WEST VALLEY – West Valley Arts is keeping up the strong work with their latest production, Alice By Heart, inspired by Lewis Carroll’s novel, Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland. Directed by Brooklyn Pulver Kohler with book by Steven Sater and Jessie Nelson, music by Duncan Sheik and Lyrics by Steven Sater, Alice By Heart is not your typical musical.
Editor’s note: Production photos and header will be added when they are received.
Not knowing much about the production, other than it was somehow tied to Alice in Wonderland, I was a bit surprised to find a bleak and sparse set (by Morgan Golightly) upon entering the theatre. The top of a tunnel is suspended above, railroad tracks run across the stage between entryways arched in cement, each topped by a clock. Scattered about the stage are army cots, crates and trunks. No music plays and an eerie lighting effect (by Renee Fowler) creates a jagged, imprisoned feeling. The program offers a thorough plot synopsis however, explaining what is about to ensue. Set in 1941 in the wake of the London Blitz in an underground tube station turned bomb shelter, Alice Spencer, played by Ivy Dunbar Jones, is confined to the bunker with her best friend Alfred, played by Charlie Baytieh, who is suffering a terminal illness. Alice escapes their stark reality through her book, Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland, reading to dying best friend Alfred. When a cruel nurse destroys her book, Alice is determined to prove she knows the story by heart. As she begins to tell it, the fellow shelter-mates become the cast of characters, turning the shelter and its sparse furnishings into a magical wonderland…