Honeyed voices, crazed cackling, haunting shadows, and the beautiful pain of moving forward. Pinewood’s spring musical “Alice by Heart” captures the anguish of fighting against time through the evocative portrayal of unique characters in a moving tale of perseverance.
Through whimsical images and maniacal characters, the play takes the audience on the journey of 15-year-old Alice Spencer, played by freshman Lola Hannelly, as she tries to retell Lewis Caroll’s “Alice in Wonderland” through her own memory. Carrying her tuberculosis-ridden friend Alfred, portrayed by sophomore Zachary Gill, down the rabbit hole with her, she is constantly attempting to escape both the agonizing ticking of time and the Blitz of World War II. It seems like the world within Alice’s imagination, in which she once found comfort and wonder, is falling apart as she twists the tale to allow herself more time to linger in the past.
As she disobeys and distorts the story for her own desires while the clock ticks away, chaos and misery pile up within the beloved world of Wonderland.
Hannelly does an incredible job of capturing such hopeless yet fervent persistence in the chaos, building the character of Alice with masterfully portrayed flaws.
The play sensationally conveys the absolute chaos of Wonderland through its actors. With quirky characters such as Alice’s beloved bird friends, the Duchess, the Queen of Hearts and her court, the caterpillar, the turtles, and the iconic Mad Hatter, the stage is a flurry of unraveling insanity. Each actor fully submerges themselves into their roles in this performance, dragging the audience down the rabbit hole with them. It was fun and almost unsettling at times seeing the unhinged behavior Pinewood students took on in their parts, yet beautifully tragic all the same. Both the playwright and the production of this musical formed endlessly complex, layered characters that were easy to sympathize with and fun to watch.
Sophomore Elizabeth Liang’s performance as the Cheshire Cat stands out especially. With her wise and mysterious air, she captures the essence of the classic sly cat beautifully while also adding the extra underlying layer. In the play, she acts as a mentor towards Alice, guiding her when she is lost yet always leaving somewhat of a riddle of instructions.
This play has an incredibly powerful message that shows itself through countless layers of madness that underscore the race through Wonderland with multi-faceted portrayals of characters, hypnotic vocals, atmospheric instrumentals, and visual effects. The moral shared by Liang’s portrayal of the Cheshire Cat that sometimes we overcome just by going on has immense depth and truth that Pinewood was able to beautifully convey with this production.
