This evening, Jennifer and I headed out to catch one of the edgiest, most compelling theatrical productions playing in all of Petaluma, the final performance of the Meadow School Drama Enrichment Class's production of Lewis Carroll's classic Victorian fantasy, Alice in Wonderland.

Yeah, I know what you're thinking. Children's Theatre: First-time actors stumbling over their lines, sanitized scripts oversaturated with sappy songs, bored parents politely applauding when they'd rather be home watching American Idol. But hold that thought while you consider the following questions: Where else but the most avant garde theaters can you see a show with five different actresses portraying the heroine? Where else can you see lovingly crafted sets and costumes, assembled without the benefit of big budgets, made real by the performers' imaginations? Where else can you see young people catch the acting bug and give their all, without regard for size, shape, or color? Where else but Children's Theatre?

Directed and produced by Janine Arendt (Jennifer's cousin, and a big part of the reason we got a chance to see the show) and Kassie Nixon, Alice in Wonderland was a treat to watch, from its quintet of Alices, who began the show with a fourth wall-shattering romp through the audience, to its Greek chorus of colorful chapeaux and vest-wearing narrators, to its inventive depictions of familiar characters, including the White Rabbit, the March Hare, the Mad Hatter, the Caterpillar (who, for this production, has exchanged his trademark hookah for a quill pen and a book entitled "Fungus Among Us"), the Cheshire Cat, and the boisterous Queen of Hearts, played by a young woman who gleefully trilled "off with her head" like a seasoned pro.

While the play itself presents a somewhat truncated version of Lewis Carroll’s original tale, much of the weirdness and magic that is Alice remains. Alice is, as always, an antiauthoritarian chemignostic voyager hungrily ingesting size-altering chemicals at a moment’s notice. Likewise, the Mad Hatter, as expected, shows all the telltale signs of toxic mercurialism and the Red Queen is a malicious monarch with a decapitation fixation. The inclusion of Lewis Carroll himself as a character, however, as he is presented as a kindly man who enjoys photographing the young Alice, might be taken as a negative by those with a more jaded impression of the relationship between Charles Dodgson and young Alice Liddell. However, that’s a subject better left for exploration and interpretation through the work of people like Jonathan Miller, Jan Svankmajer, or Tom Waits.

Previous Meadow School Drama Enrichment Class shows we've had the good fortune of seeing have included The Wizard of Oz and The Lion King. Alice in Wonderland did not disappoint, and we look forward to future performances. Rumor has it that edgier plays, including Alfred Jarry’s Ubu Roi, Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, and Sophocles’ Oedepus Rex, are being discussed for possible presentation by these talented young actors, but only time will tell what next year’s play is going to be.


A rather mad tea party.


The actors take their bows.


Producers/Directors Kassie Nixon and Janine Arendt.