Fun but not so wonderful

Maleth goes on with its fairly recent policy of presenting more productions in English than in Maltese, their latest being Alice: the musical (Manoel).

In Larissa Bonaci’s flame-haired Alice, the production has an actress with technique and personality that sets her well above many other members of the cast- Paul Xuereb

With a book and music by Mike Smith, Robin Hayes and Vernon Mound, this musical is devised fairly simply and can be handled, as in this case, by a cast of children and young adults, with a half-dozen adult performers to tackle the main parts, from the Queen of Hearts to the MadHatter.

Ray Mamo’s direction stresses the music and the dancing rather more than Carroll’s superb, nonsensical dialogues, and once the latter is the most important element of Carroll’s story, the production is bound to suffer.

Fortunately in Larissa Bonaci’s flame-haired Alice, girlish but clear and elegant in her diction, if not quite pubescent in her figure, the production has an actress with technique and personality that sets her well above many other members of the cast.

The one dialogue when I got a taste of Carroll’s delightfullanguage was towards the end between her and Marvic Cordina’s bad-tempered Duchess, one of the few other characters who makes an impact.

Bonaci also sings well, with one or two minor lapses, and brings life to all the many scenes where she appears.

The production as a whole suffers from lack of that unreal atmosphere that is of the story’s essence.

We have now been spoiled by the lavish scenery produced by our panto producers, whereas the scenery here is poorer in conception and in variety.

I liked the large, colourful mushrooms, but much of the rest was of the common and garden variety. Some of the costumes, especially those of the Queen of Hearts and of the Knave of Hearts, who looked like one of the more barque figures in Japanese paintings, were very striking, and so was the sinister executioner (Narcy Calamatta in an uncharacteristically speechless part, though he had a quite a few things to say as the Caterpillar – pity I could not make out a word he said).

The production has thought up nothing to mark the end of the trial scene, which is also the surrealistic end of the story; it needed more of the theatre technology now available in this country.

Why does the musical have two Alices, one of them characterised as ‘Young Alice’ and played and sung neatly by Maria GiorgioFarrugia Sacco?

At first it appears that Young Alice is the girl who in real life asks Carroll to tell her the famous story, while Bonaci’s Alice is the fictional Alice of the story, but there are scenes in which Young Alice finds herself playing a part in the story, so the puzzle remains.

Carroll, or rather the Rev. C. Dodgson, is used as the presenter and narrator of what happens, and Chris Spiteri does this well, but I would have wished his diction to have had some of the smoothness and clarity Bonaci’s has.

Renato Dimech’s pleasantly crazy Mad Hatter needs better direction to bring out the comicality of his scene with Alice, but his Mock Turtle sings the “beautiful soup” ballad very nicely with a touch of the grotesque.

Jane Pillow’s cute hare and Kate de Cesare’s Cheshire Cat – a non-smiling one but elegantly longilinear, struck me among the secondary parts.

*

One word about the Open Door production of Bejn it-Triq u Jiena, directed by Louise Ghirlando with a cast mainly of people with learning difficulties.

Ghirlando certainly deserves the President’s Prize for Creativity which she has received. Her mixed cast, which includes a few performers not subject to disabilities, perform situations basic to most people’s lives, including socialising, courtship and the practice of art. Their bow at the end in acknowledgement of the audience’s applause showed clearly their delight in their achievement.