Alice By Heart

Infectious joy, passion and energy exudes from university student theatre groups, and MUSE, the student musical theatre club at Sydney University, is no exception. Their latest offering is new to Sydney - Alice by Heart, very different musical spin on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland from the creators of Spring Awakening.

Alice and her friend Alfred are amongst a group of people sheltering in a London Underground station during the WWII Blitz. Dying of tuberculosis, Alfred is meant to be in isolation, but despite this Alice decides to read her favourite book, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, to him, raising the ire of the Nurse, who scolds her and tears pages from the book. That’s no problem for Alice anyway, who knows the book by heart. Soon the occupants of the air raid shelter transform into favourite characters from the Lewis Carroll novel, inhabiting Alice’s variation of the original, where her friend is re-incarnated as the White Rabbit.

Originally a Royal National Theatre commission, performed in London in 2012, further UK youth productions of Alice by Heart were followed by US regional workshops before a relatively brief Off-Broadway run in 2019. Although Alice by Heart hasn’t had a professional outing here, it is attracting interest from community theatres, maybe because it was written by the Spring Awakening team, while its score has become familiar to local musical theatre fans thanks to a cast recording. This MUSE production is the NSW Premiere, while Fab Nobs in Victoria staged the Australian premiere in April, and at least one tertiary acting school has picked it up as a showcase.

Alice is an epic, pivotal role, given an assured portrayal by Megan Robinson. There’s a mix of feistiness, intensity, vulnerability in her performance. While Daniel Mark Wakefield’s Alfred is prone and ill in the world of the Tube station, he’s transformed into the White Rabbit in Alice’s reconstruction of Wonderland, finding the melancholy of Alfred, who clearly and determinedly eventually wants to return to his own world and die, rather than live in Alice’s construct.

A criticism of the show’s book is that the characters in the 1941 Blitz world of the play are sketchily drawn, with the parallels between the play’s two worlds not all that effective. I’d mostly agree, in that on the whole they’re little more than a frame for the concept of the musical. Probably the two most effectively drawn 1941 characters outside Alice are the Nurse (Keelagh Walker) and the Doctor (Max Fernandez), because of their precise professional roles in that frame. Hence their transformations to the Queen and King of Hearts provide the strongest contrasts. Keelagh’s stern, 1941 nurse perhaps fits the expected stereotype of Lewis Carroll’s Queen of Hearts a little more than her strong, though not particularly bloodthirsty queen. Max Fernandez’s doctor is an assured professional, while his king is aptly obsequious and timid.

Theresa Landy’s Cheshire Cat, accessorised simply by headwear and a scarf, is warm and engaging confidante throughout. Phoebe Barnett’s Queen of Diamonds is bright and vivacious. Matthew Dorahy’s Duchess is a high camp delight. Liam Verity’s Mad Hatter is a whole different sort of crazy, as is his austere tea party.

Daniella Giles’ aptly whimsical choreography is delightful, with the ensemble’s portrayal of one of a pair of caterpillars (Marc Aloi and Phoebe Barnett) a real highlight. The entire ensemble becomes the body of the creature to Aloi’s head, with Molly Owen utterly animating its tail. She delights in this, and numerous other ensemble moments throughout the show with her expressiveness and vitality.

While some critics found the Off-Broadway production muddled, confused by the switches between real-world 1941 London characters and the denizens of Wonderland, in this production, the transitions between the play’s two worlds are clearly established, and the fictional Lewis Carroll characters delight thanks to clear conceptualisation and direction from Benjamin Oliver, with effective quick change costuming choices ensuring clarity. The storytelling throughout is excellent.

All other elements - the small band led by Emma Snellgrove, together with simple, effective design choices, and capable lighting (Blake Williams) and sound (India Wilson) - contributed effectively.

While Alice by Heart may not be in the same class as Sheik and Sater’s Broadway teen rebellion hit Spring Awakening, I was delighted to have the chance to see the team’s gentler, quieter work played with such charm and enthusiasm by this youthful MUSE cast.

Neil Litchfield