Take the red pill.
Do yourself a favour and take the red pill.
Don't go back to a life of mundanity, empty of wonder. Empty of Alice. Go down the rabbit hole at Theatre North West and get to know this girl of backbone and character and curiosity.
Alice is the kind of girl who could use a friendly companion down there in the scary world she fell into. She's alone, trying to get home, faced with strange places and strange strangers. It sounds a lot like most people at that age, and some of us at older ages too.
And no matter what your age, you'll find yourself walking closer and closer with our hero as her journey goes on across croquet pitches of danger and chess boards of risk.
It does take a little while for Alice to realize the dedication it will take to get out of her warped world and back to tangible reality, and it takes the audience awhile to buy a ticket on that train of thought as well.
As the script is written, the language of Lewis Carroll's 19th century England is largely intact, and it isn't an easy diction to link with. Just like the Dickens version of A Christmas Carol has shrinking and shrinking resonance, this story bumps annoyingly against the modern ear. But you get the hang of it, and most importantly, it isn't the ear on which this play relies.
Alice's Adventures In Wonderland was staggeringly popular upon its release in 1865 because it set afire the theatre of the mind.
Its settings and scenarios were vivid, and the surreal nature of it allowed each reader the chance to tailor make their own personal Wonderland. That's why the only movie versions of Alice to ever catch the public's attention were cartoons (Disney) or mega-budget CGI projects (Tim Burton).
It is even more difficult to make surreality a believable tool when the medium is live theatre. Little is more tactile and naked than a stage. The people are real, the furniture is real, the floors are real, and most importantly, the laws of gravity and physics are real.
But people love to be tricked. Theatre exists as a profession based on the audience's eager willingness to be artfully fooled.
At Theatre North West, how is it - no, really, how the heck did that happen? - that Alice was standing at the bottom of the stage one moment and then with little more than a flicker of lights and calling of a few words, suddenly be having tea at the top of the stage?
How?
And I do mean the top of the stage. In all my years watching plays, performing in plays, reading scripts, hearing actors regale their histories on the boards, never have I seen such a steep pitch on which the action actually occurs.
The mechanics, the paint effects, the lighting, the lumber all rise like a crescendo. Director Jack Grinhaus uses the floor all the way to the ceiling and, unexpectedly and thrillingly, all the planes and angles in between.
He has also assembled an equally angular and architecturally stunning cast. No one is what you'd expect, which only draws us all into the story all the more.
Sharmila Dey as Alice is clearly one of Canada's new generation leaders in the field of acting. She holds Alice like a hand of poker, playing cards like fear and exhilaration and wonderment and concern with seamless strategy. We get the sense in the audience that we want to help her, that we have her back, but she probably doesn't need us at all. She's got this.
Azeem Nathoo knows how to exude his own power as the Queen of Hearts but not take any other actors' power away in their own portrayals. He roars without raising his voice. He is a carnival ride with a heartbeat.
Other performers stand out because they spark our imaginations.
Roy Lewis plays a few roles, all of them delicious, all of them vital.
Benjamin Blais also spreads talent across a number of characters, each one zany but distinct.
The Cheshire Cat character isn't one actor but two, plus their four hands. It's a macabre puppet show that puts you a step or two back.
It creates an effect that has physical feelings to it and a dollop of fixation.
Like Alice, we are often caught staring and blinking incredulously and wondering how the things in front of our eyes are real and in the room, but without enough time to process it before the next phase of the dream billows in. I sat in the company of many adults, a 13-year-old, a nine-year-old and a four-year-old. Everyone was grinning and chattering at the conclusion.
It might even be worth it to some to come back and watch again later in the run to get another shot at understanding some of what went on. Was it all just a delirious fantasy? Were we actually kidnapped to a sideways world? Is it the most elemental of real life staring at us from behind a mask? The answer, of course, is yes, if you take the red pill and consent to change the shape of your mind at Theatre North West.
