Playwright: Keely Haddad-Null and Laurence Bryan. At: Clock Productions with National Pastime Theatre, 4139 N. Broadway . Phone: 773-327-7077; $10-$25 . Runs through: May 30.
Lewis Carroll's novels Alice's Adventures in Wonderland ( 1865 ) and Through the Lookingglass ( 1871 ) were initially passed off as kid stuff. But adults would later mine darker undercurrents out of Carroll's weird characters and trippy situations. ( Just listen to Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit." )
One of the latest appropriations of Carroll's creations can be seen in Alice in the House of Carroll, a world-premiere collaboration between National Pastime Theater and Clock Productions. They're advertising this Alice take-off as definitely not for kids ( which is true ) and it, too, has its share of bizarre imagery ( particularly David Denman's self-destructing set ) .
But this Alice will probably disappoint Carroll fans since the Wonderland connections are far too oblique. For non-Carroll fans, this show with fitful bursts of violence will be a head-scratcher.
Playwrights Keely Haddad-Null and Laurence Bryan ( who also directs ) both seem hellbent on upending expectations, both with muddling up the source material and the staging. ( No curtain call on opening night left some audience members wondering if they would have to endure a third act. )
Here, Alice ( Claire Kander ) becomes a scrappy street urchin in 1871 Chicago, as reexamined by her respectably severe older self, named Carroll ( Therin Miller ) . It seems Alice's older sister, Grace ( Jennifer La Turner ) , wanted them both to become high-class ladies, even though she also worked as a prostitute.
Sometimes the character transformations are obvious. The White Rabbit becomes a tardy charity nun ( Noimi Finkelstein ) , while the Mad Hatter ( Shawn Goudie as Madison ) and his entourage of the March Hare ( Phil Canzano as Harrison ) and the Dormouse ( Arch Harmon as Dom ) become schizophrenic tramps.
Other connections are anyone's guess. The reminiscing mental case Toval ( Christopher K. McMorris ) could be the Mock Turtle, while Gretta ( Dawn Perry ) could be the Gryphon or the Duchess' cook. As to which Carroll character the butch fireman Francis is supposed to be is unclear, even though Mark Habert gives the funniest performance of the evening.
The clear-cut villain is the heiress Mary Heart ( Allison Black ) , who holds sway over Jospeh Adamczak, as the suave drug dealer Chesire ( although it was the Duchess who owned the cat in the Carroll original ) .
All the actors throw themselves into their roles both physically and emotionally. The fight moves by R&D Choreography do look painful, while the stage makeup of bruises and lacerations is impressive. ( Of note is the jugular stream of blood at the end of Act I. )
But Alice in the House of Carroll ultimately fails because Haddad-Null and Bryan's script is too ponderously artsy and deviant from the original novels. Carroll's fantastical characters just don't fit too comfortably into a 19th-century muckraking drama.