ALICE AT THE PALACE 1982

A MUSIC HALL BASED ON LEWIS CARROLL'S
ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND & THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS

I was never much of a fan of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. I didn't enjoy it when Disney made it into the sleep-inducing animated feature, Alice in Wonderland (1951), and I enjoyed it even less when I read it as one of those books one feels obliged to read during childhood; like Huckleberry Finn, Toby Tyler, Treasure Island, et al. (well, I have to admit I actually liked Treasure Island a great deal). No doubt the reason for this can be traced to the misguided, although not unreasonable, expectation on my part that Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was going to be a sweet, heartwarming fantasy along the lines of The Wizard of Oz. 

Upon reading it, however, I was more than a little shaken by just how far-from-wonder and how very close to nightmarish Carroll’s idea of a Wonderland turned out to be. In fact, what with Alice’s difficult-to-relate-to Victorian reserve; Carroll’s often confounding word riddles and flexible logic; and particularly John Tenniel’s unsettling-bordering-on-grotesque illustrations (think the original Broadway poster art for Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd); Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland proved itself a fitting exemplar of the contrary nature of Wonderland by managing somehow to be simultaneously soporific and horrific.

It was only many years later, when a college class brought about my having to revisit the book, did I ultimately come to appreciate the sophisticated wit and literary ingeniousness of Carroll’s Alice, her surreal fantasy world, and its eccentric inhabitants. Apparently my childhood frustration with the material stemmed from assuming the word "wonder" in Wonderland alluded to the word "wonderful"; not (as I should have known from personal experience) bewilderment and confusion..."curiouser and curiouser" indeed.

But appreciating a book still is a far cry from actually enjoying it.
Feeling as I did, small wonder (heh, heh) it took no less esteemed and idolized a personage than Meryl Streep to get me anywhere near Wonderland again.

Meryl Streep as Alice Pleasance Liddell (seven and a half, exactly)

First broadcast on NBC in January of 1982 under the network’s Project Peacock banner (a series of prime-time specials for children), Alice at the Palace is a pared-down, 90-minute adaptation of a theatrical piece Streep first starred in back in 1978. Then titled Wonderland in Concert, this original “concert drama” with book, music, and lyrics by Tony-nominee Elizabeth Swados (Runaways), started out as a bare-bones Joseph Papp / New York Shakespeare Festival workshop production. In 1980 it was revived Off-Broadway in slightly more expensively-mounted form as Alice in Concert, winning Streep a Best Actress Obie Award. This TV-movie adaptation draws from the 1980 production, utilizing much of the original cast and substituting the show’s otherwise bare stage and contemporary street clothes with a mid-19^th Century British Music Hall setting and sumptuously witty (and utilitarian) Victorian Era-inspired costumes by Theoni V. Aldredge (The Great Gatsby, The Eyes of Laura Mars, Annie). The era chosen being of particular significance, as Carroll's books, considered by many to be a sendup of Victorian rigidity, were written in 1865 - Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and 1871 -Through the Looking Glass.

The well-dressed ladies and gentlemen occupying the box at the Palace Theater
serve as the show's Greek Chorus 

The period-appropriate setting of London's Victoria Palace Theater is the combined playground/performance space wherein Alice's surreal adventures in Wonderland are presented, vaudeville revue-style, in an eclectic and eccentric collage of song, dance, mime, poetry, and comedy. The amusing conceit of having Alice (whose traditional pinafore has been replaced by a pink bib jumper) as the unwitting star of an absurdist Music Hall revue neatly allows Swados' musicale to retain its deliberate theatrical structure. Meanwhile, the burlesque of Victorian-era shock and outrage enacted by the well-dressed members of the theater gallery in response to the show's musical anachronisms and hurlyburly format, is delightfully in keeping with the madness vs. sanity / reason vs. improbability themes of Lewis Carroll's book(s).

While Streep’s Alice remains consistently herself throughout (as much as a little girl who keeps growing and shrinking can be called consistent), members of the talented and versatile ensemble cast whimsically interpret the numerous denizens of Wonderland in imaginatively-staged numbers and skits that stubbornly refuse to recognize the laws of probability and time. The Dormouse sings country-western; Bill the Lizard is part of a barbershop sextet; the Lobster Quadrille is introduced by a Vegas-style lounge singer; the Caterpillar interrogation is an Indian raga; the Duchess’ baby jazz scats, à la Ella Fitzgerald; and Alice herself evokes the spirit of the 60s by serenading the Queen with a folk song.

