The Australian Ballet is doing Alice in Wonderland again and on one hand I’ve seen it before, and on the other, their Queen of Hearts has my favourite costume in anything every
It’s just this and her court pushes her around the stage on wheels and every act it gets taller until she towers over everyone
Also in act 3 (I think) it swings open at the front and her husband is sitting inside reading a newspaper
I saw this again on Tuesday so here are some things I’d forgotten about:
This is the only Alice adaptation I’ve ever seen that doesn’t cut the caucus race
The mad hatter wears taps throughout and it’s so jarring and surprising it’s perfect
The executioner shadows almost everyone who dances with the Queen
Lewis Carroll is a character in the ballet and becomes the white rabbit who leads Alice into wonderland which is bad and wrong because Carroll is the dodo but does work very well
They started dropping rose petals from the ceiling onto the audience when Alice looked through the door to the garden and it was utterly magic
The Cheshire Cat is made of about 10 different puppets that dance around the stage
Which reminds me Alice is styled after Alice Liddell rather than the John Tenniel illustrations
I don’t think the king of hearts actually dances he just wanders around looking confused
here’s a video
more. (btw this is a parody/reference to the very famous “rose adagio” from sleeping beauty)
the Caterpillar is pretty neat too
(all of these videos are from the Royal Ballet’s productions in 2014 and 2017)
Finally an adaptation that makes feel like I’m going to have stroke, it’s perfect
This looks fucking bonkers, I love it.
Wow fascinating!
