With its new production of “Wonderland: Alice’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Adventure,” Synchronicity Theatre provides what feels like a garage rock concert for tweens. A live band is onstage, occasionally with the Cheshire Cat on guitar and Alice on vocals, and the vibe is fun, spontaneous and a bit ramshackle and unpolished.
It’s noble to teach kids to rock out to live music using theater. “Peter and the Wolf” did it for symphonies, although Prokofiev was far more studied in his approach. Written by Rachel Rockwell and Michael Mahler, “Wonderland,” onstage through Jan. 2, isn’t intended to teach elementary and middle schoolers an appreciation of rock music in a deliberate, instructive way, though the soundtrack is infused with lots of different musical styles such as ska and punk. It never feels like a lecture. It feels like a jam. Children in the audience may end up lifelong headbangers because of this show.
“Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” written by Lewis Carroll, is a trippy, weird fever dream of a story anyway, full of potions and mushrooms. Wonderland functions as an effective gateway to wilder, more imaginative look at music and live performance.
Following the original narrative, our heroine Alice (Ja’Siah Young) is seven-and-a-half years old, pretending to be a queen. She’s impatient for adventures that her older sister tells her she’s too young to experience. As she pouts and feels left out, a panicked White Rabbit (Hannah Lake) abruptly darts past her, dropping a fan on the way to an appointment and belting out a song called “Late.”
Casey Gardner Ford @caseygardnerford
Casey Gardner Ford @caseygardnerford
Alice goes down the rabbit hole after the creature, falling and falling until she finds herself in Wonderland. The rules there grow curiouser and curiouser as Alice turns to a variety of strange characters for advice. A Caterpillar (Anna Dvorak Gonzalez) lectures her about how to adjust her size and deal with the constant of change. A sly Cheshire Cat (Danny Crowe) offers Alice some confusing directions about how to find her way before he disappears suddenly, leading her almost directly into the path of the evil monster Jabberwock.
Casey Gardner Ford @caseygardnerford
Casey Gardner Ford @caseygardnerford
Alice ventures from episode to episode, finding new challenges and weirder characters while trying to figure out the kind of person she wants to be. The twins Tweedledum and Tweedledee (Branden Shaw and David Wells) battle out a childish, petty and pointless argument, full of stunts and athleticism, in front of her. At a tea party for the Mad Hatter (Iliana Rivera), Alice is urged to show up uninvited in the garden of the Queen of Hearts (Autumn Hamilton) for a life-or-death game of croquet.
Casey Gardner Ford @caseygardnerford
Casey Gardner Ford @caseygardnerford
As this happens, the band, featuring keyboardist Gamble, drummer Joshua Troutman and guitarist Stevie Zapata, sits on stage, bringing necessary focus to the live music experience. Music director LeRell Ross deserves praise for making the music feel like a jam session the main cast steps into and out of.
The structure of the show, as directed by Jennifer Alice Acker, introduces the characters to the Synchronicity audience before Alice encounters them, which allows them to narrate the show through song. Having these de facto storytellers to guide the audience through Wonderland, even as Alice is baffled, makes all the strangeness more fun than scary.
In the lead, Young is precocious and spirited. There’s very little fear in her Alice, which might serve to assure the intended audience of youngsters. Even when she’s threatened with beheading, Alice never feels like she’s in danger.
Crowe, in particular, feels like a rock star. In a striped sweatshirt and plaid pajama pants, he straps on an electric guitar and commands our attention. He lounges onstage with swagger, his grin mischievous, and his intentions as the Cat are never entirely certain. He appears to be having a blast onstage, and it’s contagious.
Casey Gardner Ford @caseygardnerford
Casey Gardner Ford @caseygardnerford
David Wells plays the March Hare, as well as Tweedledee, and his costume evokes Jimi Hendrix. He backflips during one of the fights, choreographed by Kimmie Gee, which was a highlight of the show for some of the children in the audience. And Wells even jumps behind a drum kit, taking over for Troutman during some respectable solos.
The most stunning vocalist is Hamilton, who imbues her Queen of Hearts with diva attitude and style like Tina Turner’s. Her showcase moments come late in the program, but they’re powerful.
Casey Gardner Ford @caseygardnerford
Casey Gardner Ford @caseygardnerford
Regarding design, much of “Wonderland” feels a bit thrown together. There aren’t moments of spectacle that wow. The set from Madalyn Walsh never transforms into a place jarringly unlike our own. Designed by Derrick Vanmeter, the costumes for even the most fantastic creatures, such as the Caterpillar or a Unicorn, are just regular comfortable clothing with animal touches. It’s an intentional choice, making the show feel more homegrown and family-ready.
And it makes the music feel like a human achievement, rather than an impossible feat piped in from above. If your kids leave the theater with a healthy respect for rock music, that’s fantastic. But Carroll’s story lends itself to more wild creativity and stage magic than was on display. That would have made Wonderland more wonderful.
Benjamin Carr is an arts journalist and critic who has contributed to ArtsATL since 2019. His plays have been produced at The Vineyard Theatre in Manhattan, as part of the Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Short Play Festival, and the Center for Puppetry Arts. His first novel, Impacted, was published by The Story Plant in 2021.
THEATER REVIEW
Through Jan. 2. $15-$40. Synchronicity Theatre at Peachtree Pointe, 1545 Peachtree St. NE, Atlanta. 404-484-8636, synchrotheatre.com.
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