(no subject)
May. 15th, 2011 11:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsSo you all should know that since seeing Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark, I have been receiving repeated emails from the Spiderman box office earnestly trying to convince me that I need to see the new! updated! totally new music and story and yet STILL THE SAME SHOW YOU LOVED! version now playing on Broadway.
But I scoff at these emails, because instead I spent my reserved-for-ill-advised-ticket-purchases-to-ridiculous-spectacles-on-Broadway money seeing the last evening performance of Wonderland, otherwise known as Frank Wildhorn, Brilliant Mind Behind Such Spectacles As Jekyll And Hyde: The Musical Starring David Hasselhoff, Brings Alice in Wonderland To Life in Crack-Addled Technicolor on Broadway.
The show begins with a tiny powerhouse of a singer, playing Chloe, Alice's cranky preteen daughter, to set up the depressing mundanity of our Alice's life. (The kid who plays Chloe has a RIDICULOUSLY impressive voice for a twelve-year-old, and I hope she goes far; sadly, she did not have anywhere near as much of a role in this show as we hoped she would.) Between Chloe, Chloe's grandmother (Alice's semi-antagonistic mother-in-law), and the arrival of Alice, we learn in rapid succession that Alice is a.) separated b.) because her husband lost his job and couldn't cope with his wife being the family breadwinner and therefore c.) moving to a tiny apartment in Queens d.) and working long depressing hours at her job as a teacher which e.) leaves her no time for her daughter or for f.) her WRITING.
Then, as the cherry on the cake, Alice receives her first YA novel back from the publishers with a polite thanks-but-no-thanks note - apparently they accepted her first draft, but think the finished product is too dark and depressing? No editor or agent appears to be involved in this process, but OH WELL - and decides that this puts an end to ALL HER DREAMS of being published EVER. (Because, you know, if your first novel doesn't get accepted by one publishing house you might as well give up there and then.)
At this point we think it will be fairly clear what the story will be - Alice is going to go back to Wonderland, rediscover her inner child, and get re-inspired about her dreams!
We do not have any idea how much weirdness is in store.
Anyway, Alice goes to have a lie-down while her mother-in-law feeds her daughter, and then the White Rabbit scurries by and dives into the broken service elevator, down which Alice follows him for some awfully cool special effects.
SUDDENLY: HORDES OF ALICES. ALICES EVERYWHERE. CAVORTING WILDLY ROUND. The Alices appear to be evenly divided between male and female, which is sort of delightful.
Our Alice is fairly bemused by this, and more bemused when a Drink Me potion -
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bookelfe: You're supposed to be a savvy self-aware adult Alice who still thinks you've fallen down a service elevator! DON'T DRINK STRANGE BOTTLES OF LIQUID YOU FIND LYING AROUND -
- leads her to encounter a Caterpillar who is apparently meant as an homage to Sammy Davis Jr., although he reminded us all more of Snoop Dogg.
The Caterpillar's back segments, by the way, are composed of a set of detachable Go-Go Girls, which reminds me of Arachne's singing high heeled spider-women, and reminds Debi of . . . a different movie titled after a different insect.
The Caterpillar would like for Alice to figure out WHO SHE IS, introducing the finding-yourself theme right on cue! Then he is promptly upstaged by the the Cheshire Cat, who appears in a flash of flamboyance and slinks around the stage declaiming "HAHA! You cannot see me! Only my smile!"
(The Caterpillar kindly explains to Alice and us that he lost the ability to be invisible years ago, but nobody has yet had the heart to tell him.)
Anyway, the Cat promptly brings on a bunch of sparkly gangsters in a big white car with "EL GATO" painted on it to sing about going with whatever life brings you! The Cat's musical inspiration, by the way, seems to fall somewhere between Santana and Ricky Martin.
Sometimes the parody of the flamboyant Hispanic singer goes so far that it makes me eye it dubiously, but the actor at least seems to be having ridiculous amounts of fun with it.
Now, however, it is the Cat's turn to be upstaged . . . by Jack the White Knight, who appears to hopefully inquire as to whether she is the current damsel of the story.
JACK: If we are running from some danger, and you inevitably trip on a tree root, just scream! I will come back, help you up, fight off the danger, perhaps carry you in my arms but in a very respectful way!
