Alice! (review)

Spoilers ahoy!

Lewis Carrol, history shows, was an odd man. Not as weird as maybe you've heard, but eccentric to say the least. His children's books inspired movies, artwork, ballets, t.v. shows, novels, documentaries and not a few stage plays. Like Alice, one of the latest offerings by Zombie Joe's in North Hollywood.

This isn't really Carrol's tale. Most versions aren't. Rather, it tells of the original Alice's great great great great granddaughter and namesale (Lara Fisher) whose erotic dreams of visiting Wonderland and the Looking Glass focus upon the White Knight (Jason Britt--who plays multiple roles). But he hasn't been around lately. The White Rabbit (Michael Woodruff) shows up to tell her the Queen of Hearts has been having everyone's head cut off, including Alice's beloved White Knight.

With this news, Alice's quest to kill the Queen of Hearts begins. It will be neither straightforward nor easy nor without a certain amount of sexual shenaniggans.

Central to the story is the Cheshire Cat (Jonica Patella) who's the first character we meet. Frankly, I think many are the often-quite-good actors in LA who can learn from her total selling of such a bizarre character. The second the lights come up we can feel the energy flowing from her eyes and smile. Fortunately the rest of the cast follows suit, including Gloria Galvan (the Mock Turtle, along with other parts--a standard for this show) who remains fearless as ever on stage, Daniel Palma as Humpty Dumpty (who "sells' a truly bizarre song from a top his wall) and Ellen Bienenfield as the Dormouse. Other members of the cast include Cat Cela as the Mad Hatter and Starskee Suave as the Blue Caterpillar. But I honestly think maybe Jana Wimer (director of more than one Urban Death at ZJU) as the dual role of Alice's sister (if you know about the real Alice Liddell's sister this presses a few buttons) and the utterly mad Queen of Hearts--and she was clearly having a ball doing the latter!

But what I really want to make clear is how the show captures that surreal dreamy logic of the original, not simply by including so many bits of dialogue and action, but also by the entire cast committing to each moment as it happened--even when frankly nothing makes much sense. Which, let us face it, is most of the time. Why for example such a strong reaction to the guinea pigs? I've zero idea. Her Majesty just doesn't like them, I guess. Nor is it all nonsense so much as fractured logic, a distorted world the kind we see in dreams. Of course every one starts singing a passionate song about soup! I mean--of course! Just as it would seem the Cheshire Cat would naturally be the mastermind behind Alice becoming Wonderland's Katniss Everdeen.

Sorry to say, but Alice only plays Fridays at 8:30pm and Sundays at 7pm until December 20, 2015. A mere four more performances! Shows are at ZJU, 4850 Lankershim Blvd (just south of the NoHo Sign), North Hollywood CA 91601. Tickets are $15. Get your reservations here or by calling (818) 202-4120

The Missing Pages of Lewis Carroll (review)

Spoilers Ahoy!

I feel a certain need to disclaim here.  Like Amadeus and Richard III, the play The Missing Pages of Lewis Carroll (in my honest if perhaps not humble opinion) does not relate history, at least not accurate history. I have my own views about the persons and events involved, explored in part in this recent BBC documentary. How much attention does that merit?  An excellent question--whose answer frankly seems elusive.  Playwright Lily Blau is no more primarily an historian than William Shakespeare, after all.  Sadly, we too often suppose good dramatizations (and this is very good) represent historical truth.  But then, this version of events remains at least possible.

The Missing Pages of Lewis Carroll at the Boston Court Theatre in Pasadena takes its title from Charles Dodgson's diaries, which have had a few pages cut out. We don't know who did the cutting, although most assume his family members did so after the man's death. Dodgson (1832-1898) of course was an Oxford professor of mathematics who, under a pen name, created some of the most beloved children's stories as well as some fascinating, bewildering poetry.  Scholars pondered and continue to study his relationship with the children of his Dean, Henry Liddell, whose daughter Alice (1852-1934) certainly proved the inspiration for his famous stories Alice's Adventures in Wonderland as well as Through the Looking Glass. Alice remains the focus of most such research, as well as this play--although for dramatic purposes all kinds of things ending up streamlined, real life as ever proving far too complex for anything like a linear story.

We meet Dodgson (Leo Marks) in his rooms at Christ Church, Oxford in the year 1880, as he prepares for a visitor. The spark that begins the "action" as it were is when he puts a rabbit doll away, in a trunk. Moments later, the White Rabbit (Jeff Marlow) from his story appears, to Dodgson's annoyance more than distress. We'll come to see the Rabbit as a the avatar of Dodgson's memories, hopes, fears and dreams.  Dodgson begins to relive/remember events twenty years before, when as a man pushing thirty he first met the Liddell children--Lorina (Erin Barnes), Edith (Ashley Ruth Jones) and most importantly Alice (Corryn Cummins). He proves a man in many ways more comfortable with children than adults, although in fact a charming conversationalist quite at ease discussing university business with Dean Liddell (Time Winters) or religion with the somewhat formidable Mrs. Liddell (Erica Hanrahan-Ball).

