Those who love Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass" will be delighted with the Brigham Young University Theatre production of "Alice in Wonderland."
Using Eva Le Gallienne and Florida Friebus' stage adaptation of the two books, the cast, costuming and sets immediately put the viewer through Alice's looking glass and into a wild adventure that only a child could envision.Emily Sarah Clark plays the role of Alice and shares the role with Stephanie Mills on alternating nights.
Clark does a masterful job of portraying young Alice. At once intrigued and befuddled by the goings-on in her Wonderland, Clark plays the part impeccably. She finds the right mix of wide-eyed, childlike wonderment while avoiding the fallacy of acting childish.
While there was not a weak link in the casting chain, the King of Hearts (Mark Swenson) stole the show with his antics and delivery. Playing an absent-minded ruler, Swenson's humorous gait and half-witted comments to Alice's logic brought the crowd the most laughs.
Dweedledee and Tweedledum (Chris Wyatt, Melanie Ankney) also drew a round of applause for their jovial bit in Alice's warped Wonderland.
Shannon Penrod also does an outstanding job as the Red Chess Queen as she explains the concept of time to a confused Alice.
Though the audience feels nearly engulfed by an endless stream of characters - 30 to be exact - the cast is actually quite economical. Many of the cast play several roles, leaving just 14 actors and actresses playing 30 parts.
The costuming, under the direction of Janet Swenson, was spectacular. From the Queen of Hearts' (Lisa J. Pierson) fanciful robe, to the Red and White Chess Queens' (Penrod, Darci Gardner) imaginative attire, each costume seemed worthy of a young girl's overworked imagination.
The Cheshire Cat (Chris Wyatt, head; Tristana Jacob, Megan Charity Whitmer, body) and the Caterpillar (Penrod, head; Jacob and Whitmer, body) were portrayed with puppets. Those holding the puppets dressed in black and delivered their lines and manipulated the puppets so skillfully that the viewer soon forgot the puppets were not moving and speaking on their own.
The Leg of Mutton (Jacob) and the Dormouse (Gardner) captured the audience because they were obviously hand-held puppets, yet the audience could never figure out where their masters were doing the controlling.
The set, under scenic designer Eric Fielding, was also masterfully crafted. Five concentric borders gave the impression of staring through a mirror during the entire performance. Every action took place within the confines of the mirror frames, as if to remind the viewer that, weird as everything may have seemed, anything is possible inside a looking glass.
Tables and doors coming through the stage floor were an unexpected surprise and a visual delight to the scenery.
One flaw of "Alice in Wonderland" - which may be attibutable to Carroll's depiction of a seven-year-old's illogical dream sequences and not to director David Scheerer - was the lack of continuity. While each scene was masterful in both acting and costuming, one did not connect with the other. Instead of seeing one play with a common thread throughout the scenes, the audience saw a disconnected grouping of 17 mini-plays with Alice's presence being the only common thread.