ALICE: . . .
Then Jack calls out his four fellow knights to support him in his musical number.
(bookelfe and innerbrat: But - why are there five of them?
rushin_doll: Because that's the number you need for a boy band!
bookelfe and innerbrat: BUT THERE ARE ONLY FOUR KNIGHTS IN CHESS!
Eventually we decided that the other four were proper knights and Jack was just a jack from a deck of cards who wished he was a knight.)
Reader, I will not lie to you; the boy-band number was truly hilarious.
Jack-the-knight informs Alice that the best place for her to try next is the gathering of Wonderland bigwigs. But, he warns her, she'd better watch herself, because they're all horrible, mean and intolerant . . . those people of the Tea Party!
bookelfe: . . . yep, they went there.
rushin_doll: They're going everywhere.
Here we are introduced to the NEW Mad Hatter (replacement for the briefly-shown, sad and sulking old Mad Hatter), whom I have read in advance is meant to be a parody of P!nk, but whose music reminds me more of Lucy in Jekyll and Hyde than anything else.
There is no denying, however, that she is FABULOUS.
Apparently the Hatter is scheming to take over all Wonderland from the good old Queen of Hearts in a truly astounding costume, played - we realize later - by the same person who plays Alice's mother-in-law, in a bit of double-casting that will take on very weird subtext later.
The barrage of puns, which has not exactly been light so far, intensifies even further with the appearance of the Queen of Hearts.
QUEEN OF HEARTS: Well, Dame Alice -
ALICE: I am Alice, but I'm not any kind of dame!
JACK AND HIS KNIGHTS, IN CHORUS: THERE IS NOTHING LIKE A DAME!
This is a pretty good sampling of what the show is like whenever the Queen is around. Bear in mind that I'm not necessarily complaining about this.
Alice then manages to maneuver her way out of getting her head chopped off by explaining to the Queen of Hearts that if she lets her find her way back, she can make her the Queen . . . of Queens!
QUEEN OF HEARTS: A land composed entirely out of Queens?
ALICE: Yes! There's the queen of Dairy, the queen of Papaya, many queens of drama, and of course all the queens of drag.
(bookelfe: OF COURSE THEY WENT THERE.)
So all seems well, and Alice, now on the Queen's good side, renews her search for home! But alas, the Hatter, angry about being upstaged and having her plans to behead the Queen put on hold, decides to concoct an evil plot . . . to kidnap baby Chloe and bring her to Wonderland!
OH NOES.
The White Rabbit - whose catchphrase has been edited from "I'm late! I'm late!" to "I'm tardy! I'm tardy!" because, as he explains, Disney owns the copyright - brings the news that Chloe's been kidnapped (in a giant steampunk car, because this show is not going to turn down the opportunity for a giant steampunk car if it can possibly help it) and taken to the Hatter's stronghold of evil and brainwashing, the Land Beyond the Looking Glass. The Knight warns them all that his fellow knights have all been captured there sometime over the course of the last ten minutes - they can no longer think for themselves, nor can they bust a move!
Nonetheless, the Comedy Foursome of the Caterpillar, the Cat, the Knight, and the Rabbit prepare to sally forth! The Knight hopefully requests a kiss, which Alice grants -
(bookelfe: Oh please do not let that turn into a romance, please do not let that turn into a romance -)
AND CURTAIN.
The first act, on the whole, has left us enormously entertained. There is absolutely zero meaningful content, but hey, it's Alice in Wonderland, you don't want meaningful content from this! It's not entirely unproblematic, but it's spectacular and entertaining and embraces its own silliness, and really this is what you ask for from a Wildhorn show.
But alas, in the second act, they try to have substance. And this is where it kind of falls apart.
The Hatter captures the Caterpillar, the Cat and the Knight pretty quickly in an Evil Showstopping Number that it must be said is PRETTY EXCELLENT. Meanwhile, Alice and the Rabbit are still free and wandering around looking for Chloe.
ALICE: If I could turn back time, I would never have followed you down that rabbit hole!
WHITE RABBIT: Oh, I do have the ability to turn back time! But if I turned back time for you, we'd never be able to rescue Chloe.
bookelfe and innerbrat: But - if they turned back time they wouldn't have to rescue Chloe, because - oh well NEVER MIND.
