Alice in Wonderland: theatrical magic vs the virus

REVIEW by Drew Rowsome

05 APR 2021 - Photos provided by publicist

Like our beloved protagonist Alice, I have a million questions. But that is a rabbit hole I will tumble down a few paragraphs farther on so as not to short change this energetic and engaging Alice in Wonderland filmed musical. As they did with the remarkable Peter Pan, Bad Hats Theatre and Soulpepper take an archetypal story and inject it with a spirit of play and wonder to reimagine and invigorate a classic. Whether one is familiar with the original text by Lewis Carroll, or either of the Disney adaptations, or even the many other stage productions, this Alice in Wonderland manages to create its own voice and world. Branding itself as a "family musical," it thematically tackles the absurdities of existence in a society, and just how difficult it is for a child to understand the rules and why they exist. And even questions if they should exist.

Not that the relevance of those questions were in doubt, but when the production ended and the television switched over to a news channel, the supposed insanity of the Red Queen's court suddenly seemed less curious than actual modern life. Score one for Alice. The adaptation by Bad Hats' artistic director Fiona Sauder (La Bete, Peter Pan, The Taming of the Shrew) starts in a classroom where Alice struggles to constrain her imagination and curiosity within the curriculum. She daydreams and, after singing about her dilemma, she is off to Wonderland. Suddenly nothing is as it seems and the fabulous creatures she meets all chatter and pontificate in overlapping comic dialogue that would not be out of place in a Monty Python sketch. Word play abounds and the illogic of the classroom's relentlessly logical search for answers is delivered a satirical death blow. It should also be noted that Sauder herself essays multiple characters, from a bureaucratic Tweedle Dee to an uproarious Moira Rose inspired take on the tea party Hare.

Alice's search for who she is and what she is - we are warned and shown that those are two totally different questions - is embodied in the journey of a caterpillar through a cocoon "full of goo" to become a transcendent butterfly. Jacob MacInnis (Pinocchio) transforms from bug to beauty while also playing a memorably cryptic lizard named Bill. This being a family show, Bill is tasked with luring the audience into being the jury at Alice's trial. It was one instance where I ached to be in the theatre where that would have been effective and the children's enthusiasm would have been covid-worthy contagious. Tess Benger (Sunday in the Park with George, Girls Like That) is a wide-eyed innocent
Alice with pluck. She is, alas, also always in danger of being upstaged by the fantastical flora and fauna she encounters on her journey. From the moment her schoolteacher Matt Pilipiak (Peter Pan, Circle Jerk) becomes the White Rabbit (and frequent piano player, Pilipiak is very versatile), all gloves are off. Or, in the Rabbit's case, lost.

All of the actors have mere moments to create indelible identifiable characters and then spout lines that veer from ridiculous to profound sometimes within a sentence. And sing and dance. Landon Doak (Peter Pan, Pippi: The Strongest Girl in the World), Phoebe Hu, Richard Lam (Lulu v7, Hello Again, Peter Pan, Heart of Steel) and Jonathan Tan (Box 4901) are all exuberantly up to the challenge. The diva Red Queen is imperially incarnated by the radiant Vanessa Sears (Caroline or Change, Mary Poppins, The Wizard of Oz) and she owns the stage. When Sears launches into a big belting number, that fabulous feeling of the hairs on the back of my neck beginning to prickle sparked. But alas, ripping the roof of a theatre is different when on a television screen. The speakers on my perfectly adequate technology just cannot convey, or contain, the talent on the stage.

Alice in Wonderland is a theatre/film hybrid and as such it documents a production that exists solely to be documented. I have no doubt that if Alice in Wonderland had been experienced live (and I sincerely hope it will be in the future), it would have been an extraordinary experience. That is not to disparage an experience that, theatre-starved as we all are, was enjoyable and highly recommended. It is just that it is impossible to shake the feeling of watching a recording, a step removed even when having the best seat in the house. Theatre creates reality out of artifice while film and television mimic reality, and have limitless CGI-style resources to do so. The very clever solutions that director Sue Miner and the creative team have come up with to whisk us to Wonderland would be magical, and real, on the stage. On film they are clever but we are constantly aware of the guile. Even when cinematic techniques are used - the only close-ups (something actors create onstage by sheer will power and pizzazz) are for special effects - they trigger that awareness.

So many artists who practice their craft in a live setting, are struggling to find a way to survive and to create online. Alice in Wonderland is a step forward and, when the source material and the adaptation are this strong, there is hope for the breakthrough we the audience are craving. My million questions are shaped by the pandemic, while the use of glass panels for scene setting was inspired, it also remains a trigger: it is impossible not to be concerned for the cast's health. What glorious magic could music director Reza Jacobs (Uncovered, Caroline or Change, Fun Home, The Wizard of Oz, London Road, Falsettos, Same Same but Different) have made of Victor Pokinko (Peter Pan, The Importance of Being Earnest) and Doak's score if the cast, doubling as musicians, could have interacted intimately? "How did they do it?" questions that are not in the usual theatrical lexicon of sheer awe at the emotional effect. 

Alice never gets her questions answered: the final moment of Alice in Wonderland is daringly and heart wrenchingly ambiguous, even if undercut by an epilogue singalong. Alice in Wonderland is now set down on film, it will not evolve over a long interactive run. And the last question we are left with, inspired to ask, is "When will we be able to climb out of this rabbit hole and go back to the theatre?"