Down the Rabbithole

Postcard Review by Caroline Russell-King

Show – Down the Rabbithole

Playwright – Sya Sen

Production Company/Theatre space – Sundog Storytellers, The Calgary Fringe Festival, 1308 Theatre.

Length – 1 Act (45 minutes including preshow chat, no intermission.)

Genre – Drama

Premise – A young woman (who has been clubbing? drinking? taking drugs?) has a dream based on Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland.

Why this play? Why now? – The play is about the reeducation of Alice who changes her views of personal responsibility, her language and her attitudes to animals/people who act differently than she expects them to, which gets her into some sort of legal trouble. Self-reflection and having one’s actions and flaws called out is a popular theme right now.

Curiosities – Were the rights secured for the song? How did this playwright and Sundog Storytellers end up getting three shows in one festival? While casting no aspersions, it was this play that made me wonder if playwrights are asked to disclose if scripts are written with AI?

Notable Moment – The bizarre choice of an American Idol audition-like song sung by a man (not in the cast) with his accompanist after the curtain call made it awkward for the audience to know if this is incidental post show music or somehow part of the script. The song was Creep by Radiohead and aptly the lyric is “what the hell am I doing here? I don’t belong here”.

Notable writing – Starting with Caroll’s own adaptation in 1886, there are about 30 accepted standard stage versions of Alice in Wonderland, hundreds of other variations for community stage, over 50 adaptations for movies and TV, and an unknown number of international variations. What made this better than all of those? This idea had potential; it wasn’t realized.

Notable performances – Overall the performers stayed in character and there were only a few moments of uncertainty.

Notable design/Production – The design elements worked aesthetically if not practically.

Notable direction – In the beginning, three performers enter and exit from off stage but later sit thinking, talking in dumbshow, and playing cards down stage left and right causing split tri-focus. The set changes are clunky but not as clunky as the director’s preshow chat. 

One reason to see this show – It might make you think about your life choices; I thought about mine.