Failure in Matherland

THERE'S A SPECIAL sort of frustration in having high expectations disappointed. It's the combination of anger and disappointment that strikes you when you go to a show wanting ever so much to like it and leave realizing that it just wasn't good enough.

The Mather Drama Society production of Looking Glass, a new musical based on Lewis Carroll's classic fantasy as adapted by Rick Lake '80, is just such a frustrating disappointment. There was so much word of mouth enthusiasm spread about this show--the music alone was said to be worth the price of admission--that Saturday's audience was expecting one of the best student-written productions ever put on here. But you can't always get what you want, and unfortunately Looking Glass has serious flaws which keep it from living up to its hype.

The show's most deyastating fault is its length. It runs almost three hours if you include the fifteen minute intermission. This would be excusable if the pace were faster and the humor more sophisticated, but the show drags horribly through long sections of both acts.

Director Gerry Speca apparently never told his actors that long scenes without much stage action just don't work very well. The first ten minutes of the show consist of Alice running onstage, falling asleep and not moving during the overture and a less-than-thrilling reading of "Jabberwocky." After so slow-paced a start it was difficult to warm to Alice's long monologue and even longer first song. Through the show, the pace would slow down to a veritable crawl between the larger chorus numbers.

Another problem is that some of the clever word plays in the book become thudding puns in Looking Glass because they are taken out of their original context. The funniest parts of the show are those in which the adaptor's hand is least conspicuous, as in the Tweedledum-Tweedledee episode.

Lake's adaptation draws from a variety of Carroll's material, including Alice in Wonderland and his lesser known works and papers. But not all of it belongs in an adaptation of the light-hearted fantasy Through the Looking Glass. Doubtless Carroll's story was intended to do more than entertain little girls, and the elements of social satire and existential questioning which Lake points out in his program notes are certainly part of the depth and appeal of the book. However, Lake and to an even greater extent composer Michael Levine put so much emphasis on existential moralizing that the fun too often gets lost.

Through the Looking Glass has almost no plot and consequently the writers attempt to create one so the show will hang together. Lake and Levine try to show that the episodes are all steps toward Alice's becoming "a woman." There's just one catch--Alice is only ten years old and it stretches the audience's credulity and the fabric of the story to suggest that a character as innocent as Kitty Kean's Alice would so seriously consider such weighty topics.

"To Be a Woman" is not the only song that seems out of place in an adaptation of Alice's adventures. Nearly every song except those such as the "Lobster Quadrille," which Carroll put in the book himself, is so burdened with "heavy" concepts and sappy metaphors (i.e. "Meetings are like strawberries, small and good to eat...") that they drag the show down like an anchor.

THOUGH LOOKING GLASS is a disappointment, the Mather House production and especially the cast should be awarded a collective medal for a game try. The costumes designed by Liz Perlman were clever to the point of genius. Humpty-Dumpty's even got a round of applause. The players for the most part tried to overcome the weight of the show and even managed to succeed at times. Kitty Kean as Alice captured the innocence and charm of Lewis Carroll's character so well that it was easy to forget she was about three inches taller than half the people on stage. Her strikingly good voice was able to keep up with Levine's complex key changes and difficult pitches.

The supporting case was enthusiastic and enjoyable, especially Heitzi Epstein and Judy Milstein as Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Together they managed to salvage the first act from total oblivion. Andy Sellon was a riot as the pedantic Humpty-Dumpty. Simon Goldhill and Caryl Yanow as the Gryphon and the Mock Turtle were also amusing. Julie Zickefoose and Clare McGorrigan as the White and Red Queens supplied some spirited moments and the chorus was delightful, especially in the Lobster Quadrille dance. Cindy Cardon as the vamping, tap-dancing mutton charmed even those who had given up hope after two and a half hours.

But the good moments were too few and too far between, and even they were soured by embarrassing sequences such as the White Knight's and the Fawn's, both played by Ben Schatz, when the script, music and acting combined to explore the depths of gooey and contrived sentiment. The Fawn sequence was marred not so much by the flowery romanticism of the song as by the Fawn's weird behavior upon discovering that Alice is a human child. He runs off stage acting as if he were trying to keep himself from commiting an unnatural act, and only the most jaded could fail to be repelled by the whole scene. The same bizarre love interest insinuates itself in the White Knight's song, perhaps as a suggestion that Carroll, equated with the Knight in the program notes, was himself a closet pederast.

It's a shame that Looking Glass isn't better because the source material has so many possibilities. But the inadequate direction and the ponderous songs sabotage a potentially enjoyable show. One can only hope that Lake and company will take the show back to the drawing board, eliminate the existentialism and the about an hour's worth of running time, rework the songs so they relate to the action, and trust more of the humor to Lewis Carroll. Student-written productions aren't expected to be masterpieces, but this one has killing flaws. Perhaps if it were revised it could be the entertaining show that it tries to be. As it is, however, Looking Glass will appeal only to a very forgiving audience.