Michelle Loubon

In the beloved chil­drens' clas­sic Al­ice in Won­der­land, writ­ten by Lewis Car­roll, lit­tle Al­ice (Kathryn Beau­mont) grows bored lis­ten­ing to her old­er sis­ter read aloud from a his­to­ry book about William I of Eng­land. She be­friends a rab­bit car­ry­ing a large pock­et watch. In the lo­cal adap­ta­tion, the head of Car­val­ho Pro­duc­tions, Fareid Car­val­ho, cre­at­ed the pro­tag­o­nist Al­i­son in Won­der­land. Played by Tsian Lee Wen, a feisty young or­phan des­per­ate­ly wants to be adopt­ed in Trin­bagoland. Or­phans like Oliv­er Twist are more pop­u­lar in Charles Dick­ens' works. Car­val­ho even played the Mad Hat­ter to the max in the mu­si­cal pro­duc­tion which de­buted at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts, Keate Street, Port-of-Spain, on Tues­day night. In a nut­shell, Al­i­son's odyssey be­gins when she bumps her head while clean­ing her room. The pro­duc­tion comes in for ku­dos for the Tri­ni twist-com­plete with steel­band, so­ca and chore­og­ra­phy. There are some fun­ny mo­ments; es­pe­cial­ly the Mad Hat­ter scene. Every­one is in a quandary as to which hat would fit? Al­i­son does por­tray be­ing lost quite con­vinc­ing­ly. Com­pared to Car­roll's ver­sion, she's nev­er spot­ted eat­ing cakes with cute mes­sages like Eat Me or gulp­ing po­tions in­di­cat­ing Drink Me. There­fore, she nev­er be­comes a dwarf or a gi­ant. Co-in­ci­den­tal­ly, a dwarf is one of Queen Reds' right hand men. Al­i­sion re­mains a pret­ty, pe­tite child. The au­di­ence can con­nect with ref­er­ences to the may­or who has his work cut out. Maybe, he works in Port-of-Spain. When Queen Reds puts in an ap­pear­ance, the oft-quot­ed "Off with their heads" is heard. In fact, two rebels were sent kick­ing and scream­ing to the guil­lo­tine. Queen Reds didn't care about so­cial me­dia con­nec­tions like Face­book.

Ef­fort to con­nect with chil­dren

There is a good ef­fort at au­di­ence in­te­gra­tion and con­nect­ing with the chil­dren. The pro­duc­tion is al­so a pass­port to get young chil­dren ex­cit­ed about read­ing the clas­sics like Lit­tle Mer­maid and Li­on King. On the flip side, the scenes in­volv­ing larg­er groups of peo­ple lack the "oomph" fac­tor. At times, it can be a bit con­fus­ing. The dance scenes like the Late Lord Kitch­en­er's Sug­ar Bum Bum and Ben­jai's I'm A Tri­ni are bet­ter. Ac­tors miss their cues and some­times steal the scenes from the pro­tag­o­nist who is blocked to be the main fo­cus of at­ten­tion. There is def­i­nite­ly the need for bet­ter enun­ci­a­tion.

Tri­ni twist

As the play un­folds, the slew of themes ex­plored are love, pa­tri­o­tism, tru­imph of good over evil, time, cir­cum­stance and ap­pear­ance ver­sus re­al­i­ty. The for­est serves as a back­drop. Along the way, Al­i­son meets cos­tumed char­ac­ters like Ibis (Cyan Jones) who sports an elon­gat­ed beak. Keron Leela (Cor­beaux) in black. Mouse's (Eli­jah Wil­son) tail morphs in­to a mi­cro­phone. She meets cheese-pro­duc­ing Cow. Straw hats are a sta­ple on any trop­i­cal is­land. There's even a steel­pan and a cater­pil­lar mi­nus his hookah. He's got yel­low legs. Decked in a pe­ri­od piece, Queen Reds list the "dread­ful steel­pan/ca­lyp­so and crick­et" as anath­e­ma. She prefers a game of golf. Gain­ing en­trance to the T par­ty, means sport­ing words like Toolum (a lo­cal del­i­ca­cy) on one's cos­tume. Both Won­der­land and Trin­bagoland boast a care­free lifestyle. Both adults and chil­dren will en­joy see­ing if Al­li­son's dream comes true.

About Won­der­land

It con­tin­ues from March 13 to March 18 at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA). Evening mati­nees be­gin at 7.30 pm and Dai­ly Spe­cial School Shows at 10 am. It is di­rect­ed and writ­ten by mul­ti­ple Cacique Award-win­ner Pene­lope Spencer, with dance chore­o­graphed by Lin­da Pol­lard-Lake. Mu­sic and sound de­sign by John H Smith, pho­tog­ra­phy by Calvin French Cos­tume De­sign by Sean Ed­wards and Light­ing by Ben­ty Lash­ley Tick­ets: 764-3835 or 480-2749