A less scary, but just as magical, trip to Wonderland

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This article was published 09/05/2022 (1262 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When you first step into Manitoba Theatre for Young People’s production of Alice in Wonderland, you may feel confused and a bit concerned.

The unadorned stage is filled with desks, a chalkboard and some wooden frames on casters. It hardly looks like something that could bring to life Alice’s adventures down the rabbit hole in the trippy, surreal world of author Lewis Carroll’s creation.

Never fear: This exuberant musical is filled with so much vibrant action and let’s-put-on-a-show energy, so much ingenious staging and lighting, you’ll leave imagining you’ve visited Wonderland.

This adaptation by Toronto’s Bad Hats Theatre — the same folks who brought Peter Pan to MTYP in 2019 — tweaks Carroll’s classic to deliver a message about not rushing to become an adult, and continuing to question the rules. The familiar scenes where Alice grows alarmingly tall are a nod to that in-between time when children are stuck between wanting to grow up and wanting to stay a kid.

Much of the sheer nonsense and many of the characters have been stripped out of the play to give Alice a clearer purpose and deliver a more linear plot. Her challenge while in Wonderland, issued by the Red Queen (Liz Whitbread), is to reach the eighth square of the chessboard so that she can herself become a queen, at which point she’ll have “all the time in the world.”

Younger members of the audience may not get the underlying message at all, but they’ll be delighted by all the madcap adventure — plenty of illogical silliness remains — while adults will marvel at the inventive nature of the production, where spinning umbrellas become wheels and squares of light become a chessboard.

The show opens in a classroom, where Alice (Colleen Furlan) and her classmates are awaiting the arrival of their teacher (Matt Pilipiak) and discussing their homework assignment, in which they were supposed to answer the question: what do you want to be when you grow up?

Alice, a curious girl, has too many other questions about life and the nature of time to tackle that one.

As she gazes out the window, daydreaming, she sees a white rabbit in a vest (Pilipiak again) and follows him down a hole and into a strange world.

Finding herself locked in a room of doors (the aforementioned frames moved about seamlessly by cast members) with a key high out of reach, she takes a proffered bottle of potion and immediately begins to grow large; her transformation to giantess is cleverly achieved by projecting her huge shadow, trapped in a frame as if constrained by the walls and ceiling, on the back of the stage.

As her quest to the eighth square continues, she’s aided not only by a cavalcade of strange creatures but by Cameron Carver’s choreography and Logan Raju Cracknell’s cunning lighting design.

It’s impossible to pick a standout from the prodigiously talented cast, a mix of Toronto actors and locals who all deliver high-octane charm while singing, dancing, meticulously manoeuvring set pieces and changing into a variety of Ming Wong’s colourful costumes with nary a slip-up.

They also provide the live music, trading off on piano, guitar, bass, clarinet and even vocoder.

The songs by Landon Doak and Victor Pokinko (both of whom are also part of the ensemble) aren’t destined to become Broadway standards — the melodies aren’t quite sticky enough — but the tongue-twisty lyrics are clever and fun to follow along with, and they’re beautifully sung, particularly by Furlan, Paula Potosky as the Cheshire Cat and Brady Barrientos as the Caterpillar (who also has the play’s more joyful moment).

Tweedle Dum (Doak) and Tweedle Dee (Bad Hat’s Fiona Sauder, who also adapted the work) have perfectly choreographed chemistry together. Pilipiak is a constant source of laughs as the perpetually late and somewhat catty White Rabbit, as is Pokinko, particularly in his role as the head Dodo.

This Alice lacks the fever dream quality of the source material and some of the scarier elements have been toned down. All the characters are more benign than the way they’re usually portrayed — no “off with her head” from the delightfully haughty Red Queen; no glowering menace from the knowing Caterpillar. Potosky’s grinning Cheshire cat is more adorable than anything else, acting as a guide to Alice, while Kara Joseph is downright sweet and supportive as the Unicorn.

But there’s an abundance of magic here; you don’t have to be a child to thrill to the sight of a caterpillar becoming a butterfly before your eyes. It’s a production that feels destined to become a classic.

jill.wilson@winnipegfreepress.com