Associate Press review of Lookingglass Alice
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Company members mentioned in this article: David Catlin and Tony Hernandez by Hillel Italie You may even be seated on the stage. "Lookingglass Alice," a 90-minute show that opened last weekend at the New Victory Theater in Manhattan, has enough bouncing balls and acrobatics to earn circus credentials. But the real leap is in the text, the loony dream life of British humor perfected by Lewis Carroll in the 19th century and carried on into the 20th century and beyond by the Python gang. "Lookingglass Alice" follows the young heroine (Lauren Hirte) as she advances across a chess board populated by the Mad Hatter, the Cheshire Cat and others from Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass." The costumes are wild, the props fit for smashing, the spirit - as channeled by director David Catlin - properly Carroll's, whether a trio of actors in green, speaking in one nutty voice as the Caterpillar, or Tony Hernandez on giant stilts as the Red Queen/drag queen, demanding "Off with your head!" Python people, if you've been raised on jokes about Spam and dead parrots, you already know that butter flies when you throw it and that no matter how often you hit yourself on the head with a flamingo mallet, you will never learn the answer to, "Why is a raven like a writing desk?" But when Alice sees the White Queen setting down eggs across the stage and asks what she is planting, the answer is as plain as the egg on the little girl's face. "Eggplant." Pause. "Of course." Of course. |
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