Alice in Wonderland

Ben participated in his second play today.  I mentioned in my post  for the Arsenic and Old Lace production that he had said the class would next tackle comedy sketches like Saturday Night Live or Studio C.  Turns out that what his drama teacher decided on instead was a modern version of Alice in Wonderland.  I say “modern” in the sense that the dialogue had references to modern day things.  In the beginning of the play, Alice is on a cellphone talking to a friend when the White Rabbit appears.  There was a reference to the movie The Matrix and references of Alice “Googling” things.  I guess this was to bring the dialogue a bit more into the 21st century.  The references weren’t overwhelming and the dialogue did seem more modern in other ways.  I was fine with that change.

The way this particular play was presented was different.  Instead of having the actors on a stage as before, the gymnasium was set up in a maze-like fashion that allowed the audience to move from scene to scene with Alice.  One of the reasons this was done was to give more people the opportunity to act.  Ben was the Mad Hatter in the tea party scene, but Ryan Thomas was the Mad Hatter in the trial scene at the end of the play.  There were 3 Alices, 2 White Rabbits, and several other characters that were played by at least two different people.  It was a clever way to try and involve everyone in the class, but leading up to the actual performance, Ben was a bit skeptical as to whether the concept would work or not (Jennifer, our resident thespian, also wondered how the group would be able to pull it off without any major problems).  For the most part, I think the production turned out pretty good and both Ben and Jen were pleasantly surprised at how the idea worked for the most part,

The two constructive criticisms I have are 1) the one drawback to having the scenes wind around fairly close together was that the dialogue from one scene sometimes became distracting to other scenes.  Ours was the second group of the night to go through Wonderland.  At one point, while with Humpty-Dumpty, I could hear the Mad Tea Party lines wafting over the partition which made it a bit difficult to hear our scene.  I don’t know how that could be remedied other than to spread the maze out a little bit more to keep the scenes for overlapping, but that would have meant more paper and materials used for the partitions.  This also leads me to criticism 2) some of the actors didn’t project very well.  I guess if they had all been projecting well, then the cacophony of voices would have been more difficult to cut through, but, there were lines that I completely missed because of actors using their inside voices when they should have been talking at least a little louder. J  During our time spent with the flowers, for instance, the only lines of dialogue I heard were Alice’s.  I could hardly hear the young ladies playing the flowers and I was straining to listen.  The other problem was with people who were wearing head gear.  I had a hard time hearing the Door Mouse because of the mouse head he was wearing.

Other than these details, however, I had an enjoyable time.  Our Alice was Alana Shutter.  She played Dr. Einstein in Arsenic and Old Lace.  From what I understand, her being our Alice was planned.  Since the first play, she and Ben have become … friends.  I’m trying to do a typing tap dance here because I want to convey what has happened, but keep it in the realm that Ben has expressed to me.  What I mean by friends is that they both plan to go on missions and do not want to have a romance holding them back.  As such, they are refraining from calling themselves boyfriend and girlfriend, but they do have a … fondness for each other (hmm, I think I’m doing okay so far J).  They will be going to the prom together in a few weeks (she asked him, but he had been planning to ask her—go figure).  Anyway, she was our Alice and she did a very good job with her lines and her character.  Afterward she introduced herself to me because she didn’t think we’d been formally introduced to each other.  This caught me completely off-guard and, I will admit, flustered me to the point of talking nonsense (I suppose, in my defense, I could claim I was channeling Lewis Carroll ... probably not J).  When she thrust out her hand and said, “Hi, I’m Alana,” all I could stammer was, “I’m Chris … Brother Metcalfe … his dad [pointing in the direction of Ben].”  Yep, that’s me; articulate and sophisticated to the last.  Yeesh!  Oh, well, such is life. ☺

As I mentioned above, Ben was the Mad Hatter for the mad tea party scene.  The drama class had been putting on this play throughout the day for the high school students (Ben said they ran through it about 10 times during the school day).  As the afternoon progressed, he and the guy who played the March Hare started coming up with different actions to do during the scene in order to keep it fresh.  For us, they decided to switch hats with each other constantly throughout the scene (there were three available).  It was quite clever and they did it with such ease that I thought it was something they had been doing throughout their practices and performances until Ben told me otherwise afterword.  Ben did a very good job of conveying the Hatter’s … eccentricities, shall I say?  At one point, he stood up on a chair to say some of his lines (he swayed a bit at first and I couldn’t tell if that was part of the act or if he was trying to catch his balance—luckily I didn’t have to intervene J).  After watching him in both of these productions, I think Ben has a talent for acting—I guess it comes naturally with a mother who has a theater degree and a dad who acted in a few high school musicals.  However, I’m grateful that he considers it a hobby rather than a desired profession. J

We didn’t have our video camera with us and the lights were kept low in the gym, so I’m not sure if I would have been able to get any good shots during the performance.  I had to leave right after the play was completed to attend the weekly meeting with the missionaries, but as you can see, Jennifer was able to get some pictures of the cast when the final performance was completed.  It’s been fun watching Ben participate in these productions.  This was another reminder to me of how far he has come over the course of the school year.