Alice at the Palace

This goes back to 1982 and is a theatrical presentation of the story. It was first broadcast on television in 1982.

Titles.

Things are being done on a stage since it's a play. What is annoying is that someone is singing at the same time someone is narrating.

Meryl Streep is playing the part of Alice. Now, I have seen a lot of film versions of Alice in Wonderland. Most of them featured a girl who was probably in the range of ten to maybe fourteen years of age, with a few being a little older than that. What I can't figure is why the play is being done with someone who is quite obviously a full-grown adult. Also, the front of the DVD seems to show that at least some of the characters will be using absolute minimum costuming.

Understand, I'm writing the review as I am going along watching it, but at the moment I'm having some severe doubts about this production.

She meets the rabbit and falls down the rabbit hole, accompanied by music and singing, but at the same time there is more narration. It makes things confusing.

Alice gets to the bottom of the hole and ends up on a stage with various people laughing at her.

There is a bottle labeled drink me dangling in front of her. The woman on the left is supposed to be her mother, telling her not to drink the stuff, and the individuals on the right are trying to get her to drink it.

She finally takes a sip from the bottle which is an excuse for another round of supposed singing and dancing around while Alice has what appears to be some form of seizure or it's a kind of dancing I was not previously familiar with.

All this and I'm not even six minutes into the play. This is so bad that I'll not put up any more images or comments unless I feel it's really necessary. I just want to get through the rest of this version.

Just when I thought things couldn't get any worse they've found a way to manage just that. The caterpillar scene has the people sitting in a line in front of the insect saying, or chanting, who are you over and over to the point where one wishes for some ultra-powerful, quick acting bug spray. The caterpillar is supposed to be singing; notice the term 'supposed.' One good thing; at least I'm up to 13 minutes finished.

Then, to make sure that there is no attempt at all to follow the story line, Alice gets into singing 'Beautiful Soup.' Granted, she has a good voice; but the song belongs to the Mock Turtle who isn't supposed to appear for ages. (They also left out the sea of tears section and the entire caucus race section but, with the way things are going, who knows if they'll appear way later.)

The Red Queen looks like she's stepped out of a bordello in an old Western town. Her dance is sort of risque.

Finally a part that's cute. Meryl Streep uses the flamingo as a guitar and imitates Joan Baez singing. Unfortunately it's a very short scene.

Finally, the end. So, what did I like about the production? Well, Meryl Streep has a beautiful voice, and the black actor that played the part of the unicorn and the Cheshire Cat was very good in his roles. Outside of that, the thing seemed to have been concocted by people who had too much of the caterpillar's warped mushrooms or something just as bad.

Maybe this is something that only the 'culturally elite' can appreciate.

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