I finally had a reason to go and see Lookingglass Theater’s, well, Lookingglass Alice, yesterday, since I brought my six and half year old nephew (my cousin’s son) to see it. I have resisted going during the multiple times it’s been staged at the Lookingglass over the years, despite knowing that it had received glowing reviews in its off-Broadway run at the New Victory Theater. Call me jaded, cynical, snobbish, but I’m just not children’s play-friendly, I guess. Yes, I may not be in touch with my inner Abigail Breslin anymore (at my age, sweet peas, I should probably be trying to sniff out if there is an inner Bea Arthur waiting to come out); the times I have gone to see children’s plays, I’ve found them cloyingly uninteresting (although I did love Mabou Mines‘ production of Peter and Wendy, which I caught last year at the Arena Stage in Washington, DC, maybe because it was so much more highly theatrical and stylized than most children’s theater). I don’t regret bringing my nephew to Lookingglass Alice, because he liked it a lot, but I sure won’t have any more similar plays on my viewing list soon. I have to give props to adapter and director David Catlin- Lookingglass Alice is creative, original, fun, and vividly art directed, with lots of striking visuals such as the giant Red Queen on wheels. I think the ensemble works really hard in physically demanding roles, and Lookingglass ensemble member Lauren Hirte, who has played Alice in all it’s productions, both here in Chicago and elsewhere, is a dazzling acrobat and an engaging presence. I think infusing the play with hip-hop elements makes it contemporary and accessible. However, I feel that the play is just a collection of set pieces and striking visuals. So Alice is trying to move across a giant chessboard to become a Queen, and the play charts her encounters with various eccentric characters such as the Cheshire Cat and the Mad Hatter, but there doesn’t seem to be a logic, a coherence, a tight dramatic narrative to it all. If being Queen is a metaphor for growing up, then all the experiences Alice has on the various chessboard squares should be metaphors for experiences, for the learnings and insights, that she acquires as she completes her journey to adulthood. But I don’t really see what she learns (other than breakdance, and deal with really precious, sometimes unintelligible, characters…uhmmm). Maybe I shouldn’t have been so adult-analytic, and just let the visuals and the music and the hard-working cast overpower me. By the way, I was aghast at the audience yesterday (ok, it was a matinee, so there were probably a lot of people who normally don’t go to the theater there), but just because it was a children’s play, they seemed to think that they had a hallway pass to talk and make noise- yeah, and it weren’t the kids yakking away, but adults who were with them. Ugh- of course, I had to give the worst offenders my patented vicious shut-up-or-I’m-going-to-pull-your-hair-by-the-roots glare. Really, people, learn how to go to theater, please. Lookingglass Alice must close September 7; it’s playing at the Lookingglass Theater, 821 N. Michigan Ave.
Aug 22
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