Reviews And Comments
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Alice In Wonderland Adapted By V. A Pearn
(February 2011)
It was a great tonic to a groggy theatre critic to see the creativity and sensitivity of this show!
Notwithstanding - I love that word, so here it is again - notwithstanding the admirable performances of the cast, I must first pay tribute to the look of the show. Presumably Ann Edwards and Deny Bateman (costumes) did a mixture of making, hiring and cadging, as is often par for the course in these cases, but there was a wonderful unity about most of them, with bold, co-ordinated, themed colours and great ingenuity shown in the design. The face-painting and masks were excellent too and visually the performance was a delight from start to finish. The work presents an enormous challenge in this regard but StageOne rose to it magnificently.
Some of the most striking costumes were those of the Queen of Hearts, the Knave, the Mad Hatter, the March Hare, the three changes of the Duchess (!) the Mock Turtle, Alice herself and the White Rabbit, but they were all thoughtfully created (or chosen) and expressive. John Simpson and Penny Moss (set) wisely settled for a simple black backdrop to all the movement and colour on stage, but the numerous props and scene markers, from portals to rosebushes, many home-made, gave them plenty of scope for ingenuity.
Shelley Holmes (director) had her varied and numerous cast use the space of the stage to maximum effect. She handled the crowded ensembles, like the race, the dances and the croquet match brilliantly. Everybody seemed to know where they were going and exactly what they were doing in a way that was most professional. Nothing looked ragged or under-rehearsed, but natural and inevitable.
Movement is a forte of Stage One (all those workshops on stagecraft!) and the ‘stalwarts’, particularly, scored here. Watching the suppleness and mimic effects from the likes of John Simpson, Sue Roe, Roger Smith, Malcolm Robertson, Geoff Dunstall, Oliver Tatt, as well as ‘newcomer’ young Kacey Quigley was a constant pleasure and some of the most memorable moments were ones of silence and mime or accompanying gesture.
But what of the acting? Well, one of the interesting things about this play was that, apart from Alice herself (of whom more later), there were no ‘big parts’ just a lot of interesting cameos. There were no weak links, and though space and the size of the cast prevents me from mentioning everyone, it was a wonderful ensemble effort, with everyone making a valuable contribution.
I shall never forget the representation of the Queen of Hearts by Olivia Savage. It was a highly original take on the character. Instead of the expected middle-aged, shrieking harridan we got a young, bored, cold as ice, fashion model whose quiet but utterly chilling orders of ‘off with his head’ must have made others besides me, surely, think of the ghastly dictators and tyrants who inhabit our world. Her stillness and impassiveness as she sat on her throne spoke volumes of autocratic power and ruthlessness. As her consort, Malcolm Robertson showed in the ‘trial scene’ how bumbling idiocy in a despot can be just as perilous to justice. (I should love to see him as the mad Judge in Racine’s Sue Crazy.) He was also good as the Dodo, asserting, so to speak, that his extinction had been greatly exaggerated!
As the White Rabbit John Simpson created a real character under all that endearing fur, and his movements were brilliant. And making every word audible was no mean achievement either. The trumpet fanfares were hilarious.
As the Duchess, Roger Smith managed to make this ‘dame’ very different from the other ‘dame’ roles we have seen him in, and as with all the StageOne veterans, he was perfectly audible at all times and pointed up the words excellently. And, as I have already said – what costumes – all of them very up-front!
David Savage made a superbly lugubrious Mock Turtle, and I was most touched by Wayne Quigley’s unforgettably miserable mouse! Geoff Dunstall seemed to relish his part as the scoffing (literally) Knave of Hearts, complete with superb mohican hair-do. David Hellens as the somnolent dormouse was so good he made me yawn in sympathy – and I do mean that as a compliment!