Strumming her flamingo croquet mallet like a guitar, Streep does a killer Joan Baez impersonation

Given the combined elements of my general antipathy toward the source material, justified aversion to children's theater, and child-of-the-60s-related oversaturation anxiety regarding experimental theater of any kind; all signs point to Alice at the Palace being just the type of strenuously quirky entertainment that would have me scanning the room for exits and plotting escape routes in my head. But, miracle of miracles, Alice at the Palace stays on the bonus side of that gossamer-thin veil that separates the giddy lunacy of say, a Richard Lester movie or Monty Python skit, from the makes-you-want-to-set-your-hair-on-fire noxious cuteness of a Godspell or episode of The Monkees.
Maybe because the whimsy never feels arbitrary (even the illogical have a logic), or maybe because the cast of New York theater actors is so good they never once leave you unclear of what they are doing and where they are headed; but all the elements work seamlessly concert and create an imaginative, child's-eye-view of Wonderland unlike any I've ever seen*

*(In reviewing Alice in Concert, critic John Simon made reference to similarities to a theater of the absurd production of Alice in Wonderland mounted by Andre Gregory [of My Dinner with Andre fame] in 1970 though his Manhattan Project theater company.)

Since I’ve always felt that Alice in Wonderland was less an actual story than a series of bizarre conjoined encounters, Alice at the Palace resonated with me from the start because it appeared at last, someone (in this instance, the show’s creator Elizabeth Swados and director Emile Ardolino of Dirty Dancing and Sister Act), had lit upon a mode of adapting Carroll’s disjointed children’s verse complimentary to the book’s episodic, anarchic structure. 

In spite of the boundless possibilities presented by special effects, film has a literal quality about it that imposes a realism that can prove problematic when dealing with a fantasy centered on conceptual thinking, wordplay, and modes of perception. 

Certainly a device as theatrical as having a then 31-year-old Meryl Streep portray a 7 ½ -year-old could never work in even the most CGI heavy film unless, as in the Tom Hanks film, Big (1988), the discrepancy is noted. (Imagine The Wiz with 33-year-old Diana Ross playing Dorothy as an actual child!).

The willing suspension of disbelief and casual acceptance of visible artifice that’s part of the live theater experience makes the stage-bound gimmicks of Alice at the Palace (at varying intervals the camera places us onstage, in the wings, or in the audience) feel like a visual extension of Wonderland’s twisted, “Who am I now?” perspective. Similarly, the traditional vaudeville ritual of raising the curtain or lowering the scrim to signal the shift from one unconnected variety act to another is a cunning contrivance that actually brings a kind of disjointed order to Alice’s otherwise anecdotic odyssey.

Alice  receives her first crown

But best of all, something about the particulars of this production - from concept to execution - seized my imagination and touched my heart in precisely the ways Carroll's books proved incapable. For the first time, Alice’s adventures struck me as ultimately very moving and comprised of more than just a series of poetically expressed academic postulates. The details and performance subtleties of Streep, who uncannily captures the restless fidgety energy of a child, brings to the forefront Alice’s inner journey. A journey that takes her from feckless child who looks out at the world through smugly assumptive eyes, to one who learns to look for the beauty in everything, big and small. She also learns that "fabulous monsters" come in all forms, whether they be unicorns, scary Jabberwocks, or beautiful Red Queens. 

Debbie Allen as The Red Queen
"You may think that I'm an ogre, I am just the queen-next-door.
I simply have an ax instead of a cup of sugar."

The racial inclusion of the cast of Alice at the Palace stands in stark and refreshing contrast to the bafflingly all-white cast of Streep's latest musical venture, Rob Marshall's otherwise excellent adaptation of Stephens Sondheim's Into The Woods (2014). There's something Wonderlandish in the inherent contradiction of devotees of fairy tales and fantasy not having minds expansive enough to embrace inclusiveness.

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS FILM

I saw Alice at the Palace when it aired back in ’82, and for the longest time the only version I had was the fuzzy VHS copy I made (complete with James Garner, Mariette Hartley Polaroid commercials) that eventually warped and broke from overplaying. Seriously, I just fell in love with this show. I’ve seen it so often I know the score by heart. Anyhow, it was finally released on DVD in 2002, and while no manner of digital magic can remove that murky, low-tech, 80s-music-video look, it’s been nothing sort of great revisiting this show and enjoying a singing and dancing Meryl Streep two decades before she became the go-to diva of movie musicals.

The Mad Tea Party
Meryl Streep as Alice, Richard Cox (Cruising) as the Hatter, Michael Jeter (Picket Fences) as the Dormouse, and Mark Linn-Baker as the March Hare

If I've given the impression so far that Alice at the Palace as one of those sure-fire entertainments ranking among the most accessible of crowd-pleasers from Walt Disney or Rodgers & Hammerstein, let me correct that. Alice at the Palace is quite the opposite of a crowd-pleaser. In fact, it’s something of a hard sell.

