EVERETT – Is life just a succession of birthdays? Is that all there is?
For an increasingly frazzled, scattered Alison Fowler (Kathy Newman), smack dab in the midst of a mid-life crisis, the world is not defined in her own terms. She’s mother to a narcissistic, ungrateful teenage daughter who only seems to need her for cash hand-outs; wife of an emotionally absent, insensitive husband who thinks only of time, money and his PDA; and grown daughter of critical parents – especially her mother – whom she can never seem to please, and who are leaving the country, selling the house in which she grew up, with hopes the change will heal their bickering-infested marriage.
As the central character in Patricia Haines-Ainsworth’s wry comedy, “Alison in Wonderland,” the anxious Alison Fowler has lost sight of who she is. It will take a bit of going round the bend with some characters straight out of Lewis Carroll’s Wonderland for her to reclaim some autonomy in her life.
Haines-Ainsworth’s script is delightfully witty and refreshingly literate, with plenty of apt allusions to Lewis Carroll. Director Eric Lewis has a nice touch with its comedy as well as Alison’s crisis.
While Alison is modern and Alice was Victorian, the two are alike in that they are the only characters in their respective tales to bridge the gap between two worlds – the real and the fantastic. (For Alison, the real world is, like Wonderland, increasingly fractured anyway).
The other actors in this play all play two roles – one in the mundane realm, and one through the looking glass, where they take their place at the tea party, and try desperately to placate the Queen of Hearts. The cast includes Asa Sholdez as the cable repair man Jerry and the Mad Hatter; Tom Cook as David Carr at the employment agency and the Duchess; Wendy Enden as cooking show host Silvi Young and the Cheshire cat; Carol Bee as Auntie Nell and the Caterpillar; Dennis “Dutch” Heetbrink as William Fowler and the White Rabbit; Hailie Leonard as Kaylin Fowler and the Dormouse; Eric Lewis as Keegan Camp and the King of Hearts; and Marianne Legg as Phyllis Camp and the Queen of Hearts.
Back home, one of the few nurturing relationships Alison has is with her demented Auntie Nell. They share a certain confused state, even if it stems from different causes. “Who are you?” asks the demented aunt. “I don’t know,” is Alison’s metaphysical response. Yet her visits with Nell also lead her to ponder life’s futility, asking, “Do we all wind up in a bed with random memories popping into our head like ping-pong balls in a bingo machine?”
One funny scene has Alison’s ordinary social intercourse with the cable repair guy blending into red-light fantasies about him, and then back into the straight-laced realm again.
After intermission, the show descends into the inspired madness of Wonderland. Alison runs after the White Rabbit, much like she paced after her husband, trying to get the unfeeling creature to be concerned over the welfare of the weeping Dormouse. Soon she meets a punk rock version of the Mad Hatter. “I get it,” she tells him. “You’re one of those store-front psychoanalysts.”
Then Aunt Nell, decked out in psychedelic splendor as the free-spirited Caterpillar, tells Alison, “There’s no future here, just simple existence. Life isn’t about what’s at the beginning or end of the road, it’s about the walking.”
The Queen of Hearts, just as frosty and imperious as Alison’s mom, puts Alison on trial for eating the last tart. When Alison is made to testify against herself, she confronts the queen. “I have a right to be here too, and not to be criticized all the time,” she insists.
The queen urges Alison to take her place, wear the crown. “You could make all the rules you want, but you’re afraid,” says the queen. Alison begins to see that if she wants to get “unstuck,” she must show courage, don the crown, and graciously take charge of her life.
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