ALICE: But you can rescue all the brainwashed knights in the Hatter's stronghold by turning back time for them!
WHITE RABBIT: Oh yes! I can do that! That will be our cunning plan!
bookelfe and innerbrat: I - what - how - but - TIME TRAVEL DOESN'T WORK LIKE YOU THINK IT DOES.
Anyway the White Rabbit scurries off to get captured, leaving Alice to encounter the secret workroom of LEWIS CARROLL, cunningly not named in the script.
Lewis Carroll is played by the same person who plays the White Knight, and Alice spends a lot of time squinting at him and telling him that he looks familiar, which is when we start to get uncomfortable inklings about the subtext.
(innerbrat: Oh god, he's not her husband, is he?
bookelfe: I REALLY HOPE NOT.)
Lewis Carroll gives her some encouragement and sends her off to find . . . her YOUNGER SELF, played by her daughter, because again there is no weird subtext THERE.
Alice sings sadly about how she used to be so imaginative as a kid and have so many dreams. She saw UNICORNS EVERYWHERE, she tells us, which causes us all to crack up unfairly.
rushin_doll: . . . and they took her to Candy Mountain?
![[livenournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user_other.png)
bookelfe: When I was little I wrote were-unicorn romance too. Now I am older and write BETTER THINGS.
(Also, as a sidenote here, may I just say how nice it would be for once - for once! - to have a story about a clever and imaginative kid-hero who . . . continues to be a clever and imaginative adult? I am starting to grow sick of the narrative of 'child grows up, becomes dull and drab and loses everything that makes them interesting and has to go on a journey of inner-child rediscovery.' That is not this musical's fault in particular, but I am just saying.)
Anyway her symbolic inner child assures her that she'll always be with her and they scurry off, leaving us to the Comedy Wonderland Foursome who by now have all been captured and sentenced to beheading.
There is a sort of hilarious moment here where the White Knight encourages the White Rabbit to find his courage and sing a song, and then lulzily upstages him at the critical moment to burst into boy-band tunefulness with the Caterpillar and the Cat as his backup singers. On the one hand, this is hugely entertaining. On the other hand, one cannot help but notice that the white-bread boy-band dude has become the de facto hero of the second act and all the quirky ethnic characters assigned to his backup roles.
Then they all break free and use the White Rabbit's inexplicable time-travel powers to free the brainwashed boy-band knights for a touching reuinion . . . only to learn that Alice has been captured offstage in a scene that apparently was not important enough for us to see! They . . . rescue her? She gets pulled out? I don't remember, Alice is there somehow, in a way that does not imply agency on her part.
TIME FOR A DRAMATIC FINALE.
The Hatter, by the way, has upped the ante for the second act with what is possibly the best hat in the show:
She drags out Alice and reveals that she is . . . ALICE'S DARK SIDE! Who came to Wonderland years ago, when Alice was supposed to, and took over!
The Queen of Hearts, now apprised of the Hatter's treachery, sentences her to death, but Alice asks for a chance to reconcile with her. The Hatter says, sure, she'll reconcile! . . . and then grabs Alice and holds a knife to her throat!
AND THEN THE WHITE KNIGHT RESCUES HER.
AND THEN THE WHITE KNIGHT AND THE HATTER BOTH FALL TO THEIR DOOM.
AND THEN ALICE WAKES UP AND INSTANTLY RECONCILES WITH HER HUSBAND WHO WAS THE DREAM WHITE KNIGHT ALL ALONG.
Because, asinnerbrat puts it, "The best way to fix your marital problems is to have a dream where your husband rescues you from your dark side!"
And then everyone lives happily ever after?
(So, subtext breakdown:
Alice's husband, who left the family because he had a protector-syndrome and couldn't deal with Alice being the primary breadwinner, is also the White Knight with a hero-damsel complex who saves her, is ALSO Lewis Carroll, the AUTHER OF HER STORY.
Meanwhile, her mother-in-law is also the Queen of Hearts, who chops off people's heads and leads a reign of terror over Wonderland, but is still preferable to rule by Alice's Dark Side!
Oh, and her daughter is just a tiny version of herself.
I think I see where they were trying to go with rediscovering your inner child, and possibly even with not taking all your burdens on yourself! But somewhere in there it ALL WENT VERY WRONG.