But the heart of events, which as the play progresses takes flights of fancy where dreams and desires take stage--at times to Dodgson's indignant horror--becomes this man's increasing friendship with Alice.  At one point he tells the three little girls about love, about  how it can drive one quite mad. In some ways one comes to believe Dodson sees love in precisely that way, or at least experiences it so.  He falls in love with this--to his eyes--utterly beautiful child, who in turn loves him, maybe even falls in love with him.  The subject matter ends up handled with considerable delicacy, so much so (and this remains vital) we never feel we're watching the story of a child molester.  Much praise goes to Marks as Dodgson, who retains a blend of great compassion and kindness with emotional tricks to let him avoid/define his desires. His performance lets us see this man with compassion, as someone whose love story cannot help but be tragic--not least because it ending up taking what was almost certainly the least tragic of all possible courses.  Marks--and especially also Cummins--do the story proud in their portrayal of a situation without happy options.  Technically I was also very impressed at how little things such as Dodgson's stammer portrayed so much of his inner life, just as Alice's uncomfortable transition

from girl to woman we see clearly if subtly throughout.  Cummins in particular plays several characters really (as do Barnes and Hanrahan-Ball), because her Alice is not only seen first as a child then as a young woman, we also see the dream version of Alice in Dodgson's mind--the little girl who wants to marry him, would reach out and seek his physical advances.

All the while this accompanies dream images and lines from the Alice books, perhaps most obviously when Mrs. Liddell appears more than once as the ferocious Red Queen, she of the imperious looks with a voice demanding "Off with his head!" That this woman didn't come across in the end as some kind of bitch, a cruel or heartless person, makes one more of many nuances making this such a satisfying night of theatre! So consistently superior was the entire production indicates just how skilled director Abigail Deser must be.

The Missing Pages of Lewis Carroll plays 8pm through the rest of February, 2015 at Boston Court, 70 North Mentor Avenue, Pasadena, CA.  You can call the box office at (626) 683-6883 or go here to purchase tickets.

Sherlock Through The Looking Glass (review)

Spoilers ahoy!

The above warning to the contrary, I'm reluctant to give away much when reviewing a mystery. Simple really--don't want to interfere with anyone's pleasure in viewing the show!  Especially this type of mystery. The Porters of Hellsgate is a classical theatre company without a permanent home. Their most current production is a world premier, Sherlock Through the Looking Glass written and directed by Gus Krieger.

As one might imagine from the title, it involves a crossover of sorts between the works of Arthur Conan Doyle and Charles Lutwidge Dodgson aka Lewis Carroll. I can safely say the direction this took surprised me. Twice.

My initial expectation was for Holmes to venture into a dreamlike world akin to Wonderland or on the other side of the Looking Glass. This does indeed happen, but not the way I expected.

Essentially, we begin with Holmes (Kevin Stidham) and Watson (Timothy Portnoy) in Baker Street, the former complaining of boredom and turning to cocaine to relieve same. Perfectly straightforward this. Soon a client arrives, a pretty young woman named Lillian Childress (Jennifer Bronstein) telling a strange story--about her sister Josephine (Dana DeRuyck) who suddenly went utterly mad minutes after purchasing used copies of Lewis Carroll's famous Alice books from a street vendor (Andrew Graves) and his feeble-minded assistant (Amelia Gotham). More, her ravings echo the words of that author, especially a sentence we shall hear again:

Beware The Jabberwock.

As Inspectors Lestrade (Sean Faye) and Gregson (Michael Hoag) also note, this marks the third such person to lose their minds so suddenly and catastrophically. But who? And why? What evidence exists seems to point to Charles Dodgson (Bert Emmett) and the two Scotland Yard men soon show up to arrest the man--whose reaction proves very unusual. Holmes, who is present, soon discovers the professor's extremely detailed diaries are missing volumes and pages.

The game is afoot! Exactly what happens in the course of the play makes for a thrilling and interesting tale, one I will not ruin for others. Allow me to point out some strengths and weaknesses in the production itself. The space itself has a few problems, the single biggest is how lights don't seem to reach the highest levels of the playing area. Acoustics are alright, and the cast deserves praise in general for their diction and projection. However, many of the lines are very long, spoken very quickly, and sometimes become a blur. The fight scenes look staged, but then they are! And they all have the same 'feel' so they fit together, helping create teh 'world' of the play.

I felt considerable pleasure that Holmes came across as the arrogant so-and-so he frankly comes across as in the books! Plus Watson himself seems not a bumbling physician but an able and tough war veteran, clearly very intelligent but not in the super-genius level of his friend. The writing impressed me, not only for displaying so much knowledge of the Holmes canon but weaving it into the narrative so well--and even tricking me by creating a subtle expectation (which shall remain unrecorded in hopes of letting others enjoy the same surprise). So many British accents on stage are poor, but these were very good! Likewise even the smallest of characters came across as having real individuality--an admirable display on the part of writer, director and cast! That even an insane character appeared to be saying something, not just rambling, makes for a fine tribute to the whole production.

