11 December, Capitol Theatre
The story of Alice chasing the white rabbit down into Wonderland is now 150 years old, and so iconic that saying something fresh about it is pretty hard. And it's a challenge too adapting a story that relies so much on wordplay and on extreme transformations to the limited confines of a stage.
Christopher Wheeldon's ballet takes on these challenges and comes up with something that's mostly a delight. It runs too long at three hours (including two intervals) and there are some scenes that could stand some whittling down. But it tackles the metaphysical and just plain physical difficulties of telling this story and pulls them off beautifully; and the dancers and the choreography unfold the familiar story with a ton of charm and humour. Joby Talbot's music is quirky without being too cute - a really good match for the tone of the show.
The staging is spectacular, as lavish as any I've ever seen from the Australian Ballet, following Alice's journey through the most colourfully vivid and stylised sets - the tea party, the ugly Duchess's house, the courthouse of cards, the Red Queen's garden. These were combined with video backdrops and interstitials were used brilliantly to create the illusion of Alice's interdimensional journeys and physical transformations - down the rabbit hole, under water, small as a mouse, large as a house.
The Cheshire Cat was depicted with a giant puppet so impressive that the audience broke out into applause on its first appearance - it's that kind of show, reminding me very much of the spectacular spectacles and whiz-bang effects of the popular musicals that are usually staged at the Capitol - Wicked, Lion King and the like.
But the performers aren't overwhelmed by the production bells and whistles - Jade Wood was lovely as a determined Alice, with Brett Chynoweth doing great character work as the White Rabbit, Nicola Curry absolutely chewing through scenery with the greatest of gusto as the furious, ridiculous Red Queen, and Jake Mangakahia somewhat stealing the limelight as a slinky, sexy Caterpillar.
Narratively, this adaptation is faithful to the source though it adds a few flourishes to Lewis Carroll's story - most notably a framing story that tells of a nascent romance between a teenaged (rather than child) Alice and the young footman accused of stealing a fateful baked good, and ties that into the story of the Queen of Hearts and the knave who must lose his head.
Overall this version links the 'real' world much more strongly with Alice's dream world, with almost every dancer doubling up roles between the two worlds. There were always connections between the two, but this plays out more like the Wizard of Oz's "and you were there, and you were there, and you too!" than the strange other-ness of the Wonderland of the book. (There's also, I think, a much stronger suggestion of porcine baby slaughter? MAYBE? Can I just note in the book that the baby pig runs away...)
Visually, it draws from a number of famous Alices, most notably John Tenniel's iconic original illustrations which in turn strongly influenced Disney. The colour palette reminded me of the unfortunate Tim Burton movie at times, and the Mad Hatter is more Depp than Tenniel.
It's probably a little long to be totally ideal to a child audience, but aside from that I'd really suggest it to anyone, perhaps even more so to those who haven't been to the ballet before.
(The Australian Ballet site has some great photos, to get an idea of the visuals.)
Conductor: Simon Thew
Alice: Jade Wood
Jack/The Knave of Hearts: Jarryd Madden
Lewis Carroll/The White Rabbit: Brett Chynoweth
Mother/Queen of Hearts: Nicola Curry
Father/King of Hearts: Tristan Message (guest artist)
Magician/Mad Hatter: Kevin Jackson
Raj/Caterpillar: Jake Mangakahia
Duchess: Ben Davis
