage while he circumnavigates the oceans.

For Morgan, the scientific discoveries the journey affords outweigh their complicity in Nemo's plundering. Not so for Ned, who wants off the submarine and back on dry land.

Lookingglass' production benefits from strong performances by the principals - including first-rate character cameos from Thomas J. Cox, Joe Dempsey and Edwin Lee Gibson - and tireless work by the backstage production assistants and puppeteers who get their own, well-deserved curtain call.

“20,000 Leagues Under the Seas” is as visually stunning as it is timely. The response of oppressed people to their oppressors and the means by which they achieve their independence remains a challenge worldwide. Indeed, one man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist.

The second act gets a bit didactic, although the fervent explanation of Bandealy's Nemo of his behavior is gripping. To its credit, the production explains but never justifies the captain's choices, leaving audience members to decide what kind of man Nemo was.

<b>Location:</b> Lookingglass Theatre Company, Water Tower Water Works, 821 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, (312) 337-0665 or lookingglasstheatre.org

<b>Showtimes:</b> 7:30 p.m. Wednesday through Friday; 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday; through Aug. 19. Also 7:30 p.m. June 12 and 26; July 3, 17, 31; and Aug. 14. Additional 2 p.m. shows June 21; July 5, 12 and 26; and Aug. 9. No show July 4.

<b>Running time:</b> About 2 hours, 20 minutes including intermission

<b>Tickets:</b> $45-$80

<b>Parking:</b> Paid lots nearby

<b>Rating:</b> For teens and older; includes some violence