The first indication that you're not seeing a run-of-the-mill stage production of Alice in Wonderland is when the White Rabbit appears suspended 30 feet over the stage and does a somersault through a hoop.
So begins one of the most innovative and thrilling retellings of Lewis Carroll's legacy, this time infused with the physicality of circus. The characters soar on ropes, make tumble passes, balance on each other, throw teacakes, dance to salsa and play musical instruments.
“It’s a beautiful combination,” says Molly Hernández, who plays Alice. “Wonderland is so fantastical, as is circus. And it’s honest and raw and silly and all of the human things that we sometimes hide from — the childish wonder within ourselves, the fear of making mistakes.”
The show “Lookingglass Alice” from the Lookingglass Theatre Company in Chicago has been a local treat for decades, but this year gets national attention with a broadcast on PBS starting on Friday.
“Lookingglass has always wanted to embody feeling and idea through physicality,” said Scott Silberstein, an artistic associate at the theater and co-founder of HMS Media, which filmed the show.
“It’s always been a very physical theater company and not in the kind of rock ‘n’ roll, let’s throw things around, but how do we really inhabit our physical being to elicit emotion as well as tell a story effectively?”
“Lookingglass Alice” is a show where folding chairs fly out of picnic baskets, the White Knight rides a unicycle, characters bounce on massive balls and Alice has a tea party with an audience member — pinkies up, don’t forget.
It's adapted and directed by founding ensemble member David Catlin, who was among a group of Northwestern students who created the theater company in 1988. Carroll’s stories so captivated them that they named themselves after his book "Through the Looking-Glass," the sequel to "Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland."
The 95-minute PBS broadcast of “Lookingglass Alice” is accompanied by a short documentary about the company, with an appearance from David Schwimmer, a founding member who put his own money into the fledgling troupe.
“You don’t see a lot of regional theater on public television,” said Silberstein. “Here’s the magic that can happen in your neighborhood, in your city. This stuff happens all over the country. And we don’t really talk about it enough.”
Catlin's version was crafted in 2005 and calls for just five actors — including two alternating as Alice due to the physical demands of the role. It is in many ways a sort of vertical storytelling, using the space above the actors and audience in new ways.
“Something that I think is so cool that is happening in theater as a whole right now is we are expanding a lot of what we think theater is or what it looks like, what storytelling is, who comes to see plays and what that even means,” says Hernández.
The circus tricks energize and echo the whimsical script, which is filled with Carroll’s own language tricks and puns. The rabbit hole here is a hoop and Carroll’s joke on the story being a yarn actually turns into a rope swing for Alice.
“The underlying work has so many layers to it that you can meet that work and just be kind of dazzled by the vibrant characters in it and the situations. But if you dig deeper, he’s layered it with meaning,” said Catlin.
In one scene, shoes fall from the ceiling and are later picked up by the Caterpillar — three performers moving in perfect synch. “I can’t explain myself because I’m not myself, you see,” says Alice. “It’s just all very confusing.”
Catlin began work on the script when his daughter was very young, and he delved into Carroll’s stories in Neverland in the same spirit as the author — hoping to counsel children not to be in such a hurry to grow up.
So the Red and White Queens loom over Alice a little like parents hover a crib, the queens alternate between irrational and rational thoughts like children struggling to understand their world, the Mad Hatter's Tea Party is like a never-ending frat party and the death of Humpty Dumpty nudges Alice to grow up.
One of Catlin's favorite moments is when Alice untangles knotted ropes high over the stage — a lovely metaphor for life — and turns them into a grand swing, whooping with glee as she eventually soars back and forth over the audience.
“As a father of a daughter, seeing a female character find agency through their own strength and will, I find it takes the breath away,” he said. “I hope it will for everyone who gets to see it.”
