By Janelle Faignant
Arts Corresponent
In the upside down world of celebrating un-birthdays, disappearing Cheshire cats, and being chased by a crazy queen, it makes sense that a local stage adaptation of “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” cast a woman as the White Rabbit who in real life is chronically early.
The White Rabbit’s chorus, “I’m late, I’m late, I’m late …” takes on new meaning with 30-year-old Cassandra Demarias, of Websterville, in the role.
“It’s kind of a running joke because I’m perpetually early,” Demarias said by phone recently. But that trait came in handy to get into character. “It’s the same anxiety if I was actually running late.”
The Valley Players will return to live, in-person theater with “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” adapted by Tim Kelly, being presented weekends July 9-18 at the Valley Players Theater in Waitsfield.
Author Lewis Carroll’s timeless story of a girl who tumbles down a rabbit hole into an alternate universe is one of the most-loved stories and best examples of the literary nonsense genre, making it a classic with kids and adults. It was published more than 100 years ago and has never been out of print.
Directed by Shannon Sanborn, of Barre, the 1-hour play is a modern take on an old classic.
“It’s a combination of the two books ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and ‘Through the Looking Glass,’” Sanborn said. “We begin the journey where she’s just fallen down the hole following the White Rabbit.”
The story is full of effects such as Alice shrinking and growing, and the Cheshire cat disappearing, which would seem difficult to portray on stage, but Sanborn said, “It’s actually not.”
“Because it’s fantasy it lends itself to the belief of what’s occurring,” she said. “So once Alice has fallen we see her on the ground. And when she cries we use fabric for the waves and lighting effects and that kind of thing.”
But no matter what age you are, “You want to believe, so you’re able to put aside things that don’t quite make sense. You’re in Wonderland.”
The cast of about 15 adults includes one student recently graduated from eighth grade who plays Alice.
“The reason I cast it that way is because there’s a lot of opportunity for kids to play surreal characters — lots of kids’ programs do all of the fairy tales and Dr. Seuss stories — and there’s not a lot of opportunities for adults to play those characters,” Sanborn said.
Susan Loynd, of Fayston, has dual roles as the cook and one of the card soldiers, and she agreed, saying, “(One of) the characters I’m playing is over-the-top so you get to stomp around and raise your voice. It’s fun — you get into character by getting out of yourself.”
Sanborn worked with the cast to bring the characters to life, and left room for them to develop them on their own as well.
“I am a believer that you have to be comfortable in the decision to some degree,” she explained. “I give basic direction when we begin, (for example) the blocking — I’d like to see the rabbit thinking and stamping its foot when it thinks. But I really want them to develop the vocals and the physicality of the character because that’s what makes it their own.”
“This is a pretty unique script,” Sanborn added. “The storyline is all little vignettes, and every character gets a spotlight.”
“We all grew up knowing and reading and enjoying the silliness of it,” Sanborn said. “That’s why it’s great on stage.”
The show was two weeks from opening before the state shut down for COVID-19 and Loynd said, “It’s been a long time coming. We staged this 10 years ago, (and) I wasn’t in the initial production, but part of our 40th-anniversary season in 2020 was to redo some of our favorite plays from over the years.”
“We all worked really hard to build the set and during COVID. I (went) into the theater a couple times just to see this set that was frozen in time,” Loynd recalled. “Now all this time later to come back to finish this project that got put on hold all this time is such a cool thing.”
Demarias has done community theater for more than a decade and said, “This is the theater company I’ve stuck with the most. Something about walking in that building feels like you’re walking into summer camp.”
The Mad Hatter’s wild tea party, and the garden of disapproving flowers are mixed in with some wise sayings like, “It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.”
Which all serves to distract Alice until she realizes that, sometimes, nonsense really makes good sense.
janellefaignant @gmail.com
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