Drink This: Synetic’s Alice in Wonderland (review)
Synetic's "Alice In Wonderland" is an enthralling, sophisticated experience for adults and kids alike
Anyone worried about the future of theater needs to take a good hard look at what today’s children and teens are watching. Chances are, if they are even going to live theater, it’s a musical. And if it is a musical, it’s more than likely thematically one-dimensional, highly predictable and designed for the attention span of an app-addled mouth-breathing textaholic. There’s just too much money at stake to do otherwise.
But if kids are being raised on (apologies to adult devotees) the short, sharp, shlock of the average musical, who is going to support all the other live theater when the current generation of ticket holders, sponsors and donors decide they no longer feel comfortable driving at night?
There is no escaping the fact that if kids are going to grow into theater-going adults, they need to develop a sophisticated palate. And you can’t develop that on a diet of the formulaic, no matter how colorful, tuneful or skillfully deployed. The appreciation of theater requires imaginative elasticity and patience — a lot of patience. Getting to that point of open-mindedness and capacity (and all its rewards) must begin with early exposure to the historically accurate, the geographically diverse, the traditional, the fringe, and the outré. It can come via books, art, film, TV or theatre itself, but it must arrive undiluted and unabridged.
This is really a long-winded way of saying that Synetic’s Alice in Wonderland (
) is just what so-called “children’s” theater should be — an adult piece that is imaginative enough to enthrall a child, and original and sophisticated enough to broaden their horizons.
The reason this Alice works on such fronts is its refusal to compromise. The interpretation may embrace innocence — there are no squeamishly awful Jokers or dystopian death matches — but it is nevertheless told through Synetic’s Gothic lens. Here, the laws of the universe wobble, dreams dance, the strange and unpredictable rule, and a dark imagination flutters along the edges like a swooping bat. With Synetic, it is never going to be “just for kids” — and that alone makes it ideal for a nascent aesthetic.
Carrying the title role, Kathy Gordon’s Alice has the kind of giggly enthusiasm that sets the tone for a safe, if unfettered, exploration. Keeping Alice convincingly twentieth century without getting too twee isn’t an easy balance, but Gordon gets it right, along with her nicely expressive movement. Though she may seem rather terminally cheerful, it gels well with the surreal mood of the piece. After all, it wouldn’t be much fun if Alice burst into tears and screamed every time she encountered the Cheshire Cat, would it?
As said Cat, Alex Mills puts his triple-jointed body to perfect (purrfect?) use. Canny without being sinister, exotic without being creepy, Mills is another player who brings just the right touch to the role. As his frenemy the White Rabbit, Tori Bertocci delivers lots of cleverly expressive rabbity energy, though her (speaking) role as Alice’s mother feels a bit more like amateur dramatics.
Another standout, as always, is Vato Tsikurishvili, who makes for a show-stoppingly fabulous Caterpillar and an appropriately quick and cultivated Humpty Dumpty. Tsikurishvili’s versatility is increasingly remarkable; he is a beautiful, fluid mover, yet he is also a convincing and expressive actor and an accomplished comic. He’s ready for prime time.
Giving his Mad Hatter a completely original, playful edge, Dallas Tolentino is fun to watch. One minute he may be twittering over a cup of tea and the next he is making a spectacularly graceful dive over the table. As the March Hare and later the King, Justin J. Bell has fun with his roles, as do Augustin Beall and Thomas Beheler as Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Could they have spiced it up a bit? Maybe, but it is clear that director Paata Tsikurishvili is giving them some room to breathe and find their inner comics.
What works less well is a bit of unevenness in the overall pacing. After a tremendous nine-tenths in which director Tsikurishvili steers the many moving parts with much vision, knowing when to slow the moment for a close-up and when to paint a bigger picture, the final tenth — in which Alice finally meets the Queen (played by a rather wooden Renata Veberyte Loman) and the subsequent trial — loses its focus. Things rally at the end, but not before some valuable momentum is lost. It is also no small thing where one is seated at a Synetic production — the best visual effects are experienced in the central swath of seats.
Another conundrum is the not-infrequent disparity between the quite extraordinary expressiveness of the movement and dance and the sometimes distractingly non-expressive and stiltedness of the spoken voices. It’s hard to believe Synetic is not aware of this fissure and they are surely balancing it against the need to encourage their younger, less experienced performers. But as Vato Tsikurishvili shows, you can dance and you can speak with equal musicality. Gordon nails it, but as a native Brit playing a late Victorian, she should.
But although these points need to be made, overall this is an amazing production. There is no question that the Synetic budget has its limits — and yet there is no end to the imagination and resourcefulness of Daniel Pinha’s set and props, Irina Tsikurishvili’s clever and inventive choreography and the intense sound and music atmospherics of Thomas Sowers and Konstantine Lortkipanidze.
This is a rare and magical Alice. Whether old, young or in between, everyone can fit down this rabbit hole.
Alice in Wonderland runs to Nov. 8 at Synetic Theater, 1800 South Bell Street, Virginia. Tickets are $15-$60. Call 866-811-4111 or visit synetictheater.org.
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