Alice in Wonderland by Lewis
Carroll..
Adaptation and original direction by Penny Farrow. Executive and
Creative Producer Ethan Walker. Executive Producers Bonnie Lythgoe and Christopher
Wood. Co-director, designer and co-producer Nate Bertone. Composer Evan Jolly. Puppet
designer and builder. Chris Barlow. Props and puppet designer Dieter Barry.
Costuming Gayle Macgregor. Costuming
Diana Eden.Diana Eden . Lighting Design Jeremy Dehn. Canberra Theatre. Canberra
Theatre Centre. January 8. 2024
Reviewed by Peter Wilkins
Broiadway Haus and Bonny Lythgoe
Productions’ touring production of Alice
in Wonderland is enchanting storytelling at its very best. From Nate
Bertone’s colourful set design to Gayle Macgregor’s sumptuous costuming and
Jeremy Dehn’s luminescent lighting
design this is an adaptation that enthrals and delights all those who share
Lewis Carroll’s amused sense of the ridiculous, the illogical and the absurd.
Director Penny Farrow’s adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s timeless classic is a
theatrical delight from start to finish for young and old. In an era when high
tech spectacle and digital wizardry tend to catapult audiences into a world of bedazzling
wonderment, this production treats audiences to an equal feast of theatrical
imagination. One might almost call the techniques old fashioned or at best
traditional, which would do a disservice to their magical effect on an
audience’s imagination.
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Éowyn Turner as Alice. Lucy Fox as the White Rabbit.
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Alice’s descent into the rabbit hole is staged as a
beautifully choreographed piece of physical theatre by the ensemble of seven
actors who play multiple roles as well as acting as a chorus to the tale. Blue
material across the stage immediately becomes a river of tears. Puppet
designers and builders Chris Barlow and Dieter Barry breathe life into , a
hooting owl, a grinning Cheshire Cat and a skilfully created Dormouse, operated
by Anthony Craig. Craig’s hookah smoking caterpillar transmogrifies before our
very eyes into a splendid butterfly much to Alice’s amazement Everything about
the production is immaculately designed, and staged with a clarity that brilliantly
captures the very essence of Carroll’s fertile imagination
In just one hour with no
interval, Farrow has managed to capture the nonsensical sense of linguistic
playfulness and Alice’s key adventures from meeting the White Rabbit, played
with a suitable sense of impatient urgency by Lucy Fox , dancing the Lobster
Quadrille to Evan Jolly’s lively composition,, meeting the bumbling Tweedledum
(Justine Anderson) and Tweedledee ( Matilda Simmons), attending the madcap Mad
Hatter’s Tea Party with the officious Hatter (Catherine Glavicic), the March Hare
(Elliott Baker) and the sleepy Dormouse. And of course the Croquet match with a
bullying and volcanic Queen of Hearts, played with the suitable pomposity of a pantomime
Dame by Simon Burvell-Holmes). In the midst of this mayhem is the bewildered
Alice, perfectly played by the
pristinely- pinafored ÉowynTurner. Turner
embodies everybody’s image of Carroll’s unwitting protagonist thrust into a
world of nonsense where words and action bemuse and bewilder and any change
brings with it the doubt of true identity. Turner’s innocent naivety reveals a
world where reason has no rhyme and
rhyme has no reason, or do they? Director and adapter Farrow and her excellent
team of performers and creatives has staged a production of which I imagine Carroll
would be immensely proud. She has unravelled a logic that makes sense of the
reason for Alice’s adventures and her search for identity and logic in a
seemingly illogical world..
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Anthony Craig as Caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland
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Unfortunately this highly
professional and exquisitely staged production of a children’s classic with
something for any one as old as Father William only played two performances on
the one day. Hopefully this unmissable journey with Alice down the Rabbit Hole
and into a wonderland of theatrical delight will return to enchant those
Canberra audiences who missed out.
Photos by Robert Catto
