Ring Around the Rosie

THE HARVARD-RADCLIFFE SUMMER THEATRE'S production of Alice in Concert is a glistening performance packed with energy and creativity. The cast explodes across the stage jumping and dancing as they sing the lyrics from Elizabeth Swados' musical interpretation of Lewis Carroll's long-time children's favorites--Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.

Under the clever direction of Jon Matthews Magaril, the cast captivates both adults and children as they portray the myriad of Wonderland characters, including Tweedles Dee and Dum, the Red Queen, the Mad Hatter and The Door Mouse, and the devilish Cheshire Cat Led by the ebullient Amy Brenneman as Alice, the cast of seven entertains the audience with lively caricatures of the fairy-tale-like creatures

Amid their antics, the stage becomes a perpetual playground. The actors swing on ropes, on tree-limbs, on tires, they wear buckets, newspapers or cans as hats, hub caps as shields, they make wooden boards, wired sheets, plastic boards into musical instruments, and much more. While their ingenuity with props would impress any junkman, coupled with the rag-tag costumes they actually complement the patchwork nature of the entire show.

Swados' melodies, with their rhythmic simplicity and charming lyrics, form a musical chain that ties Alice's escapades together. The audience might not leave the theater humming the tunes from any of the more than 30 musical numbers, but the songs do add an essential vitality and youthfulness to the production.

Alice in Concert transports the audience back to times when one believes everything one dreams, and dreams things that one hopes will come true. Moreover, the actors never succumb to the temptation of making this musical into a farce that would mock childhood tantasies. Rather they present the material with an earnestness that shows that they are enjoying themselves as much as the audience enjoys watching them.

THE ACTORS NEVER STOP MOVING during the lengthy two and one-half hour production--which probably should have been trimmed to a more manageable two. And Brenneman amazes us with her precocious Alice that retains her youthful naivete the entire evening, her strong voice is captivating though she occasionally strains to hit high notes. Brenneman especially shines in her solo, "Who Stole the Tarts," a song about the procedings of her trial as a pastry thief. In an amazing rapid-pace monologue, she imitates all the other characters at the trial, as she darts about the tree-stump proscenium.

As the Red Queen, the Cheshire cat and several other figures, Alison Taylor stands out with a resounding, jazz-style voice, as does Belle-Linda Halpern's mezzo-soprano voice throughout her different personifications. Though Halpern and Taylor have the most refined and talented voices, the others--Ben Cobb, Linus Gelber, Maud Winchester and Susan Glassman--belt out their parts clearly and loudly.

Like The Wizard of Oz, Alice in Concert is an odyssey of sorts through a magical land. Unfortunately, however, the plot of this musical is not as refined as the orderly progression down the yellow brick road. Instead Alice in Concert is rather densely packed with the musical numbers seeming to follow a patchwork order that lead to a somewhat muddled end. But the cast overcomes this one foible in the material, treating each number individually without trying to make each song blend into a climactic conclusion--which really never comes. Instead this production is more like a musical cabaret with each actor doning a different character for each sequence.

Fantasy melts into reality in this production, as the actors take the material seriously and never let us know that Alice and her companions in wonderland are merely figments of Carroll and Swados' highly creative imaginations. The Harvard-Radcliffe Summer Theater deserves a lot of credit for deciding to mount this production, challenging to even the more agile actors, and the cast conquers the material admirably; their vision carries the audience through the looking glass into an unusual and enjoyable theatrical wonderland.