Alice May: “Alice at the Palace” (1981 filmed stage musical)

This 1981 filmed version of the 1980 off-Broadway musical Alice in Concert is one of my favorite underrated Aliceadaptations… and not just because it stars a 32-year-old Meryl Streep as Alice. The show’s composer-lyricist Elizabeth Swados described it as a “music hall,” a Victorian form of vaudeville theatre that featured variety acts, which naturally lends itself to the episodic Alice stories. With minimalist sets and a hodgepodge of modern and Victorian costumes, only Alice herself is the same person throughout, while each of the eleven ensemble members take on multiple roles. The show is almost fully sung, and the songs are written in a wide variety of styles: Broadway, folk, jazz, blues, country, barbershop, klezmer, parlor song, and more. (In this way it recalls Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.) This quirky musical obviously won’t suit all tastes, but it does suit mine. It captures the madcap yet intelligent spirit of the books in a unique way, with infectious music and an excellent cast led by a magnificent rising star.

Like many other Alices, this one adapts both Alice’s Adventures in WonderlandandThrough the Looking-Glass, although theLooking-Glass portion is very truncated. The Wonderland scenes have a light, broadly comic tone, while the Looking-Glass scenes are slightly darker and more melancholy, though still with comic relief.

While it might be an acquired taste to see Meryl Streep play a 7-year-old, she fully embodies the role of Alice, showing off her beautiful singing voice and dancing skills as well as mastering realistic childlike mannerisms. Admittedly, she plays a more modern child than Carroll’s Alice (goofier, more tomboyish and less refined), but in this lively musical it works. Other standouts are Debbie Allen as a vivacious dancing Queen of Hearts, Richard Cox as the Caterpillar, the Mad Hatter and the Jabberwock, a young Michael Jeter displaying his comic chops as Bill the Lizard, the Pig-Baby and the Dormouse, falsetto singer Rodney Hudson as the Cheshire Cat and the Unicorn, and Mark Linn-Baker as the White Rabbit, the March Hare, the White Knight, and a Yiddish-accented Mock Turtle. Fans of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood will also recognize Betty Aberlin among the female ensemble members.

This is a very unusual Alice, but absolutely worth seeing!

@ariel-seagull-wings,@superkingofpriderock,@faintingheroine,@the-blue-fairie,@amalthea9