But so far this is ‘Hamlet without the Prince’ – what of young Alce herself? Well, Hannah Fitzgerald, for whom I imagine this must have been the first part on a such a demanding scale, rose to the challenge with great aplomb. She delivered her lines with confidence and showed no sign whatever of stage nerves. She remained the anchor of common sense and logic in a crazy world and she gave the character a modern edge, both in looks and delivery, that was never jarring.
So what then of the play? The author wisely concentrated on Carroll’s big set-piece scenes, like the Mad Hatter’s tea party and all the rest of them, and cleverly side-stepped the changes in size and other fantastical events that are possible on film but not easily suggested on stage.The play is very faithful and deferential to the author, perhaps at times even too much so, to get quite the same sense of zany creativity as in the original book. No one advertised this as a pantomime, and it certainly wasn’t; indeed this show is not very strong on laughs – at least there weren’t many from the matinee audience when I attended, but they seemed thoroughly absorbed and interested. The story held the attention.
If you want the absurd, ask an Oxford Professor of Mathematics (!) and Alice never ceases to amaze in its surreal extravagance. Yet it precedes the Surrealists, both artistic, like Dali, and dramatic like Ionesco by decades. People tend to love it or be left cold by it, but it has become a fixed part of our culture, even if known, by many, better from Disney adaptations or television presentations than from the book itself. (I couldn’t help wondering, by the way, how many youngsters today know what treacle is, or how many have ever tasted Mock Turtle soup!)
It may seem strange, coming from me, who often bewails the West End’s (and most schools’ and colleges’) obsession with musicals rather than straight plays, but I felt the performance, excellent as it was in so many ways, might have been lifted even further and sent everyone home with smiles on their faces, as well as thoughts in their heads, if there had been just a little bit more incidental music and one or two songs. When we did get a bit (like the Brahms Lullaby) it made a big impact. But this is to carp. Shelley Holmes and her whole team deserve all praise for this solid and memorable achievement, and it is another feather in the company’s diverse cap!
Theatre Review by veteran (if not actually extinct) Theatre Critic Jack Stinker of The Daily Grail
The Thwarting Of Baron Bolligrew By Robert Bolt
(February 2010)
From the depths of winter into the dragon’s den stepped Stage One for their latest production at the Methodist Church. For some in the audience too it was a case of emerging from near hibernation to experience an afternoon/evening of live entertainment after a surfeit of TV, books and evenings in. So expectations were running high and we were duly and royally entertained by this early work from the famed playwright and screenplay writer Robert Bolt (Lawrence of Arabia and A Man for All Seasons were amongst his many successes). Originally for radio, it nevertheless lent itself well to the amateur stage and the cast, as we have come to expect, rose magnificently to the challenge.
There was much good banter in a play which seemed to combine elements of pantomime, morality play and even a hint of Shakespeare’s The Tempest. The main players, Geoff Dunstall as the (un)lovable rogue, Baron Bolligrew (played in the manner of Jeremy Clarkson), and Shelley Holmes as the dashing hero, Sir Oblong Fitz Oblong, equally adept at sword-play, dragon-slaying and hard politics, were excellent, as were the support and cameo actors, notably Malcolm Robertson as the spooky, smooth spell-maker, Roger Smith as the wise-cracking, larger than life Duke, and Sue Roe as the oppressed Obidiah Bobblenob. Everyone really deserves a mention, as all the cast were good, but I must pick out the sheer inventiveness of Oliver Tatt and Charlie Byrne as Michael Magpie and Mazeppa Magpie, constantly twitching and twittering, as if auditioning for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s next animal production!
I went to the afternoon performance, which I understand was less well attended than the evenings, but everyone seemed to have a really good time and entered into the spirit of things, worried that Roger would fall off the stage as he staggered about and enjoying the topical repartee. The evening shows, with more people, had an even better atmosphere, by all accounts. And a princely sum was raised for the Marie Curie Cancer Care, which can’t be bad.
Roll on the next Stage One production – and congratulations to all involved in this play, which must have involved many hours of rehearsal and preparation on cold winter nights.
Trinity Benefice (Folkestone) Magazine
