Mic Moroney 

Upon reflection

Alice Through the Looking Glass Peacock Theatre, Dublin ****
  
  


Lewis Carroll's Alice tales have been adapted to death, but here the Sligo-based physical theatre troupe Blue Raincoats have created a weirdly affecting 90-minute piece, which is running in rep with their earlier Adventures in Wonderland.

There is some initial awkwardness with the narrative-laden text of Jocelyn Clarke's adaptation, a lot of it shouldered by Alice (played by Fiona McGeown). The reliance on narrative sometimes impedes the visual flow of a low-lit production that offers many beautiful images. There are some clever tricks: the cast spilling from three gargantuan suitcases; the head-out-of-a-box shorthand for Humpty Dumpty; the dream-continuity between the railway carriage, the baa-ing wool shop and Dodgson's poem of gliding with Alice down the river.

McGeown's Alice is an imperious little madam, resisting the conundrums of the Looking Glass creatures; under Niall Henry's direction, she nicely registers the fear of not being real. Doubling as the Knight - teetering stiffly astride a wooden horse - David Heap plays a pained, slightly sinister Dodgson, a complex, cold presence, but scarcely suggesting the awful ghoul of paedophilia. The mystery is sharpened by Alice's bewilderment as Mrs Hargreaves in later life, puzzling over a letter asking for permission to publish the story created in her name.

There is something of Morton Cohen's recent biography here, if not quite the latter's thesis that Alice's adventures represent Dodgson's own journey in indulging, repressing and transcending his unmentionable desires. But the company maintains the wistful innocence of the books, adding some real emotion and wise little puffs of humour.

In rep until August 12. Box office: 00-353-1-8787222.

 

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