‘Alice’ @ Plague Mask Players (ATTPAC’s Elevator Project)

Photos by Evan Michael Woods Photography

—Ryan Maffei

When I was a kid, Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland wasn’t just my favorite book—it was a founding text, the first work of art that gave me a sense of permission to be something different. And it fell into my world, to blow my mind and offer my soul a looking-glass, when I needed something stabilizing.

It was the summer after second grade, and we were moving from New Jersey to the alien world of Texas, where people roamed the streets on steers wearing ten-gallon hats (both the people and the steers). As we closed in on our new city, I noted two neighboring towns on the map: Lewisville and Carrollton. Maybe this will be where I belong, I hoped quietly to myself. My new world might be like Alice’s, a world of strange people who nevertheless communicated in a rewarding way: sparring partners, intellectual stimulants and wild encounters. In the best case, Texas might be a Wonderland I could settle into, rather than having to flee it due to fascist tyrants like Alice did.

Well, reader—whether or not there’s any Dallas in Wonderland, there are wonderlands in Dallas. The fascism thing is being monitored, but wondrous pockets of unique talent still thrive untrammeled throughout this metroplex. What’s kept me satisfied are the brilliant, sense-defying artists who make theatre like Plague Mask Players’ production of Ara Vito’s Alice, a dazzling homegrown project at the Wyly Studio Theatre, via ATTPAC’s innovative Elevator Project.

Alice is visually and sonically arresting, and vividly brought to life by a magnificent seven-person company. Believe me, you haven’t seen an Alice or a play quite like this one, and you owe it to yourself to catch it before it disappears. It’s a 90-minute ride that’ll drop you off deeply satisfied, and maybe a little dazed.

Director Samantha Calatozzo Cobb was once a classmate of Ara Vito, author of this “variation” on Alice—and their reworking strays far from the original. Carroll’s is not a very emotional book, and subtext isn’t necessary to appreciate it on its own idiosyncratic terms. But Vito has rooted the piece in reality, given it a strong heartbeat, and infused the “usual” episodes of Alice’s journey (most of the familiar beats and characters are preserved, as is some of the original poetry) with unexpected emotional dimensions. The play captures the dreamlike quality of Carroll’s work—and like its source, Vito’s work is rich with clever language and inventive devices.

One the her best lines is “it’s even worse if it’s a man!”—which I as a man (or whatnot) know to be a home truth. Plague Mask’s production of Alice employs an exclusively female-identifying or nonbinary cast, and creatives/crew that mostly follow suit. The director’s husband Jared Cobb is one of the few exceptions, but his contributions as sound designer are so fantastic, we’ll allow it.

Alice is performed on an alley stage setup deep in the studio space. Six speakers, specifically arranged, ensure a unique experience for every attendee. Cobb’s music weaves through the piece like a soundtrack—a shame it isn’t available for sale on a table outside. It blends with Mia Lindemann’s amazing light design into a genuinely transportive experience. What’s more, the action is so savvy and transfixing, and the movement so fluid and well-devised, that it’s not easy to tell where Calatozzo Cobb’s direction ends and Ania Lyons’ choreography begins.

Everyone in the company is incredible, and costumes (by the director with Savannah Lloyd) add to the impact of their characterizations. Natalie Haruka Ewe has done voice acting work, but this is her stage debut. In her twenties, she dives gamely into Alice’s childlike qualities, with a distracted and chaotic air about her. Her Alice moves in the halting way of someone first making her way around spaces larger than her home; she suffers the blows of her parents’ neglect harshly. It’s a deeply sympathetic portrayal, and Alice’s struggle for self-sufficiency is moving and inspiring. But Haruka Ewe gives her character just enough strange behavior—justifiable as childish but a little more unnerving than that—to avoid becoming a cloying ingenue. You feel both for bewildered Alice, and for the people she fails to comprehend as she travels.

Marilyn Setu guides her as Carroll, and the portrayal is a delight. Setu’s Carroll artfully adapts himself to Alice, and his words through the vignettes function as narration. He has the air of the MC for a kid’s show, or a magician hired for a birthday party. This version of Alice functions as an all-ages affair, but there’s always something else going on beneath the surface. Setu lets you glimpse the man behind the mathematician’s crafted persona, and we wonder about him without necessarily worrying about him. It’s a poignant performance – untroubled by the ick factor, Setu’s Carroll is more like a childless man acting out a father fantasy and protecting someone in a moment of frightening vulnerability—though he also pushes Alice into the hornet’s nest of Jacylyn Thomas’ terrifying Queen (her Jabberwocky is a big softie).

Thomas pops up sparingly until the court scenes, and you’re glad they let her conserve her energy. Feet planted and hands raised in frozen aggression, her upper half consumed by rage twitches, Thomas’ Queen is like a winter tree in a bitter wind. It’s an incredible performance, and wipes away our memory of the show’s red-herring villain from earlier scenes: Alice’s mother, portrayed with icy dismissal by Isabelle Culpepper.

In fact, the physically adept Culpepper is called on for a wide range of things in this production, but her centerpiece is a sharp and slinky Cheshire Cat, who comes on like a grand dame putting on her best hat. Culpepper brings bite to her scenes with Carroll and Alice, incorporating real cat behavior with grace and expertise.

The Cheshire Cat’s dry wit recalls Bayley Owen’s Caterpillar, whose gossamer purple tail is too long to fit on the stage (and is one of the few characters in this Alice who’s rather like the original version). Caterpillar has a regal bearing that it seems to share with Owen’s showstopping other charaacter, Time—yes, the tick-tock Time you know. Time mostly functions in Carroll’s book as an agent of rabbit anxiety, but Vito has written her a gorgeous, epic interlude as the Mad Hatter’s lost love (ahh that’s right, he rocked a pocket watch).

C.J. Olsen shoulders most of the masc-leaning roles: the Hatter, Alice’s father, the princely young man who tries to snicker-snack the Jabberwocky. But even as a ridiculously hip beat accompanist, Olsen has a presence and energy that illuminates every part. The work Owen and Olsen do together as Hatter and Time is world-class, and a mortal threat to mascara.

Culpepper is a dotty Dormouse in that scene, anchored by Henri Sudy as the long-suffering March Hare. Between this and their terrific job as Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum—a flip between twins without a single missed step—Sudy does some of the funniest work in an Alice that is mostly not trying to be funny.

But they’re as versatile as the rest of the players, at one point casually revealing they can sing at an operatic level. The cast’s chops and chemistry are marvelous. Though the light and sound really are dynamite, the actors are so much of the show: using a white-canvas set (by Paige Triplett) and costumes (by the director and AD Savannah Lloyd), outfit changes are light-touch accoutrements, and most of the props (by Adryana Medina) are molded out of black wire. It’s up to the company to bring it all to life.

I mentioned my lifelong ardor for the Alice source not to convey that I was excited for this project (of course I was), but to suggest that I feel very protective of the material. It’s one of the most widely adapted pieces of literature in history, and there must be some mandate from the estate that the adaptor has to ruin it a little, since it’s perfect…and they always do. As I said, Plague Mask Players’ Alice bears little resemblance to the original.

But not only is it the first adaptation of Alice I’ve seen that didn’t irk me at all, it’s a worthy intro to the story for those who’ve never been to Wonderland. So rush out, with white-rabbit haste, and pull as many friends as you can down the rabbit hole with you. Or even go alone—alone is just a word, after all.

WHEN: April 17–27, 2025
WHERE: Wyly Studio Theatre, 2403 Flora Street, Dallas
WEB: plaguemaskplayers.org