Along the way, I must say Sherlock Through the Looking Glass goes after some genuinely disturbing stuff--revenge, sexual sins and guilt, the source of madness and how it leaks into our seemingly rational, logical world, the embrace of chaos as opposed to order. That is what elevated this play beyond formula, beyond a mere retread of Sherlock Holmes' greatest hits, out past a charming pastiche into something with genuine revelation about parts of life. In the true mystery-story fashion, order is restored. But, order has won only the battle. The war goes on. Final victory remains nowhere in sight.

Sherlock Through the Looking Glass plays Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm and Sundays at 2pm until September 22, 2013. The show is at the Whitemore-Lindley Theatre Center at 11006 Magnolia Blvd., North Hollywood CA 91601.

Alice in Wonderland (Review)

Spoilers Ahoy!

Last night I went to see Tim Burton's vision of Alice in Wonderland. Methinks it a little odd that such is the title, since transparently this film is not a telling of that story. Rather it is a sequel of sorts. Alice, a young woman who does not recall her earlier adventures, finds herself in as awkward a position as one might suppose--expected to agree to a marriage proposal from her family's oldest friend's son, a young nobleman named Hamish. Worse, she's the only one who didn't know that was the reason for this party. Worse still, the entire party is on hand, watching expectantly for her to say yes (there is even an artist nearby to capture the event on canvas). Worst of all is Hamish, her would-be fiancee. He has a chin, but barely. His teeth aren't quite those of a horse, but close. His nose isn't a bad shape but the way he carries it--up in the air, sniffing his way amidst the lower orders--makes an unremarkable profile into something memorable and unpleasant.

That is when she spots a rabbit in a waistcoat, tapping a watch...and follows him. So she enters again the world of madness and fancy, where animals talk and caterpillars smoke from hookas.

Many are the versions of Alice I've seen and enjoyed. My favorite honestly has been Alice at the Palace, a stage production starring Meryl Streep, Debbie Allen, Michael Jeter, Betty Aberlin and others. How does Burton's measure up?

Well, to start with, it is a good movie. Entertaining, a visual feast, with a good story and interesting characters brought to life by an excellent cast. Much has been made in discussions I've read about Helena Bonham Carter's Red Queen (essentially based on the Queen of Hearts) and Johnny Depp's Mad Hatter. Both deserve great praise, not least because they make such bizarre characters real. Carter's Queen is a borderline sociopath, a lonely brat with violent tendencies for whom maturity has meant greater sophistication but no greater wisdom. Depp's Hatter on the other hand seems like an already unstable victim of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, one with an intense sense of whimsy now coupled with a fierce belief in right and wrong (and very, very cunning).

But who most impressed me were Mia Wasakowski as Alice and Anne Hathaway as the White Queen. They stole the whole thing, at least in my eyes.

Wasakowski, as the lead, did a fine job of balancing the two impulses vying within her Alice at almost every turn. On the one hand, she likes being a child--one without responsibilities save to obey a few rules and be protected. Yet she also longs for adulthood--to make her own rules, to do what she thinks right. Coupled with all this is her bubbling imagination (a burden in some ways) and a genuinely good heart. Her solution to retrieving the Vorpal Sword, for example, reveals a lot about her character.

But Hathaway's White Queen frankly steals every frame of footage in which she appears. It would have been easy to make such a character little more than a style. She does not walk so much as she floats gently. Her words are intoned almost sung, her hands posed in genteel friendship, her every gesture soothing and graceful. Yet she is so much more. All throughout the film she seems on the edge of something. When she assures Alice that she can indeed imagine what goes on in the Red Queen's castle, one gets a sense that she and her sister have a lot more in common than one would like to imagine. But her "oath" binds her not to harm any living thing, even to the point where she feels (or feigns) nausea at the sight of physical violence.

Wonderland, after all, is a place of madness. The political struggle in this story seems to be a choice between forms of insanity--Don Qixote or Hannibal Lecter.

I've three critiques of the movie, which involve what keeps the film from being "excellent" and relegates it to "very good."

First, it doesn't really capture the weirdness of Lewis Carroll's vision. His Wonderland (no less than his Through the Looking Glass) is the stuff of dreams, and such gives them their power. Dreams (said someone, probably Joseph Campbell) are the myths of the individual, just as myths are the dreams of the society. Well, this film fails to create a myth. It tries, but ultimately what we are seeing a land of whimsy not a realm of the inner mind.

Second, a lack of backstory. Perhaps this isn't strictly needed. I don't need to know all the details. How did the Red Queen come to control the Jabberwocky, the Gib-Gib Bird as well as the frumious Bandersnatch? What happened to Alice's father? What is Underland, really? (Parenthetically, the borrowing from The Wizard of Oz was cute but a tad self-conscious). Perhaps I'd've preferred more hints of the history behind events. Entirely personal, this reaction. Maybe.

Third and finally, something about the arc of Alice herself doesn't quite ring true. She makes an emotional commitment rather quickly and honestly I didn't see it happen. Not in terms of exact moment, but some part of the process ended up off screen and its absence was felt.

Please note these are nuances. Nuances can, often do make the difference between Good and Great. Yet I would not hesitate to recommend this film to others (provided they enjoy this sort of thing--the Disney version this is not, nor indeed is it really an adaptation of the original at all).