A Modern Looking Glass

No one in the cast or crew of Alice in Wonderland: Film at Eleven is about to leave you guessing whether or not you will see a spectacle. The action, for example, begins with four Beatlesque Tweedledees singing something of a disclaimer on a giant chess board, lit in blue, that rises up into the air and ends bordered by a giant tree stump on the left and a plump mushroom on the right.

Alice in Wonderland: Film at Eleven

Written by Lewis Carroll

Adapted by Jenny Lyn Bader and Elliot Thomson

At the Loeb Mainstage

Directed by Jenny Lyn Bader and Elliot Thomson

Tonight, tomorrow at 8 p.m., Sunday at 2 p.m.

"Yesterday, Alice was an 1850s play," they croon. "Now it has gone an '80s way."

This version of Carroll's classic children's tale certainly is modernized, steeped in allusions to current events and even featuring a rap song. But Alice in Wonderland: Film at Eleven has 130 years to coalesce and does not always do so with the greatest of ease.

It is at times post-modern, at times vaudevillian and it is frequently uneven. A bonus in all of this is the truly great moments that come with creative tinkering. The opening is funny, ingenious and anachronistic; a prologue entreating the 20th century audience to be indulgent and, one would suppose, to engage in willing suspension of disbelief.

The suspension comes easily when Alice is imaginatively introduced at tea. The players move in slow motion, and Mrs. Lidell (China Forbes) frequently breaks into random song about the nitty-gritties of the ceremony. The scene is clever and successful--a strong opening for a first act that later drags.

The suspension is hard-pressed in a scene called "A Pool of Tears and the Caucus Race," which has little relevance to the plot and seems to be no more than an opportunity to make gratuitous, hackneyed political jokes.

Late in the first act, the players break through the fourth wall, but even the contrived intermission is a welcome interruption of the trial scene in which the writers, again mixing in politics, draw heavy-handed parallels to the Iran-Contra hearings.

Even when the pace slows, Jenny Gibbs does a graceful job of playing Alice; her performance is full of energy and her girlish gestures are appropriate. If her accent is uneven, it is only out of consistency with the work--Alice admits in the first act that she is a native of both Oxford and Hackensack, which cannot help but to confuse Gibbs' speech pattern.

Peter Hirsch is a superb male lead, juggling the roles of the emcee, the game-show host, Dodgson, the Mad Hatter, Lewis Carroll, Karpov and Humpty Dumpty. His timing is impecca ble and his versatility, in all of his capabilities, is astounding.

The direction, on the whole, is good. The actors give focused, energetic performances. Worthy of mention are Suzanne Rose as an agressive talk-show hostess, China Forbes as the distasteful Duchess and Steve Robinson as the neurotic March Hare. Jon Blackstone and Tom Hale were both charming as Tweedledee and Tweedledum.

It is unfortunate to have two fine leads and a strong supporting cast almost drowning in a frequently confused and often slow plot, much the way Alice almost drowns in her tears.

But the pace quickens in the second act, which is saved by faster scenes and more entertaining song and dance. The White Knight (Tom Hale) does a rap to cheer Alice while the other actors dance. The final ensemble number, a "lobster dance" set to Beethoven, is funny and very original. The act drags only during a mainly unintelligible "Jabberwocky Battle," which leaves the audience guessing at its multi-lingual signifigance.

But it might be a mistake to fault Alice for, at times, being unintelligible. It is a spectacle performance: there is a large cast, a staggering number of roles and surreal lighting which adds to the whole production. The set is well done, the costumes are beautiful, and the actors give lively performances. But there are problems with this drama's assumption of its role as social or political criticism, which would necessarily call for more cohesion and iintelligibility.

Peter Hirsch, portraying Carroll, speaks of combining the grave and the gay. This is a noble endeavor, but not one to be lightly undertaken, as it demands both greater structure and development than Alice gives.