On the other hand, it still left us with costumes like these:
And even with all the problematic subtext: STILL INFINITELY BETTER THAN SPIDERMAN.)
But I scoff at these emails, because instead I spent my reserved-for-ill-advised-ticket-purchases-to-ridiculous-spectacles-on-Broadway money seeing the last evening performance of Wonderland, otherwise known as Frank Wildhorn, Brilliant Mind Behind Such Spectacles As Jekyll And Hyde: The Musical Starring David Hasselhoff, Brings Alice in Wonderland To Life in Crack-Addled Technicolor on Broadway.
The show begins with a tiny powerhouse of a singer, playing Chloe, Alice's cranky preteen daughter, to set up the depressing mundanity of our Alice's life. (The kid who plays Chloe has a RIDICULOUSLY impressive voice for a twelve-year-old, and I hope she goes far; sadly, she did not have anywhere near as much of a role in this show as we hoped she would.) Between Chloe, Chloe's grandmother (Alice's semi-antagonistic mother-in-law), and the arrival of Alice, we learn in rapid succession that Alice is a.) separated b.) because her husband lost his job and couldn't cope with his wife being the family breadwinner and therefore c.) moving to a tiny apartment in Queens d.) and working long depressing hours at her job as a teacher which e.) leaves her no time for her daughter or for f.) her WRITING.
Then, as the cherry on the cake, Alice receives her first YA novel back from the publishers with a polite thanks-but-no-thanks note - apparently they accepted her first draft, but think the finished product is too dark and depressing? No editor or agent appears to be involved in this process, but OH WELL - and decides that this puts an end to ALL HER DREAMS of being published EVER. (Because, you know, if your first novel doesn't get accepted by one publishing house you might as well give up there and then.)
At this point we think it will be fairly clear what the story will be - Alice is going to go back to Wonderland, rediscover her inner child, and get re-inspired about her dreams!
We do not have any idea how much weirdness is in store.
Anyway, Alice goes to have a lie-down while her mother-in-law feeds her daughter, and then the White Rabbit scurries by and dives into the broken service elevator, down which Alice follows him for some awfully cool special effects.
SUDDENLY: HORDES OF ALICES. ALICES EVERYWHERE. CAVORTING WILDLY ROUND. The Alices appear to be evenly divided between male and female, which is sort of delightful.
Our Alice is fairly bemused by this, and more bemused when a Drink Me potion -
bookelfe: You're supposed to be a savvy self-aware adult Alice who still thinks you've fallen down a service elevator! DON'T DRINK STRANGE BOTTLES OF LIQUID YOU FIND LYING AROUND -- leads her to encounter a Caterpillar who is apparently meant as an homage to Sammy Davis Jr., although he reminded us all more of Snoop Dogg.
The Caterpillar's back segments, by the way, are composed of a set of detachable Go-Go Girls, which reminds me of Arachne's singing high heeled spider-women, and reminds Debi of . . . a different movie titled after a different insect.
The Caterpillar would like for Alice to figure out WHO SHE IS, introducing the finding-yourself theme right on cue! Then he is promptly upstaged by the the Cheshire Cat, who appears in a flash of flamboyance and slinks around the stage declaiming "HAHA! You cannot see me! Only my smile!"
(The Caterpillar kindly explains to Alice and us that he lost the ability to be invisible years ago, but nobody has yet had the heart to tell him.)
Anyway, the Cat promptly brings on a bunch of sparkly gangsters in a big white car with "EL GATO" painted on it to sing about going with whatever life brings you! The Cat's musical inspiration, by the way, seems to fall somewhere between Santana and Ricky Martin.
Sometimes the parody of the flamboyant Hispanic singer goes so far that it makes me eye it dubiously, but the actor at least seems to be having ridiculous amounts of fun with it.
Now, however, it is the Cat's turn to be upstaged . . . by Jack the White Knight, who appears to hopefully inquire as to whether she is the current damsel of the story.
JACK: If we are running from some danger, and you inevitably trip on a tree root, just scream! I will come back, help you up, fight off the danger, perhaps carry you in my arms but in a very respectful way!
ALICE: . . .
Then Jack calls out his four fellow knights to support him in his musical number.
