Alice In Wonderland Adaptations?

[gabrieljwickedone]

Posted: 1/22/14 at 9:11pm

Hello all!

My repertory theatre class has chosen "Alice In Wonderland" as their full length play for this semester. i was wondering which version was the best to go with?

Is there a version that isn't terribly childish available anywhere?

We have 19 students in the class.

Thanks for any help or suggestions.

[darquegk]

Posted: 1/22/14 at 10:47pm

Yes. You're going to want the Eva LeGalienne and Florida Friebus adaptation. It contains a theatrically condensed adaptation of both books in two acts, and it has an optional score (albeit a quasi-operatic one) set to the book's poetry where it appears. The dialogue throughout is taken entirely from the novels.

[Rinaldo]

Posted: 1/22/14 at 11:43pm

Yes, that's the one. All three Broadway productions used this adaptation, and it remains true to Carroll throughout. The Samuel French edition also contains helpful advice about production and design (including keys to the Tenniel illustrations as models for your designs). If you look in IBDB, you can see that all 3 productions involved some notable names (Kate Burton was the most recent Alice).

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 1/23/14 at 1:03am

What about the two bizarre Broadway Alice musicals? One was a disco musical and perhaps never made it to Broadway--the massive mirror later was used at Studio 54. And then there's the one tat Meryl Streep did a TV version of...

[After Eight]

Posted: 1/23/14 at 2:44am

"What about the two bizarre Broadway Alice musicals?"

The musical Alice closed out of town. But Never Jam Today and Wonderland both opened on Broadway and closed soon thereafter.

I saw the most recent Broadway revival of Alice in Wonderland, which was was long ahd lifeless. It ran 21 performances.

Alice doesn't seem to have been well served by stage adaptations, which is too bad.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 1/23/14 at 3:45am

They had great success with them in England in the 1880s/90s. Of course I'm sure those wouldn't go over now, but Carroll even added extra verses to some poems (like the Lobster Quadrille) to the final revision of Alice in 1896 based on the added verses he wrote for the operetta, as it was classified.

I completely forgot about Wonderland...

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 1/23/14 at 9:50am

If you are looking for an adaptation of the book that is faithful but more experimental / ensemble driven and that requires almost no production values, you might also check out the script (also licensed through Sam French) created by the theater company The Manhattan Project under Andre Gregory. The production was considered landmark when it was developed in the 1970s. It might feel a little more contemporary than the Florida Freibus adaptation which was written in 1916.

Here is a link to a website detailing an over view of the major stage adaptations of ALICE over the past 100 years.

http://www.carleton.edu/departments/ENGL/Alice/MediaTheater.html





Updated On: 1/23/14 at 09:50 AM

[trentsketch]

Posted: 1/23/14 at 10:24am

Alice in Concert (the Meryl Streep show mentioned above, filmed as Alice at the Palace) is really good. It's also ridiculously hard. Almost every song has harmony or counter melodies/overlapping verses going on. Everyone needs to be a good singer to pull it off.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 1/23/14 at 12:50pm

DOes anyone know anything about Christopher Hampton's adaptation using the original manuscript title, Alice's Adventures Underground? Apparently Martha Clarke directed it...