A Tea Party Well Worth Attending

'Alice' is true to original yet daringly new

It is only fitting that a theater company named Lookingglass should enjoy one of its greatest successes with a show that does, indeed, catapult its audience straight down the rabbit hole of shape-shifting experience, high into the stratosphere of illogical thinking and directly through the mirror of off-kilter (but supremely controlled) illusion.

But while such a thing is altogether fitting and proper, the fact that David Catlin's brilliantly realized production of "Lookingglass Alice," now in its third flawless remount, manages to be so astonishingly true to its source (the work of Lewis Carroll, a k a Charles Dodgson) while also being envelope-stretching in every aspect of its theatricality is a remarkable achievement.

Animating this mind-bending tea party of a show -- and assuming guises that defy all the rules of physical and verbal speed, dexterity, strength and daring -- are four actors of uncanny skill. They include Lawrence E. DiStasi (whose White Knight and White Queen are gorgeously polished creations), as well as Kevin Douglas, Anthony Fleming III and Jesse J. Perez, a seemingly exhaustion-proof trio of madmen who portray everyone from the White Rabbit and Humpty Dumpty, to the Cheshire Cat and the Red Queen as if gravity simply did not exist.

Click here to purchase tickets to Lookinglass Alice online or call 312.37.0665.