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Alice In Wonderland

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Topic: Alice In Wonderland

Posted By: Miss Mel
Subject: Alice In Wonderland
Date Posted: 12/21/07 at 12:43pm

A year or so ago a theatre-brat friend of mine suggested that I write a stage adaptation of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. The problem that I have run into is that in the final courtroom scene Alice grows to an enormous height and then shrinks back down again. I know this story has been adapted to the stage before, but I have no idea how to work this scene! Does anyone have ideas that might help? I would greatly appreciate it!

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Larger than life is just the right size.

Replies:

Posted By: neilfortin
Date Posted: 12/23/07 at 12:52pm

The only thing I can think of, since you physically can't shrink or grow your actress playing alice, is to shrink and grow what is around her. Since this takes place in a court room, one could somehow transition your courtroom scenery (lets call this scenery 1) to a 2nd courtroom scene is all based on painted drops. (Say there is a Bench, a jury platform, the witness platform and three large windows that are all 3-D for scenery 1) When you replace this with scenery 2, make all of these things painted, and just "grow" the drops from the floor to the ceiling so as to make Alice appear as if she is shrinking. Make up enormus 3-D peices that can be pushed on from the wings, like the bottom of the legs of chairs, or characters feet that are surronding her. When this transition from scenery 1 to scenery 2 is done, you can continue the play with the voices of the characters as if they were coming from above Alice's head. She will have to be the facilitator here so make the audience beleive that she is listening and talking to the characters above her. There will have to be some willing suspension of disbeleif here on the audiences part as well, but the overall effect should be pretty good, it will look like a tiny girl in a HUUUGE room. In terms of her growing back to normal size, or even larger...can you do the same thing, but just screen the stage for a minute with smoke or some distraction to the audience and drop a HUGE pair of Alice's legs down with the hem of her dress visiable and her black shoes?

hope this helps!

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Community Theater makes us smile

Posted By: magicguy
Date Posted: 12/25/07 at 9:46pm

We did this play just a few weeks ago. We had three different actors play the main part (we did "Alex" instead of "Alice" because we had a greater height difference in the boys). In the version of our play, Alice does not grow or shrink in the courtroom scene. The jurors and others say that Alice is growing, but it is obvious that she isn't at that moment. However, Alice does grow and shrink in the play and we came up with creative ways to show this. I would be glad to share more if you want.

Posted By: Miss Mel
Date Posted: 12/30/07 at 3:45pm

I would love to hear more. I need all the ideas I can get!

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Larger than life is just the right size.

Posted By: magicguy
Date Posted: 12/30/07 at 6:28pm

Miss Mel, Start by using three different actors to play Alice. The other characters on stage can surround Alice which will hide the switch of another Alice of a different size. In a scene where Alice drinks a liquid and shrinks, we had Alice fall behind a cloth-covered table (a round table we constructed with a telescoping pole in the center for a leg). Once Alice fell behind the table, the audience saw small-Alice came out from behind the table and at the same instant the medium-sized Alice (who is now hidden behind the table) raised that table using the telescoping leg.

We also had medium-sized Alice walk to the back of the audience and large Alice returned down the aisle. They had to work on the diolgue so it sounded smooth during the transition.

We made a large book (about 6 feet tall) that had the title on the cover and at the beginning of the play, Alice walked out and opened the book. The pages of the book had scenery painted on them, so when we went to a different scence, we simply turned a page to show new scenery. This large book can also be used to switch Alices. Have one size Alice walk behind the book and another size emerge from the other side.

Let me know if you have any questions about this.

Posted By: DramaMamaStill
Date Posted: 1/21/08 at 6:20pm

The version of Alice that we did was a combination of Alice and Through the Looking glass. Alice only grew and shrunk during her time in the hall. My husband created a triptic flat that had doors of different sizes . An crew member stood inside and turned the flat to show the different sized doors when the actor (who happened to be our daughter) walked from the table to the doors. He also labored over a table which had legs that extended and shrunk ... this was no small task and is still a remembered headache. When it worked it was wonderful and that was two out of three performances
here is the link to my drama blog with some pictures although unfortunately I have none of the shrinking expanding table or doors :(

http://dramamamaforever.blogspot.com/

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Life is Mysterious don't take it too serious

Posted By: Kibitzer
Date Posted: 1/21/08 at 10:37pm

An idea just hit me that I'll think out loud about. It might be technically out of reach for you - I know it would be for me - but I'll share it anyhow. I flashed on a multi-media scene. Suddenly a big screen comes down, the theme music from Law and Order starts - or some other court room t.v. drama music - and you have the court room scene done on digital video where you can use camera angles or other techniques to create the illusions you're looking for.

Or not.

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"Security is a kind of death." - Tennessee Williams

Posted By: tristanrobin
Date Posted: 1/22/08 at 11:22am

The old Eva Le Gallienne and Florida Friebus adaptation (available from Samuel French) is FILLED with incredible suggestions for the special effects in Alice in Wonderland.

Even if you're not using the same adaptation, it would be worth the minimal cost to buy a single copy of that script and peruse the special effects directions given at the end of the script.

It's pretty amazing - and, because it was performed decades ago, it's all do-able without a lot of 21st century equipment.