(
bookelfe and innerbrat: But - why are there five of them?rushin_doll: Because that's the number you need for a boy band!bookelfe and innerbrat: BUT THERE ARE ONLY FOUR KNIGHTS IN CHESS!Eventually we decided that the other four were proper knights and Jack was just a jack from a deck of cards who wished he was a knight.)
Reader, I will not lie to you; the boy-band number was truly hilarious.
Jack-the-knight informs Alice that the best place for her to try next is the gathering of Wonderland bigwigs. But, he warns her, she'd better watch herself, because they're all horrible, mean and intolerant . . . those people of the Tea Party!
bookelfe: . . . yep, they went there.rushin_doll: They're going everywhere.Here we are introduced to the NEW Mad Hatter (replacement for the briefly-shown, sad and sulking old Mad Hatter), whom I have read in advance is meant to be a parody of P!nk, but whose music reminds me more of Lucy in Jekyll and Hyde than anything else.
There is no denying, however, that she is FABULOUS.
Apparently the Hatter is scheming to take over all Wonderland from the good old Queen of Hearts in a truly astounding costume, played - we realize later - by the same person who plays Alice's mother-in-law, in a bit of double-casting that will take on very weird subtext later.
The barrage of puns, which has not exactly been light so far, intensifies even further with the appearance of the Queen of Hearts.
QUEEN OF HEARTS: Well, Dame Alice -
ALICE: I am Alice, but I'm not any kind of dame!
JACK AND HIS KNIGHTS, IN CHORUS: THERE IS NOTHING LIKE A DAME!
This is a pretty good sampling of what the show is like whenever the Queen is around. Bear in mind that I'm not necessarily complaining about this.
Alice then manages to maneuver her way out of getting her head chopped off by explaining to the Queen of Hearts that if she lets her find her way back, she can make her the Queen . . . of Queens!
QUEEN OF HEARTS: A land composed entirely out of Queens?
ALICE: Yes! There's the queen of Dairy, the queen of Papaya, many queens of drama, and of course all the queens of drag.
(
bookelfe: OF COURSE THEY WENT THERE.)So all seems well, and Alice, now on the Queen's good side, renews her search for home! But alas, the Hatter, angry about being upstaged and having her plans to behead the Queen put on hold, decides to concoct an evil plot . . . to kidnap baby Chloe and bring her to Wonderland!
OH NOES.
The White Rabbit - whose catchphrase has been edited from "I'm late! I'm late!" to "I'm tardy! I'm tardy!" because, as he explains, Disney owns the copyright - brings the news that Chloe's been kidnapped (in a giant steampunk car, because this show is not going to turn down the opportunity for a giant steampunk car if it can possibly help it) and taken to the Hatter's stronghold of evil and brainwashing, the Land Beyond the Looking Glass. The Knight warns them all that his fellow knights have all been captured there sometime over the course of the last ten minutes - they can no longer think for themselves, nor can they bust a move!
Nonetheless, the Comedy Foursome of the Caterpillar, the Cat, the Knight, and the Rabbit prepare to sally forth! The Knight hopefully requests a kiss, which Alice grants -
(
bookelfe: Oh please do not let that turn into a romance, please do not let that turn into a romance -)AND CURTAIN.
The first act, on the whole, has left us enormously entertained. There is absolutely zero meaningful content, but hey, it's Alice in Wonderland, you don't want meaningful content from this! It's not entirely unproblematic, but it's spectacular and entertaining and embraces its own silliness, and really this is what you ask for from a Wildhorn show.
But alas, in the second act, they try to have substance. And this is where it kind of falls apart.
The Hatter captures the Caterpillar, the Cat and the Knight pretty quickly in an Evil Showstopping Number that it must be said is PRETTY EXCELLENT. Meanwhile, Alice and the Rabbit are still free and wandering around looking for Chloe.
ALICE: If I could turn back time, I would never have followed you down that rabbit hole!
WHITE RABBIT: Oh, I do have the ability to turn back time! But if I turned back time for you, we'd never be able to rescue Chloe.
bookelfe and innerbrat: But - if they turned back time they wouldn't have to rescue Chloe, because - oh well NEVER MIND. ALICE: But you can rescue all the brainwashed knights in the Hatter's stronghold by turning back time for them!
