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Disclaimer:
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Reviews Lookingglass Alice Reviewed by Sherry Deatrick Entire contents are copyright © 2009 Sherry Deatrick. All rights reserved.
"Idle laughter and whimsy are a recipe for chaos and catastrophe!" My theatre date for opening night's show, actor Sean Childress, said, "It was keenly nimble and so precise, yet wildly expansive. Snap witted and quickly paced, yet affords one these little epiphanic episodes to loll about in for an eternity in an instant. Laughs and cheekily executed acrobatics abound (though one elicted a very real shocked gasp from the audience) BUT DON'T TAKE MY WORD FOR IT, GO ASK ALICE!"
I have to agree with Sean. Days after seeing this show, I can't stop thinking about it. And it's not merely the eyepopping acrobatics and costumes that keep the story alive. Based on the familiar stories of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass David Catlin has added Lewis Carroll into his own tales, imagining how he must have felt as he wrote them. What results is a new creation that resonates deeply and is quite startling. And quite a spectacle! Children have always been in a hurry to grow up. However, today's kids grow up faster with every new generation. What's worse, modern children are taught from an early age to become good consumers by an advertising industry that's finely tuned to make them want what they can never really have, to keep them in a constant state of need. Their imaginary friends are created FOR them rather than BY them, and they eat the cereal whose boxes are emblazoned with their imaginary friends' images to fill that emptiness inside. In Lookingglass Alice, Alice (Lindsey Noel Whiting) is like all children. She can't wait to grow up so she can become a queen. But she's a child of the 1860's, and so must use her own imagination instead of one manufactured by Disney. After she chastises her cat (Adeoye) for unraveling her yarn, she closes her eyes tightly and drifts into an imaginary world where Charles Dodgson aka Lewis Carroll (Samuel Taylor) is on the other side of the mirror above her fireplace. A bright flash of light and crashing sound turns the world upside down. It's quite disorienting and jolts the audience into a new realm. Alice finds herself swimming in an "ocean of salty tears," which symbolizes the amniotic fluid, according to Catlin, characterized by fluttering blue cloths that extend across the Pamela Brown stage. Down the "rabbit hole" or birth canal she goes, and meets the White Queen, whose ball of yarn dwarfs Alice's, implying that Alice is now small. The White Queen is moving backwards in time, while Alice goes forward. Each wants to be where the other one is. Will they meet in the middle? Next, Alice meets the witty and imposing Red Queen (Mitchell Fain), who teaches Alice a few ridiculous lessons in the etiquette of grown-ups, while cracking wise about Oscar Wilde and making a sly homage to Gypsy. (It's these little touches that add depth to the show.) Alice becomes a pawn in the grand chess game, and must move eight squares, one in front of the other, before she will be made a queen. Just as in life, she meets strange characters as she progresses through these stages. The caterpillar that doesn't know it will become a butterfly, because it's stuck in the toddler/pupa stage, endlessly asking "whywhywhy?" as it flails its arms. The caterpillar is made of three actors who move together seamlessly. Each time Alice masters a phase, a blinding flash of light signifies it's time to move to the next square. (These flashes might cause headaches if you are sensitive to light. In fact, i woke up with a terrible headache the next day.) Alice explores flirtation with preadolescent boys when she meets Tweedledee and Tweedledum, who, like typical boys, aren't ready for such attention. Alice is growing up a little too quickly, and so the Mad Hatter slows things down a bit with a truly insane tea party. The clock chimes six bells incessantly, causing Alice to collapse in a heap of frustration. Just when you think she can't go on and you can't take any more of that bonging before you think you'll go mad, the lights flash, and Alice has moved into the next square. The White Queen is setting eggs about the stage, and you guessed it, this is where Alice meets the wise Humpty Dumpty. This is a very moving scene and although the acrobatics involved looked terrifying, I'm told this is the safest one they do. So, don't worry, Humpty isn't really injured. But Alice learns to deal with the loss of a friend and she follows his advice to keep climbing, in a wonderful display of acrobatics. Whiting effortlessly swings on the strands of "yarn" hanging down from above, moving up slowly but surely through the three strands. A fan blows out into the audience, and makes you feel you are swinging along with Alice, who has learned that we all suffer, and we must "crawl before we fly." The stuttering Dodgson does double duty as the White Knight, riding a bicycle and unicycle through Alice's journey, guiding and admiring her from afar. "My Queen," he sighs after her wistfully, as she accepts her fate as a grown-up and flies back up the rabbit hole. As we age, some of us become nostalgic for our lost childhood, wishing, like the White Queen, we could go back for a 'do-over." We are also sad that our children grow up and leave the nest so soon, but this is the way of things. We must accept them as part of the beauty of living, for we will keep repeating this cycle again and again, just like Alice, who returns through the ocean of salty tears once more. We must all learn to practice how to play, and imagine at least six impossible things before breakfast, to stay healthy and alive. And stop feeding your kids that sugary and high fructose corn syrup-sweetened cereal with the latest superhero on the box for breakfast! Feed their heads instead! There are many more jubilant moments and heart-stopping sensory effects for you to savor in this wonderful show. It's not the same old Alice, but she'll live in your heart forever. As my friend Sean says on his Facebook page, "Don't miss!"
Actors Theatre of Louisville
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