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Two things to note, by way of introduction:
- I was headed to Chicago on opening night of Alice in Wonderland from Joe Chvala and Flying Foot Forum, and so could only attend last Thursday’s preview. I promised Joe I would take that into account, and who are we if we don’t keep our promises.
- Many years ago, in New York City, I got what seemed at first to be a very bad review. For literally 19 paragraphs (of course I counted) the critic took my work apart, patiently and with meticulous detail. Then came the 20th graph, which began with a surprising turn: “In spite of all this, the play is mesmerizing.”
That phrase came to mind more than once during the inspired, 4-ring circus/musical/ puppet show/dance contest/fun house that was the first preview of
Flying Foot Forum’s Alice in Wonderland (at the Lehr Theatre in St. Paul until October 12). It’s a hard piece to describe without spoilers—the story is familiar, of course, if not mythic by now. But the staging, the shifting settings, the new songs, the sudden dance instruction (I was taking notes during the polka, but participated in the waltz)—this particular
Alice is full of surprises.
Sometimes the surprise is a little lumpy—the opening section’s a bit of a mishmash, with a framing device I couldn’t quite grasp (something to do with a group of vagabond musicians who look borrowed from an East European Renaissance Fair)—but once we burst through the undersized doorway into Wonderland we’re on our way. The Ren Faire aesthetic lingers—the whole crazy adventure at once professional and polished, and seeming as though the cast and crew came up with the routines and finished painting the set ten minutes before curtain (which considering that last Thursday was a preview may have actually been the case, come to think). It’s a pleasant vibe, reveling in the joys of showmanship.
Chvala’s
Alice . . . is essentially undramatic—our heroine wanders from one corner of Wonderland to another, crossing paths with all sorts of chaotic and magical creatures spouting every kind of delightful nonsense—but there’s very little in the way of tension, and in many ways we’re just along for the ride. At two hours without an intermission, this starts to be a factor—though the two small children I could see in the audience kept smiling the whole way through. No surprise I have less patience than a nine year-old.
Carroll is chaos
What this
Alice does best—better than any adaptation I’ve seen, on stage or screen—is embrace the chaos of Carroll’s vision. There are scenes of music and playfulness that erupt with the insane glee of the old
Peewee’s Playhouse, explosions of humor, squealing and dance that send us spinning away into altered states of being.
The large and energetic cast jumps into these altered states with such gusto and expertise I immediately jumped to my feet at the end—a blatant violation of The International Convention on the Behavior of Theatre Critics (Brussels, 2003). But Chvala’s own vision (and his contribution to the madness onstage as The Mad Hatter) would be impossible to pull off without a cast committed to its excess. It’s an object lesson in how performance itself can hold us suspended even when character and plot have left the field.
Less successful are the stomp-like dances—wonderful at first, but their repetition under-scores the story’s repetitive structure. The songs too have a similarity that’s sometimes lulling. There’s also an odd attempt to wrap-up the action and a subplot involving Alice’s sister that reframes Carroll’s ode to chaos as a life-coachy battle between us life-affirming imaginative types and those stuffy grown-ups with their soul-crushing math and sweaters. (Billy Mullaney’s turn as the sister almost saves the device.)
At two hours, such a repetitive fever pitch may amuse even smaller children (it’s probably close to how they experience the world), but without even a ten-minute break, adults may find themselves gasping for some breathing room, and feeling not a little trapped.
In spite of all this, the show is mesmerizing.
