Alice In Wonderland

Alice In Wonderland
Music: various. Ballet by Francois Klaus. Queensland Ballet. Playhouse, QPAC. March 13 – April 14, 2012

A full-house of almost entirely young mothers and their daughters loved Queensland Ballet’s production of Alice In Wonderland.

They bubbled with anticipation when the White Rabbit entered on a skateboard, they gasped when Humpty Dumpty fell off the wall and they giggled when his broken eggshell appeared on a stretcher.

Richard Jeziorny’s sets and costumes were colorful and eccentric with the work performed to a recorded mish-mash of music that included “Alexander’s Ragtime Band,” “Come Back To Sorrento,” and pieces by Britten, Satie and Shostakovich.

The effect was not unlike that of a circus with each of Lewis Carroll’s nonsense characters as the acts. Choreographically the ballet did not extend the company, but they performed what they had to do with enormous skill.

Teri Crilly was a popular and perky White Rabbitt, Iona Maques an imperious Queen of Hearts, with Katherine Rooke wonderfully bad-tempered as the Duchess.

Was it good ballet? No.

Was it good theatre? Yes, because it entertained and completely satisfied its targeted audience.

Peter Pinne

 

Images: (above) Robert McMillan and Rian Thompson with Bianca Scudamore; (right) Dancers Kathleen Doody and Gareth Belling and (below) the company in Queensland Ballet's Alice in Wonderland. Photographer: Ken Sparrow.

 

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