Curiouser Still

Lookingglass Alice transforms the Haas stage into a circus space full of surprises

by Mark Cofta

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Published: May 22, 2007

Photo By: Michael Brosilow (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

To illustrate how art makes the familiar new and the new familiar, look no further than Lookingglass Alice, David Catlin's adaptation of Lewis Carroll's classics Through the Looking-Glass and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Alice in Wonderland?

Brought from Chicago by the Arden Theatre Company, the Lookingglass Theatre Company's acrobatic interpretation transforms the Haas stage into a traverse (audience on two sides, facing each other) circus space full of surprises. At first, we face a black curtain bisecting the space, a chessboard and comfy chair defining a drawing room. Through what appears to be a mirror above the mantle, we see the other half of the audience finding their seats. Lookingglass Alice begins in two identical places at once, as both Lauren Hirte's Alice and Larry DiStasi's Charles Lutwidge Dodgson ("Lewis Carroll" was a pen name) enter the looking-glass world for a grand adventure.

Hirte's journey is ours, as she manages to perform nonstop gymnastic feats, never leaving the stage, while experiencing it all convincingly for the first time with all Alice's incredulity. Dangling high above us from ropes, she shrieks in delight as she learns to fly.

Carroll's familiar characters come to life through an agile ensemble. Sometimes story seems sacrificed for amazing acrobatics, but more often, their physical tricks provide character insights and move the 90-minute, intermission-less story forward.

Alice must progress across a chessboard to transform from pawn to queen. She encounters Anthony Fleming's enigmatic Cheshire Cat, Doug Hara's frenetic White Rabbit, Jesse Perez's towering, gliding Red Queen (one of the few times when design, more than the actor's skill, helps to define a character) and DiStasi's hyperactive White Knight. Tumbling, dancing and flying above, on and below the stage, they create Caterpillar, Tweedle Dum and Dee, the Red Queen's hedgehogs, and all the other familiar personalities in a truly remarkable evening of theater.

"You must pretend harder," Cheshire Cat urges Alice � and us. We see the mechanics behind every gymnastic feat and design innovation, and some moments are punctuated by the stage manager's cue-calling ("lights 14, GO"), but are no less amazing for this Brechtian transparency. Alice's adventure becomes ours because we're privy to all their invention: her Wonderland is created from their, and our, imaginations.

Lookingglass Alice

Through June 10,Arden Theatre Company

40 N. Second St., 215-922-1122, www.ardentheatre.org

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