Alice in wonderland adaptation blog ( children's theatre company Alice In Wonderland, 1982)

Intro // i love alice in wonderland. There are countless adaptations of both alice books, in so many different formats. 

This blog focuses on mostly one adaptation at a time, which today is the 1982 children's theatre company alice in wonderland . //

 This adaptation has been on my list for a while. I think I began watching it in 2022 and ended up closing it out for whatever reasons, probably a lack of attention span. This adaptation opens with a scenic shot of the trees, showing the white knight in the forrest. followed by Alice sitting with her sister.

 The first thing I noticed was that Alice's sister was reading a history book aloud to her, which was the first parallel to the 1951 film. This isn't particularly a complaint as a lot of adaptations tend to take inspiration from Disney's films depending on when they were made.

 Alice gets up and chases the white rabbit, the second thing i notice is how extremely energetic alice is. And she keeps this up the entire production, all her emotions are at an extreme and are often rapidly changing, which is very entertaining.

 Also I wasn't very fond of the white rabbits costume at the beginning 

Alice's fall ends and she's jumpscared by the white rabbit. She then runs down this winding road which is the main set of the show.

 I actually adore this road,I think its very cool. I really want to stand in this set like what a hangout spot omg

 This adaptation falls victim to a recurring trope in alice adaptations i've noticed where the small door is clearly big enough to fit alice at her normal size. Again this isn't a critique, as it would be ridiculous to try to critique an alice in wonderland adaptation for something not making sense. I just like to point it out because I've noticed it happens a lot and isn't usually intentional.

(Side note: whenever I watch any Alice movie with this scene,I'm fully convinced I could so easily climb the table. I know I couldn't but I bet I could.) 

 They end up skipping over the “eat me" scene and the entire pool of tears, the caucus race, and the white rabbit's house. Which was sad because i do like those scenes, but it's typical for alice adaptations to omit a few scenes (especially if they're adding in scenes from through the looking glass)

 Alice just walks out of the hall of doors and the scene changes to the carpenter walking down that same winding road, which startled me at first because I was confused. But this adaptation actually had random characters from other scenes silently walking in the background of other scenes on occasion,which i thought was a nice touch.

 The first scene out of the hall of doors is advice from a caterpillar, where alice is again jumpscared because she is looking the wrong direction.

 The set in this scene is GORGEOUS. Screenshots don't do it justice truly.

 I really liked the caterpillar in this adaptation. He had the essence of a judgemental man in a sleeping bag. Alice was also very angry during this scene, which was really funny.

 The very next scene is my FAVORITE scene from the book,the footmen scene.

 I really liked the footmen's costumes (although the frog footmans costume looks bland compared to the fish footman, who is surprisingly sparkly.)

 The footmen end up being so completely stupid that they roll around on the ground for too long, and the frog footman doesn't get the rest of his scene :( a big loss for frog footman fans (me) although we're (I'm) lucky he's in the adaptation at all. Alice takes the letter to the duchess herself, who immediately begins screaming.

 The duchess has the first song of the show, which is her poem from the book. We get to see the cheshire cat the first time in this scene, who only shows up a few seconds but appears to be an almost 2d puppet (absolute win)

 I don't think I can explain how fast the duchess shook this baby. This was probably the first time I laughed during a duchess scene just because of the sound effects they had for this weird baby.

 Alice takes the baby away and he turns into a pig (naturally)

 And the puppet (?) they had for the pig is actually really silly. Just the way he walks idk

 The Cheshire cat opens his scene by singing a rendition of the jabberwocky poem from Alice Through the Looking Glass, which is another parallel this adaptation has to the 1951 film.

 This cat has a strange sort of voice effect, I can't exactly explain it. It's kind of like that “wiggly" voice changer everyone was obsessed with in 2019. I enjoy it. The Cheshire cat closes the scene with the jabberwocky poem, but says it in an almost matter of factly tone this time.

 The mad tea party scene is next, and right off the bat I love this dormouse. He was the cutest thing. The hare was iffy to me at first but he grew on me very quickly. 