WHITE RABBIT: Oh yes! I can do that! That will be our cunning plan!
bookelfe and innerbrat: I - what - how - but - TIME TRAVEL DOESN'T WORK LIKE YOU THINK IT DOES.Anyway the White Rabbit scurries off to get captured, leaving Alice to encounter the secret workroom of LEWIS CARROLL, cunningly not named in the script.
Lewis Carroll is played by the same person who plays the White Knight, and Alice spends a lot of time squinting at him and telling him that he looks familiar, which is when we start to get uncomfortable inklings about the subtext.
(
innerbrat: Oh god, he's not her husband, is he?bookelfe: I REALLY HOPE NOT.)Lewis Carroll gives her some encouragement and sends her off to find . . . her YOUNGER SELF, played by her daughter, because again there is no weird subtext THERE.
Alice sings sadly about how she used to be so imaginative as a kid and have so many dreams. She saw UNICORNS EVERYWHERE, she tells us, which causes us all to crack up unfairly.
rushin_doll: . . . and they took her to Candy Mountain?bookelfe: When I was little I wrote were-unicorn romance too. Now I am older and write BETTER THINGS.(Also, as a sidenote here, may I just say how nice it would be for once - for once! - to have a story about a clever and imaginative kid-hero who . . . continues to be a clever and imaginative adult? I am starting to grow sick of the narrative of 'child grows up, becomes dull and drab and loses everything that makes them interesting and has to go on a journey of inner-child rediscovery.' That is not this musical's fault in particular, but I am just saying.)
Anyway her symbolic inner child assures her that she'll always be with her and they scurry off, leaving us to the Comedy Wonderland Foursome who by now have all been captured and sentenced to beheading.
There is a sort of hilarious moment here where the White Knight encourages the White Rabbit to find his courage and sing a song, and then lulzily upstages him at the critical moment to burst into boy-band tunefulness with the Caterpillar and the Cat as his backup singers. On the one hand, this is hugely entertaining. On the other hand, one cannot help but notice that the white-bread boy-band dude has become the de facto hero of the second act and all the quirky ethnic characters assigned to his backup roles.
Then they all break free and use the White Rabbit's inexplicable time-travel powers to free the brainwashed boy-band knights for a touching reuinion . . . only to learn that Alice has been captured offstage in a scene that apparently was not important enough for us to see! They . . . rescue her? She gets pulled out? I don't remember, Alice is there somehow, in a way that does not imply agency on her part.
TIME FOR A DRAMATIC FINALE.
The Hatter, by the way, has upped the ante for the second act with what is possibly the best hat in the show:
She drags out Alice and reveals that she is . . . ALICE'S DARK SIDE! Who came to Wonderland years ago, when Alice was supposed to, and took over!
The Queen of Hearts, now apprised of the Hatter's treachery, sentences her to death, but Alice asks for a chance to reconcile with her. The Hatter says, sure, she'll reconcile! . . . and then grabs Alice and holds a knife to her throat!
AND THEN THE WHITE KNIGHT RESCUES HER.
AND THEN THE WHITE KNIGHT AND THE HATTER BOTH FALL TO THEIR DOOM.
AND THEN ALICE WAKES UP AND INSTANTLY RECONCILES WITH HER HUSBAND WHO WAS THE DREAM WHITE KNIGHT ALL ALONG.
Because, as
innerbrat puts it, "The best way to fix your marital problems is to have a dream where your husband rescues you from your dark side!"And then everyone lives happily ever after?
(So, subtext breakdown:
Alice's husband, who left the family because he had a protector-syndrome and couldn't deal with Alice being the primary breadwinner, is also the White Knight with a hero-damsel complex who saves her, is ALSO Lewis Carroll, the AUTHER OF HER STORY.
Meanwhile, her mother-in-law is also the Queen of Hearts, who chops off people's heads and leads a reign of terror over Wonderland, but is still preferable to rule by Alice's Dark Side!
Oh, and her daughter is just a tiny version of herself.
I think I see where they were trying to go with rediscovering your inner child, and possibly even with not taking all your burdens on yourself! But somewhere in there it ALL WENT VERY WRONG.
On the other hand, it still left us with costumes like these:
And even with all the problematic subtext: STILL INFINITELY BETTER THAN SPIDERMAN.)
