Optus Playhouse, Qld Performing Arts Centre, March 31
Most actors will tell you that playing comedy is harder than playing tragedy and that some of the toughest audiences can be children. Throw the two in together and you have the potential for a show to bomb.
However, Francois Klaus’ production of Alice In Wonderland has been a regular staple of the Queensland Ballet repertoire since 2007, suggesting a measure of success on both counts. Having only ever seen selections, I was looking forward to the opening matinee as part of an audience liberally peppered with under-12-year-olds.
The charm of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland can easily be lost in the transfer from one medium to another; one only has to remember the Disney reincarnation. Therefore, it was with relief that I recognised very early in the piece the effort to retain the quintessential English eccentricity of this magical story.
The work begins gently: the English countryside evoked both by the rustic setting and the music of Benjamin Britten. When the White Rabbit (a perfectly cast Teri Crilly) suddenly sails across the stage on a bright red skateboard “en attitude”, the squeals of laughter from both young (and older) signified the audience has been hooked.
The skateboard is one of several small but clever adaptations that modernise and captivate in Klaus’ dance interpretation of Alice, where overall the story faithfully unfolds apace, with most of the favourite characters making an appearance.
Rachael Walsh as the Duchess and Keian Langdon’s Cook fry up a chaotic storm in the kitchen, with the baby tossed as high as the sausages. Kathleen Doody is a delightfully mad bitch, Queen of Hearts, with puckered lips and high, thrusting leg and arm extensions, totally dominating the poor, doddering, sycophantic King of Hearts, winningly characterised by Gareth Belling.
Spoken text is peppered throughout, in rhythm with the movement and adding to the drama of the work. It is impossible to express the madness of the Queen of Heart’s commanding “off with her head!” any other way.
Blair Wood as the Mad Hatter, a delightful Gemma Pearce as the diminutive Dormouse, and Nathan Scicluna as a very blue March Hare enter into the spirit of the Mad Hatter’s tea party with gusto, accompanied by Irving Berlin’s Alexander’s Ragtime Band and the St Louis Blues of WC Handy, which help make the scene a blast.
In fact throughout the music is chosen with care, and even though a real hotch-potch of style, generally works well to underpin the whimsical craziness of the story line. In particular Erik Satie’s Gymnopedie No. 3 perfectly accompanies Yu Hui as the sartorial Caterpillar, resplendent on a beautiful pinkish-brown mushroom, his six “legs” manipulating a pipe.
The second half introduces Tweedledum and Tweedledee (Robert McMillan and Rian Thompson) splendidly rotund in bright green and yellow, and a svelte Unicorn (Meng Ningning), but for me the most inventively funny sequence is that of the Walrus and the Carpenter; guest artist Joseph Stewart fat-suited in a shiny black PVC raincoat, goggles and swim cap, belly diving to clap his enormous flippers together behind in the air, as a perfect foil to the hapless Keian Langdon.
Richard Jeziorny’s designs of both set and costumes are fantastical; their quirkiness and vibrancy, along with each character’s extraordinary make-up design, contribute hugely to the overall visual success of the work where sight gags prevail. The whole is enhanced by Glenn Hughes’ evocative lighting design.
The lynchpin of the whole ballet is of course Alice, a role shared between three QB Junior Extension Program students – Bianca Scudamore, Caity Armstrong and Emma Langfield. In the opening performance Scudamore was quite delightful: unaffected, technically assured and on stage for most of the ballet, with a captivating presence.
– DENISE RICHARDSON
'Alice in Wonderland' runs until April 14.