Fascinating and slightly mind-blowing – Alice for adults
THEATRE
Alice In Wonderland Tron Theatre, Glasgow JJJJ
The name of the Irish poetpresident Mi cha elDHiggins, emblazoned on the programme as company patron, shows just how highly Blue Raincoat of Sligo are regarded in the Republic; and they are also much loved by audiences across the UK and beyond for a brand of brilliantly visual small-scale ensemble theatre that has recently given us shows ranging from The Poor Mouth, in 2013, to Shackle - ton, about the Irish-born polar explorer, in 2017.
Now it re visits Scotland with its 2016 version of Alice in Wonder land; and if you imagine that there can only be one reason to create a new adult version of Alice today – that is, the chance to investigate Lewis Carroll’s strange relationship with childhood and with the original Alice herself – then this fascinating and slightly mind-blowing version by Jocelyn Clarke, directed by Niall Henry, opens up some completely different possibilities.
For in the first place, this is an Alice in Wonderland that gives full voice to Alice herself, by noticing – as few stage and screen adaptations do – just how much of Carroll’s story is an internal monologue, a high-speed diary of a fantastical journey, full of comments, thoughts and footnotes spilling from the mind of a bright and observant girl on the brink of adult hood. Anotherwise pitch-perfect Miriam Need ham, as young Alice, could perhaps give the audience a little more time to savour the sheer wit of Alice’s thoughts; but it remains an immense pleasure to see Carroll’ s words, and Alice’ s character, take centre stage, supported by some lovely, ingenious and simple set design by PaulMcd onnell, looming out of lighting designer Barry Mckinney’ s atmospheric darkness.
Then, secondly, in fore - grounding Alice’ s monologue, this production makes clear the links between Carroll’ s book, first published in 1865, and the great stream- of- consciousness absurdists of the 20th century, including James Joyce, Flann O’brien and Samuel Beckett.
Blue Rain coat’ s tight focus on the language produc es some str an gev ariations of theatrical pace, and requires concentration, even over a short 65 minutes.
Yet there are also some exquisite theatrical setpiec - es, particularly those involving Sandra O’ M alley’ s star turn as the Duchess; and with Sean Elliot, John Carty, Hilary Bowen-walsh and Brian Dev
aney making up an inspired s i x - s t r o n g e n s e m b l e , t h i s Alice emerges as a memorab l e a n d r e wa r d i n g h o u r o f theatre, given added depth by Joe Hunt’s terrific score and s o u n d d e s i g n , f e a t u r i n g perhaps the best performance ever of the Duchess’s f a m o u s l u l l a b y, “S p e a k roughly to your little boy, and smack him when he sneezes…”
JOYCE MCMILLAN
At the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, Thursday 6 to Saturday 8 June.