As much as I’m blown away by Streep’s genius, the charm of the supporting cast, the cleverness of the music, and the poetic sweetness of the show itself (OK, it’s long been established that I’m a major softie, but the ending still moves me to waterworks after all these years); a good many people find the show singularly resistible. For years I've tried to get friends to watch it with me, but not a single person (including my partner whose tastes are similar to my own to the point of comedy) has been able to make it past more than the first half-hour.

Betty Aberlin (Lady Aberlin of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood)
vamps the Mock Turtle (Mark Linn-Baker) in full lounge singer mode. She also appears as Alice's sister, Edith. 

I don’t believe this has anything to do with it being too esoteric or impenetrable, it’s merely that such a non-traditional approach to such familiar material is bound not to be everyone’s Mad Tea Party. The droll and often lovely songs, incorporating a great deal of Lewis Carroll’s text, are not what you’d call hummable; the choreography by Graciela Daniele (The Pirates of Penzance, Everyone Says I Love You) is mostly of the “movement for non-dancers” stripe; and the avant-garde characterizations are apt to strike some as precious.

But, speaking entirely for myself and my own taste, one of the reasons Alice at the Palace is such a delight for me (and why I think so many other adaptations of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland have failed) is because an absurdist, nonsensical book cries out for an absurdist, nonsensical interpretation. Not the affected, eccentricity-without-substance of Tim Burton’s Alice, but a lopsided logic in tune with that of the book. Alice at the Palace makes Lewis Carroll's words and characters soar off the page and come to life.

Get the feeling they weren't really trying too hard with this TV Guide ad?
                                                                             via simplystreep.com

PERFORMANCES

There’s no getting past the fact that the miracle that is Meryl Streep is Alice at the Palace’s most valuable player. As excellent as the show and everyone else in the cast is, I can’t imagine it without her. At the time of this broadcast, Streep was just hitting her stride as a major star. She’d already won her first Emmy (Holocaust), first Oscar (Kramer vs Kramer), and two Golden Globes (Kramer vs Kramer and The French Lieutenant’s Woman). Indeed, a sure indicator of the scope of her success was the groundswell of critical and public backlash that began to build around this time. The complaint was that she was too technical, too serious, and too fond of accents.

Mark Linn-Baker is a standout in the multiple roles of White Rabbit, March Hare, Mock Turtle, and here, the White Knight.
Four years later he would find television success as the star of the sitcom Perfect Strangers

Meryl Streep was not only a serious actress, she was a HEAVY serious actress. No one went to a Meryl Streep movie expecting a good time. She was solid, she was thoughtful, and she was deep. And in every film you knew she was going to cry at least once...or twice...OK, a lot. I don’t know what the press reaction to Alice at the Palace when it aired, but as a Streep fan who saw her for the first time in The Seduction of Joe Tynan (1979) and instantly fell in love, my reaction must have been on par with those 30s audiences who saw Garbo laugh in Ninotchka.

Those who only know Streep post-Mamma Mia have absolutely no idea what a shock it was to find out this deathly serious actress could be so funny! Silly, in fact...and she could sing, too! Hers is an animated, committed performance of near-constant surprises. She's extraordinary and a great deal of fun to watch (no surprise there). However, when taking in her loose, very physical performance, it helps to keep in mind she's playing a 7 ½ -year-old. You forget that and you're likely to think Streep has been taking a few hits off the Caterpillar's hookah.

Who Are You?
Alice meets the Caterpillar 

THE STUFF OF FANTASY

Fan of musicals and fantasy that I am, these are a few of my favorite numbers:

The Queens' Examination/Alice's Dinner Party

Goodbye Feet
An ever-growing Alice has to bid her tootsies adieu

The Red Queen (Off With Their Heads)
Debbie Allen is electric as the temperamental queen.
The first episode of  her TV show, Fame, had aired just a week before.

What There Is
This beautiful duet by Streep and the remarkable Rodney Hudson is based on a poem by David Patchen. It's perhaps my favorite number in the entire show (cue the waterworks).

THE STUFF OF DREAMS
My enjoyment of Alice at the Palace inspired me to reread both Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, and I've since come to have grown very fond of them both.

Queen Alice
Having grown from her adventures, Alice receives her second crown with more serenity 

The books feel somehow enriched by what I've gleaned from Elizabeth Swados' production, while my heightened awareness of the poetry in Carroll's words, the tenderness behind the intellect, the lessons in the parables, makes viewing the TV movie an even more rewarding experience than when first I discovered it so many years ago.

So, in effect, the opening sentence of this post is something of a misdirection and isn't really what it seems. Curious, that. 

A-l-i-c-e  P-l-e-a-s-a-n-c-e  L-i-d-d-e-l-l

L - LIFE WHAT IS IT BUT A
L - LIFE WHAT IS IT BUT A 
L - LIFE, WHAT IS IT BUT A DREAM?

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