BWW Reviews: ALICE'S ANTHEM Gets Wonderland Even More Drugged Up

I'm all for taking classic stories and turning them on their head as long as you have something interesting to say about them. A new twist on the mythology can be quite fun. And Copious Love's "Alice in Wonderland" musical retelling, "Alice's Anthem", certainly has that with their dark and macabre modern thrill ride through Wonderland. But as much as it has going for it, it has almost as much going against it (which is not difficult in its three hour run time) as many of the scenes, like Alice, tend to lose their way and go beyond what the story wants to tell and into what felt like insider jokes and self indulgences.

In this tale, Alice (Zenobia Taylor) is an unstable, troubled teen with a penchant for fire. Her Mother (Shermona Mitchell) has had her in and out of treatment programs and when she discovers Alice has not been taking her medication and has been playing with matches again she sets up plans to send her back to treatment. Alice, along with the voices in her head Chase (Justin johns) and Charlotte (Olivia Lee) who bear a striking resemblance to a worried rabbit and a grinning cat, decide that she must run away so as to not be sent back. Alice flees her home and once out on the streets encounters Mad Max (Dan Davidson) a fast talking schizophrenic who guides Alice through several drug hazed locales (even more drugged up than Lewis Carroll's world if that's possible) in order to ... well, that was one of the problems. I was never quite certain of their goal.

Yes, the show does have much going for it as it grabs you from the first moment with its interesting look at Alice, not as a petulant dreamer but as someone with real problems which ups the stakes for her journey. And the relationship between her and her mother is quite powerful and raw. The convention of making the White Rabbit and the Cheshire Cat parts of Alice's psyche (her conscience and her id respectively) is a fascinating one and works quite well. And using the Mad Hatter as her guide through this madness gives his character a depth I've never seen there before. It was when we got into the larger, more character laden scenes that the show tends to lose focus and becomes a mishmash of bits for the sake of having bits. The show needs some serious editing with an eye of "if it's not moving your story along, you don't need it. And if you must have it, make it relevant, make your point and move on."

Director Brendan Mack handles the tone and intensity of the show quite well as the performances he has elicited from his main characters are all very powerful without ever going into the realm of forced or pretention. And many of the songs from Tony Gavilanes compliment the book from Chelsea Madsen well and drive the story when we could hear the lyrics.

The cast does a wonderful job with the material and have several moments where they shine. Mitchell and Taylor are quite powerful in their relationship and Taylor especially manages to carry this very difficult show with grace. She's quite engaging and I expect to see more great things from her. Davidson lends a glorious back and forth to Max taking him between comedic moments and dangerous outbursts and makes him so much more than just another mad element of Wonderland. Johns and Lee play off each other and Alice extremely well and have some of the more powerful and resonating voices of the show. And I have to mention Neil Hobson who gives quite a subtle yet sinister character of Pillar, the hookah smoking wise man.

The set from Mack contains a mélange of psychedelic bits and bobs and manages to straddle that line of insanity and reality well (although I question the need for the black light to continue beyond the drug den). But the insistence of an audience participation goodie bag feels like an afterthought and just tended to dilute the story even more. The show ultimately feels like two different shows, an interactive romp and a dark retelling of a classic and it needs to decide which one it wants to be. And because of its dichotomy I've going to give it two scores with my three letter rating system. A YAY for the dark gripping retelling filled with gorgeously macabre and vicious ties to the original and a MEH for the romp which, while fun at times, just slowed down and unfocused the story.

"Alice's Anthem" from Copious Love Productions performs at Richard Hugo House through October 11th. For tickets or information visit them online at www.alicesanthem.com.

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