Capital, Alice: A wonder it isn’t but effort makes it worth it
Capital, Alice!, playing at Studio 16, is a retelling of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Caroll. In this production, Alice is a worker in a retail store and has her adventure inside of a typical suburban mall.
The story begins, of course, with Alice. She is folding jeans in an average retail establishment, a boss type person enters, says something I didn’t quite understand, and then the character of Alice falls asleep on a pile of jeans for no discernible reason. Where was the White Rabbit or some mysterious hole in a wall for Alice to investigate? Why didn’t we learn about what it was she was unhappy with and why she decided to sleep at the store? Shouldn’t she just go home? Curiouser and curiouser! Unfortunately, the script doesn’t improve for the next twenty minutes.
As I would expect, Alice awakens to find herself in an alternate version of her reality where she encounters several crazy and mad people (Mad Hatter, etc) and ventures off on a journey to find a mysterious child. We’re not quite sure where this child is, who they are, or why they are even there and we don’t ever find out. It seemed to be a toss away part of the story as the search for this "little girl" is mentioned once or twice and is then dismissed off-handedly at the moment I thought the mystery would be revealed. Yet, considering the source material, I was game to follow along anyway. In Wonderland anything can happen, right?
The play then goes on to use the Wonderland facade to tackle topics surrounding the pressures of being a female in a consumerist society, how products of all kinds will make you better and more attractive, why girls are supposedly ugly without makeup - and it hits almost every cliche to do so. The story ends with Alice being put on trial by the Red Queen (or, in this case, a Red Fashion Queen, I think) and a bunch of things are talked about to death. Much of what is said during these final scenes is drawn out and the point of the story seems to get lost in the shuffle. There is some partial nudity and a few cat fights but, ultimately, the connections to consumerism and modern feminism are light handed and do not hold the script together enough to make it good.
There were also issues surrounding vocal performance. Each of the actors take a crack at singing in a musical dance number. The problem is, I wasn’t sure if any of them could sing. I was in the front row and I wasn’t able to hear them clearly enough to figure it out. It could have been an issue with the auditorium but, I will chalk it up to the fact that none of them had the pipes to fill that stage.
Overall, there are a lot of gaps in the script and I felt the show could have used a lot more rehearsal. It just didn’t feel ready. I think the creators bit off more than they could chew.
With that nastiness out of the way, I will tell you what I also saw on that stage. I saw performers having fun. I saw smiling faces, a solid commitment to making the show the best that they could, and it was obvious that this was something they had done because the performers wanted to work together. They were too good for the script and had a hell of a lot more talent than this show deserved. They looked like they really believed in what they were doing. I may have disliked the weak script but I can’t say the people on stage were bad.
If you are looking for a show that is just fun to watch and you don’t want a loyal retelling of the Lewis Caroll classic, you could do worse than this production. I hope to see what they all do next because I am sure that, with practice, they will find the material that make this young production team great.
NOTE: I was on Granville Island this past evening (Wednesday) and I noticed the cast of Capital, Alice! hanging around the CiTR booth. I decided I wanted to ask them about their production and see what they had to say about my comments (which I have only just posted) and we had a great discussion about their production, how it was put together, and I gave them my honest opinion. They mentioned that this was their first production as a team and revealed a number of the issues they've had putting the show together. They also said that they had already noticed a few of the things I referred to during our chat and, so, we came up with a plan. Since I viewed their show on opening night, I said that I would come back on their closing night and see if there is a difference in the show and post another review of their performance. I am also hoping they will have time to sit down and chat with us on camera and talk about their experiences with the Fringe and their production.