'Alice' has a new look -- Same Verve
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Company members mentioned in this article: David Catlin, Lauren Hirte, Larry DiStasi, Anthony Fleming III, Doug Hara, Tony Hernandez, Mara Blumenfeld and Chris Binder by Chris Jones Worry not. Adapter David Catlin and Chicago's Lookingglass Theatre Company have kept the dress. And it's all still the black kitten's fault. Entirely. Oh, and the White Rabbit has the usual trouble with his cue. But in the remarkably talented Lauren Hirte, the Lookingglass Alice is a bona fide, rope-loving acrobat. We're not just talking pretty spins and twirls. This strong young woman bears weight, buster, in matters physical and also likes backward words. And has no trouble whatsoever figuring them out. Talk about a role model with verve -- for parents of tween daughters, especially, she'll be a godsend. The Victorian verse and prose of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, a.k.a. Lewis Carroll, as adapted and directed by David Catlin, lands somewhere between the writings of J.M. Barrie, Stephen Hawking and Monty Python. His books have abided because they are weirdly complex -- reflecting the author's obsession with math and logic. Alice's journey through the looking glass is a consequence of her intelligence and inquisitiveness. Carroll treated kids as little pre-digital computers. And at the Water Tower on Saturday night, pint-size creatures were nodding their post-digital heads in full understanding of his aphorisms, even as adults scratched their heads as adults have always scratched their heads. There's a refreshing lack of pretension to Catlin's sincere little show -- a reprise of the project that first gelled the Lookingglass ensemble together some 18 years ago. It lacks the self-conscious angst of some of this company's later projects and recaptures the sense of physical play that was their early signature. But although Alice's trips (both "Through the Looking Glass" and "Alice in Wonderland") here are told with a cast of only five (Lawrence DiStasi, Anthony Fleming III, Doug Hara and Tony Hernandez play the rest of the fanciful critters and whacko), the show shows off the full and spectacular capabilities of the small Water Tower space -- really for the first time. I'd argue that Alice's overall journey metaphor, which holds all that episodic Carroll whimsy together, needed more emphasis and attention so as to boost the dramatic stakes and the sometimes-sagging tension. And a couple of more performers would have been preferable. But the gents of the cast pop up with such frequency and diversity that they feel bigger in number. With the help of the Actors Gymnasium's circus tricks, this 90-minute show for all ages is full of highly physical but clever invention of a gutsy and droll sort, and it features some jaw-dropping costumes from Mara Blumenfeld, whip-flash lighting from the superb Chris Binder, and any number of physical tours de forces. Although disinclined to pander, it will be very popular with progressive family audiences -- and deservedly so. For Catlin and his cast find a fine balance between the pleasures of familiarity and the challenges of newness. One recognizes the familiar and marvels at the strange. Just as Carroll would have liked. |
More from Lookingglass Alice (Chicago 2005) |
