the bird on fire

By Leo Milmet, Theatre Critic*

Grade: B

I don’t know what to think about the Palm Valley Middle School Drama Department’s production of Alice in Wonderland, Jr. If the play’s brilliant directors, Mr. Craig Gahnz, Ms. Kim Phillips, and the legendary Mr. Ken Sarkis, had shown me the script (without any of the great lines added by Mr. Sarkis), I would have politely asked if the person who wrote the script had seen a play before. Alice in Wonderland, Jr., as a script, is a mess.

I had seen half of the play already and wasn’t much of a fan of the writing, so I went in the theatre with the review half-written in my head. But, after seeing the whole show, I no longer thought of writing scathing comments about the show (aside from the writing). Mr. Sarkis, Mr. Gahnz, and Ms. Phillips are amazing. They have taken a simplistic script and mostly mediocre musical score and somehow, someway, turned these elements into a decent production. How? To start with, the choreography is excellent. Ms. Phillips has a true artist’s eye for dance, and here she has created some of her most spectacularly choreographed numbers. Her big, showy numbers work as pure energy and spectacle, further enhanced by the students’ real love of theatre. The staging even manages to ground the nonsensical plot.

The play was also technically brilliant. The sets, lighting, costumes, hair, and makeup are aesthetically pleasing. When I walked into the theatre, I saw the majestic black-and-white of the whole stage, and when all of the colorful costumes, hair, and makeup (all incredibly designed, by the way) appear, the juxtaposition feels like…well, it feels like Wonderland. The lighting is also visually pleasing which includes some brilliant glow-in-the-dark moments. However, maybe more could’ve been done to vary and accentuate the lighting to truly make the audience feel like they were in a crazy Wonderland.

The play’s middle-school cast does the job well, and many of its members do it exceptionally well. Kaiya Treash, Mia Alexander, and Kanan Levy make for amazing Alice’s. They’re the only actors in the cast tasked with playing a character that is even a little more than just a silly caricature, and they do it well. I got a genuine sense of Alice’s childlike giddiness and naiveté. Also notable are Carter Keenan as the hilarious and adorable King of Hearts, and Henry Swenning, whose Mad Hatter kept me entertained whenever he was on stage. However, some small aspects of the production were just a tiny bit unpolished–some stumbles could have been smoothed out, but no matter — the actors are quite talented, and their energy is through the roof. In fact, the pure theatrical energy of the cast is what saves this show from mediocrity, almost as much as the directing of the actors.

The play is very “Sarkissian.” The second act of Alice in Wonderland, Jr. returned to the beautiful wonkiness of Mr. Sarkis’s self-written plays such as Home Sweet Homer and Shakespeare at Starlucks. The spectacular show-stopper in the beginning of the second act that I’m not likely to forget anytime soon, “Zip-a-dee-doo-dah,” was a nostalgic blend of new-age spectacle and a true Sarkis production.

My one major complaint is that I wish the cast had gotten more of a chance to play legitimately challenging roles. With the play’s length being around an hour and a half (including intermission), only a few people even get to have the experience of becoming a character. Every character (maybe even Alice) is a caricature, and not much can be done about it. The issue stems from the choice of material which, I’m afraid, is the major weak point. These “Jr.” shows that the directors get from Music Theater International such as Into The Woods, Jr. and Alice In Wonderland, Jr. are, in my experience, short, terribly written, spectacle-based musicals. But this one also lacks good roles for the actors which is why I cannot understand why this play was chosen. This play does not befit these great middle-school actors, and it certainly does not befit the play’s three brilliant directors.

So, what is my overall recommendation? I give this musical a definite thumbs-up, with the writing and lack of good roles being my only reservations. The play is entertaining; it’s short, and I think most people liked it even more than myself. Regardless of the flaws, I cannot overstate the great combination of the amazing energy of the cast and the definite skill of the directors. So, I hope you saw it, especially if you have small kids. You probably had a wonderful time.

Editor: Brennan Nick

*The views of critic Milmet are his own and don’t represent the views of thebirdonfire.org as an institution.