DANCE REVIEW: ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND
5 JUN/11

JOHN COULBOURN - QMI Agency
Rating: 5 out of 5

TORONTO - It may be a familiar story, but chances are you’ve never seen ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND told quite this way. In part, that’s because choreographer Christopher Wheeldon has taken a few liberties with Lewis Carroll’s tale in bringing it to the balletic stage in a rambunctious new full-length work co-produced by Britain’s Royal Ballet and our own National Ballet of Canada that premièred on this side of the Atlantic Saturday at the Four Seasons Centre after a world première in London earlier this year.

But Wheeldon’s changes to the story — effectively transforming Carroll’s dreamscape to a tale within a tale within a tale that carries it from Victorian England to Carroll’s alternate reality to the present day — are merely the tip of a theatrical iceberg that fills the stage with life and magic.

That’s credit, in no small part, to the technical team Wheeldon’s assembled to assist in the project, a team that tackles Nicholas Wright’s scenario with a full arsenal of the very latest in theatrical technology. Everything, from the sets, costumes and props designed by Bob Crowley through the projections of John Driscoll and Gemma Carrington to sound design by Autograph and lighting by Natasha Katz, not only serves the story but drives it onward and ever upward as well. As does an extensive cast, comprised of the artists of the National Ballet and the students of the National Ballet School, all sharing a clear commitment to this whimsical project.

As Alice, Jillian Vanstone brings a youthful charm and a fetching spirit to her performance, while Zdenek Konvalina is strongly cast too as the Knave of Hearts, transformed in Wheeldon’s vision to a love interest named Jack. They are joined by Aleksandar Antonijevic, in a work where almost everyone is double-cast, portraying the author Carroll and the White Rabbit, whose appearance draws a petulant Alice into the tale when she follows him into a photographer’s bag.

And once those adventures begin, Wheeldon pulls out all stops, combining humour and the latest in technology in a potent cocktail that is certain to impress, delight and amuse, particularly as more and more dancers take the stage, including erstwhile principal dancer Rex Harrington, cast as Alice’s father and King of Hearts. He is, of course, consort to an impressively comedic Greta Hodgkinson as mother/Queen of Hearts in a scene-stealing performance that suggests that if, after 20 wonderful years here, Hodgkinson moves on, she might have a future as the first female in the legendary Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo.

Look for fine work too from guest artist Steven McRae, tap-dancing his way into balletomanes’ hearts as the Mad Hatter and from Kevin Bowles as the Duchess and Piotr Stanczyk and Keiichi Hirano as the fish and the frog respectively — and from a host of others. And finally, for those who think the parade of lambs in the annual Nutcracker represents the absolute apex of ‘Awww, isn’t that cute!,’ a brace of hedgehogs offers some prickly competition, once things get tense on the croquet pitch.

As story ballets go, however, Wheeldon unquestionably puts as much emphasis on story as he does on the dance, only rarely allowing the former to be slowed to accommodate skillful demonstrations of the latter. Indeed, even the music, composed by Joby Talbot and rendered with the kind of skill and precision we have come to expect from the NBOC Orchestra under the baton of David Briskin, seems designed first and foremost to serve this fanciful production.

For true aficionados, one suspects, history will never regard this as one of the great ballets — but for the rest, it will most certainly be long remembered as a great time.