 I just love the general atmosphere this adaptation lives in by the way, I can't put it into words exactly but I hope that makes sense.

 This scene goes almost no different to the book (without the treecol well story) but the performance was very interesting. It's surprisingly easy for the mad tea party scene to drag in direct adaptations, but this one absolutely does not, i really like it. 

 After Alice leaves the tea party she crosses by herself. But the new Alice is the old alice? As in the one whos just came on stage is the same actress we've been following. I thought this was really creative

 The next scene is the tweedle dee and tweedle dum scene. Which I'd say is another parallel to the 1951 film, but a lot of adaptations (before 1951 as well) included this scene in adaptations of the first book.

 It then cuts to the walrus and the carpenter scene, which took place around a puppet cart surrounded by fog

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 The walrus and the carpenter both had very interesting and cartoony costumes, which was very charming

 Their slow backup at the end was comically intimidating. I did not understand it

 The tweedles have their battle and run away like cowards. The score for this scene reminded me how good the score is in this adaptation. Just very whimsical 

Alice is stranded and meets the Cheshire cat again. The two of them basically finish the conversation from the pig and pepper scene.

 At the end, the Cheshire cat recites the beginning of Jabberwocky again, and Alice asks about it, prompting Humpty Dumpty's introduction.

 The humpty Dumpty puppet is one of the more creative ones I've seen. I love him alot actually. He's very mobile, and I like his little book. His acting is very muppets-esc, and he reminds me of the Robinson puppets from tawog, I like it.

 The scene cuts to the jabberwocky poem, which was so cool!! I love the cutaways in Alice in wonderland.

 This scene was actually really cool, the costumes were so fun. The boy also seemed like he did not want to be there, he was so bored,( as in it is a character trait) which is so silly.

 The jabberwocky puppet was also soo cool. I can't get a clear screenshot due to how fast it moved tho just trust me. The white knight scene comes next, the red knight does not show up.

 I don't have too much to say about this scene, but i have to note how much i loveeed this horse

 The sudden emotions at the end of the scene always catch me off guard lmao

 I mentioned earlier I didn't like the white rabbit's costume at first, but I loved his second outfit. It was so cute.

 The footmen also got so many background cameos, i love that

 The king and queen both had really great costumes, and I loved their acting, both in different ways.

 This adaptation also does a thing a lot of adaptations do which is give dialogue from the red and white queens from alice through the looking glass to the Queen of hearts. Such as “all ways are my ways” and the curtsy bit. Along with the Quiz. Side note, the executioner's costume was perfect. The acting was really good too.

 The mock turtle soup chapter is skipped, ending in Alice being accused of stealing the tarts directly in the middle of the croquet game. Dragged away screaming

 The trial begins, we see humpty Dumpty again, get another egg joke, (AND another frog footman cameo)

 The executioner (the knave of hearts) stands on the trial floor,pleading innocent while still currently eating the tarts.

 The mad hatter is called in as witness, and the performance of this scene is absolutely hilarious.

 Get off the floor 😭😭😭😭

 The cook is called in as the next witness and the court goes quicker into chaos. The dormouse comes back up and starts screaming again, and the march hare has to wrangle him and run out of the courtroom with the giant teapot he lives in

 The white rabbit ends up reading the mouse's tale,putting everyone to sleep before the trial begins to end

 The end was the most dreamlike part. I thought it was really good. Just the feeling of forcing yourself to not look at anything and curling up when you're at the end of a dream but you just can't get yourself to wake up yet.

 Alice wakes up in a panic after flailing in her sleep. Her sister reacts very calmly to this.

 She calms down and stands up, walking away. She then sees everyone on the hill in what I assume is a curtain call???

 She finds a playing card on the ground and stands still as the camera pans out very slowly, cutting to credits after

 I really liked this one !!! The atmosphere was fun, it's not as predictable as most strict adaptations, the costumes and sets are really well done, and the effects were great (especially the rabbit hole scene) and the acting was just really good. I tried to make this blog more in depth than my others, but i tried to refrain from just reciting the plot of the book since i was going scene by scene. This one definitely was more fun to write tho.

  that's it !! Goodbye !!