Auburn, Maine, USA – With some theatrical magic tricks and fabulous costumes, Community Little Theatre’s stage version of Alice in Wonderland captivated and delighted audiences.
Written by Lewis Carroll, it was first adapted into a play in 1886. This adaptation is by Jason Pizzarello. Britny Anderson directed the show, which ran the last two weeks of June in Auburn.
The lead role was a little girl named Alice, played in the opening scene by local middle school student Isabella Rizzolo. This scene shows her personality by having her more interested in playing pretend than reading a book without pictures.
There was a fascinating aspect of the play, which is that there are two Alices. The second Alice appears when Alice goes through a rabbit hole to Wonderland – a “curious” place she visited in her sleep.
One Alice is the girl you see in the opening scene. She is pretty much what most people picture when they think of Alice: long, straight blond hair held back with a white ribbon, a puffy blue European dress with a white apron, and white tights, played by Rizzolo.This Alice will be referenced as Alice-One.
The other Alice is just like that but instead of a white ribbon and white tights she has a black ribbon and black tights. The second Alice is played by local middle school student Maisy Seaver. Alice-Two’s personality differs from Alice-One’s – she shows a more mature demeanor in the way she acts and speaks.
At the end of the show, both Alices wake up, but only Alice-Two seems to wake up fully. Alice One is kind of there but neither her sister nor Alice Two can see or hear her.
I believe the meaning behind the two Alices is that they’re like parts of her mind. Alice-One symbolizes the young, immature child part of her, which is why she is shown at the beginning of the play.
Going to Wonderland awakened Alice-Two, enabling her to mature and grow beyond her previous immature, naive, and impatient self. This is why the last scene has Alice-Two awake with her sister and not Alice-One.
Alice-One is still kind of there but she’s not there in body. Alice-One is still present but in the back of Alice’s mind, able to see and hear what’s going on, but not visible or audible to others. But this is just my interpretation.
Evie True, a local middle school student who played the Knave of Hearts and a Daisy, knew the actual reason behind the two Alices.
“The version of Alice in Wonderland that we did was mixed with the story “Through the Looking Glass.” During the story the Alices keep switching,” said True. “The second Alice has the same memories as the first Alice, and she thinks that she is the first Alice. The second Alice slowly takes the first Alice’s place and becomes her.”
The girls who placed the two Alices spoke about their experiences with the Community Little Theater.
“The people there were very nice and fun to be around,” said Rizzolo. “I personally think it helped me grow as an actress.”
Seaver said working with the local theater “has truly been one of my favorite experiences, because every time I’ve seen a show there or been in a show there it’s just been amazing energy.”
She feels comfortable with the theater and the cast, Seaver said.
“I feel like throughout the different shows I got more used to having a live audience,” said Rizzolo.
Actors grew more comfortable in their roles and how they portrayed the characters, Seaver said.
“I made some changes to how I delivered certain lines over the course of the run, especially after watching the show myself for a night,” said Seaver. “Everybody deserves the same show, even if some of the actors don’t have the same amount of energy.”
Seaver continued, “It’s not fair to the people who spent money to buy tickets to come see the show to have a less-than performance. At least from my perspective, every night there was something different. There weren’t two shows that were the same. I think that’s part of the magic of theater is that you don’t know what you’re going to get going in.
When she feels a good response from the audience, said Seaver, she gets a boost of energy.
“It makes you instantly excited to do the show,” Seaver said.
The program said that the director’s vision was to have elements from both the “Alice in Wonderland” and “Alice Through the Looking Glass” worlds. They specifically liked how the elements chosen in this script tease out sections that support Carroll’s theme of identity, which is the age-old question, “who are you?”
They described how they added their own twist by having a Steampunk theme to bring out the Victorian England and the inventiveness of Carroll’s fantastic imagination. The steampunk themed set had a raised spinning part in the center of the stage. One side of it had a small raised floor on the left and then on the right the floor was higher up, with mushrooms and a couple of giant playing cards on the top part of the wall. The other side was just a flat wall, with more playing cards, no mushrooms, and some gears.
Behind the raised spinning part of the set and slightly to the left is a metal looking door with no doorknob. There are multiple giant gears on the wall that can turn. Under the stage is a square shaped tunnel in the wall, which acts as the rabbit hole.
“I think that the style of the set represents how the world that Alice travels to is sort of broken and made up of parts,” said True.
Lighting played a crucial role in defining the set’s ambiance and pulling the steampunk through from scene to scene and even in between.
The audience remained entranced as the lights dimmed and giant gears slowly turned in the background, illuminated only by soft lighting and a “steam” effect.
Another standout use of lighting occurred during Alice’s descent into Wonderland. Immediately after Alice vanished down the rabbit hole, she enchantingly reappeared onstage, effortlessly transporting the audience into the heart of her fantastical journey.
A spiral light spinning on top of her depicted her fall into Wonderland. The lighting is so captivating and colorful you don’t really notice that it’s a different Alice until she has finally “landed” on the ground and the spiral lighting is off.
They did it by having Alice-Two prepared on the stool when Alice-One was in her scene so that they could have a clean transition between the two scenes.
Towards the end of the show, the Queen of Hearts becomes angry at Alice-Two. She and her guards then chase Alice-Two. When this commotion is happening, all the stage lights make the stage bright red, symbolizing the queen’s anger.
Around that time, the Knave of Hearts is accused of stealing the Queen of Heart’s tarts. There is a trial held to determine if the Knave of Hearts actually did steal the tarts. During the trial, an unaddressed letter is delivered. The letter is a poem. The last line of the poem was about something lost being returned, after that line is read a spotlight shines down on the tarts, surprising the audience.
The show’s dazzling costumes really brought the various and often strange characters to life.
The coolest was the Jabberwocky, which was actually a towering puppet, with slender, long, sinuous limbs that glowed under the spell of black light, captivating the audience. It added a layer of eeriness and supernaturalness to the stage.
True shared insight into the innovative use of glow-in-the-dark nail polish for the Jabberwocky and Cheshire Cat’s puppetry, lending an enchanting glow to these strange and sometimes slightly creepy characters.
Another amazing costume was the Queen of Hearts, played by Dan Kane. While technically this doesn’t have to do with the costume, it’s definitely important to mention that the Queen of Hearts was played by a man. I believe this was a very smart choice because the Queen needs to be able to have her voice become super deep when she’s furious, but they didn’t change the gender of the Queen of Hearts, she was just portrayed by a man.
The Queen wore a red double horned hennin without the cloth lappet covered in roses and it had a bow-looking thing on the right horn with long red feathers. The dress was red with black accents, and there was a white frilled turtleneck underneath. The queen wore heart-patterned leggings and sturdy black combat boots.
Jim McKinley, who played Absolem the Caterpillar, really brought his character to life. His outfit had a cool nautical theme with a dark green jacket and a matching sailor’s hat. Underneath, he wore a mustard brown vest, medium-toned brown pants, and tall black boots completed the look perfectly.
What made it even more interesting was the two-toned tail, with pale yellow-cream and dark green to tie the whole outfit together.
His bubble-blowing instead of hookah-smoking was such a fun twist. And Absolem’s was definitely one of the most interesting and creative costumes of the night.
For many of the patrons who saw the show, the imaginative costumes and precisely crafted set were the greatest part of the production, flawlessly transporting them into the story where every detail was brought to life.
Charlie Wallis-Martel is a Reporter with Youth Journalism International.
