On the surface, there is no good reason to object to the approach that composer Frank Wildhorn and his collaborators Frank Murphy (book and lyrics) and George Gregory (book and lyrics) have taken to give a contemporary resonance to Carroll's absurdist Victorian fantasy.
Without having any factual figures, I suspect that there may be almost as many either reverential, audacious and even perverse variations (film and stage) on the Lewis Carroll classic Alice's Adventures in Wonderland as there are of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Bram Stoker's Dracula. If her headache was about to miraculously disappear, mine was about to begin. Left to rest alone, Alice is startled when The White Rabbit suddenly darts into the room but just as quickly departs. To make matters worse, Alice has a headache, the result of hitting her head on a light fixture riding up in the lurching service elevator. "It's the Worst Day of My Life" Alice and Chloe jointly commiserate. Alice's mother-in-law Edwina (Karen Mason) is helping them settle in and doing her best to comfort the unhappy Chloe by reading to her Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.Ĭhloe's mother Alice (Janet Dacal), a writer of children's books, arrives home after work and is discouraged when she opens a letter from her publisher stating that her most recent manuscript has been rejected. This is her first night in the Queens, New York apartment where she and her mother Alice have just moved, something like scaling down, since her parents separated. Sitting up in her bed, 10 year-old Chloe (Carly Rose Sonenclar) is not a happy camper.