Dan Myers
Ingrid Ebeling starts off the musical as the younger Alice.
Madison Theatre Guild invites audiences to follow them down the rabbit hole with Alice, a world premiere hard rock musical co-written by Madisonians Dan Myers and Meghan Rose.
The ambitious production, which runs through Nov. 5 at the Bartell Theatre, comes together with strong voices, nice character work, arresting costumes and loud, pounding music — supplied by a live band that includes keyboard, lead guitar, bass and drums.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, the classic tales by Lewis Carroll, are a pretty weird trip in their original form. Scholars have different theories about what the largely nonsensical stories and poetry mean; they have allusions to chess, mathematical theory, politics, linguistics and logic, along with some just plain silliness. But they agree that the adventures of the Mad Hatter, the Cheshire Cat, and the Red Queen were originally concocted to entertain a girl named Alice and her sisters on a long afternoon of traveling.
Myers and Rose take some of the more memorable vignettes from the books and explore them musically while superimposing a new story. This Alice longs for her mother and missed the stories of strength and defiance she used to tell, to help her face her fears. The conceit mostly works, giving the teenage version of Alice a touching relationship with Kitty, the stand-in for the Cheshire Cat. And several strong cast members lift the show, giving extraordinary performances.
Ingrid Ebeling starts off the musical as the younger Alice, going through a familiar and beloved bedtime ritual with her mom, played with ease by Jessica Jane Witham. Both have strong, lovely singing voices that blend beautifully in the opening duet. When Witham transforms into Kitty, it seems like a role that was created just for her. Nobody in Madison prowls and slinks across a stage like she does. Her playful exchanges with a sullen, teenage Alice and her distinct, brassy voice makes for showstoppers. Witham also carries the heart of the musical — guiding and encouraging Alice through the maze of characters she meets in Wonderland with motherly love.
At the show’s center is Katie Debs, portraying the angry, lost and sulking teenaged Alice who lashes out at her stepmother, smarts off to her guidance counselor and withstands the slings and arrows from mean girls and harassing boys at school. Debs fully embodies the disappointment, confusion and defiance of Alice. And she thoroughly looks the part, dressed in goth-inspired black ripped leggings and a black and white t-shirt. She also handles her many hard-rocking songs with attitude, and an appropriately gritty, authentic voice. Playwright Myers himself makes several appearances, lending a palpable air of menace to his role of the worm, decked out in a steampunk look that matches much of the show’s aesthetic.
The songs — turned up to a volume level of 11 so the vibrations course through the seats in the Drury theater at the Bartell — are the highlight of the 90-minute show, which includes one intermission. The script that ties the songs together does not rise to the level of creativity that went into the compositions, and is frequently predictable and repetitive. Several scenes — most notably the flower garden scene and the tea party — also seemed overstuffed with extraneous movement and dialogue, diffusing focus and muddying the storytelling.
Hopefully, the theater can address some of the sound issues that plagued the opening night performance on Oct. 27. Actors were frequently inaudible due to the overpowering band and microphones that weren’t working properly. As a result, large sections of scenes and songs were completely lost for an audience that desperately wanted to follow along with the story.
Madison Theatre Guild, director/producer Jim Chiolino and authors/composers Dan Myers and Meghan Rose should all be commended on bringing this original work to the stage in a fully realized production. For someone who admits in the program notes that he doesn’t really like musicals, Myers helped create one that is really remarkable in many ways.
