Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass: Difference between revisions

2001 play by Adrian Mitchell

Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass is a 2001 stage adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s 1865 novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and the 1871 novel Through the Looking-Glass. It was written by Adrian Mitchell.^[1] A 2 hour adaptation of both of Carroll’s novels, it holds the distinction for currently being the most comprehensive stage adaptation of the books yet made, with the endings of both novels intact and only minor changes made for theatrical staging reasons. The play in English is available to licence worldwide, for theatre performances through Concord Theatricals.[1] ^[2]

Adrian Mitchell’s stage adaptation originated as a commission from the Royal Shakespeare Company. In his essay, “Millions of Alices” Mitchell revealed that he equally adapted Carroll’s novels for his grandchildren: “Charles Dodgson/Lewis Carroll said he wrote Alice, to “please a child I loved (I don’t remember any other motive).” That is the best reason in the world, and to please seven children I love is why I wrote this play.“^[3] The RSC 2001 programme further gives details on Charles Dodgson/Lewis Carroll, Victorian era Oxford, and the play’s characters, these notes all aimed at a young audience.^[4] Mitchell elaborated on his play’s vision: “There are a lot of bad tempered people. The Hatter is hectoring and the Caterpillar sneers. [Alice is] a child among adults. Alice is put-upon but she deals with it. She dances into each encounter, is friendly with the White Queen and with the White Knight, who is Carroll himself.“^[5]

In his play, Adrian Mitchell uses a somewhat fictionalized version of the biographically famous “Golden Afternoon” on the 4th of July 1862, when Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) first told the stories that would become the Alice novels to his friend Canon Robinson Duckworth and the Liddell children, Alice, Lorina, and Edith. This storytelling took place on a boating trip to Godstow from Oxford. The three sisters wished to hear nonsense stories as entertainment. Charles Dodgson wrote the stories he told down, starting on the 13th of November 1862.^[6][7] Much later, he presented the manuscript of Alice’s adventures Underground (later called Alice’s adventures in Wonderland) to Alice Liddell, in November 1864.^[6][3][8]

In Adrian Mitchell’s play, the prologue and epilogue is framed with Dodgson telling the boat trip party both the Alice books in one day. In reality, Alice’s adventures in Wonderland was told across a few boating trips in summer 1862:

“Occasionally [Dodgson] would take [the Liddells] out on boat trips, either with his brother, with a friend, or with visiting sisters. On these sociable river trips, the grown ups would allow the children to row, and the would all sing songs, or ask riddles.“^[7]

On 6th of August 1862, Dodgson finished the Wonderland story with a trial as a joke reference. This was inspired by the Liddell sisters’ earlier attempts that day to play a popular logic game called “Ural Mountains“, where two team captains had to argue an absurd crime.^[7] The sequel novel to Wonderland, Through the Looking-Glass, published in 1872, was made from later stories, that Charles Dodgson told the Liddells when the sisters were learning how to play chess. The Looking-Glass stories were written down at a time of anguish for Charles Dodgson, after his father had died. ^[7][9][7]

The published script of Adrian Mitchell’s Alice in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass, includes Charles Dodgson’s own notes (originally published for Clarke‘s stage adaptation) on his characters, to help guide actors in performance.^[3] Adrian Mitchell also decided in adapting to keep the self parody characters that Charles Dodgson wrote into his novels: Lorina Liddell doubles as the Lory, Edith Liddell as the Eaglet, Robinson Duckworth as the Duck, and Charles Dodgson himself as both the Dodo and The White Knight.

10 year old Alice Liddell in Mitchell’s play can be doubled with the 7 year old eccentric fictional Alice. A director can alternatively choose to split the two Alice characters to two actors, with different looks, costumes and mannerisms.^[3][7] As Karoline Leach notes, “Dodgson never confused Alice {Liddell} with Alice the way we do. Even as he wrote the first draft of the Wonderland story, his “little heroine” was already carefully differentiated from the real child whose name she shared.”^[5][9]

In Oxford, on the 4th of July 1862, Alice Liddell (aged 10) her sisters Lorina (aged 13) and Edith (aged 6) and Canon Robinson Duckworth, drift down the river Thames. (“Golden Afternoon“) The boating crew sit for a river picnic, to listen to the stories told by their friend, writer Charles Dodgson (AKA Lewis Carroll) until the evening. The sisters specifically request that Dodgson tells them stories with lots of nonsense in them. Alice Liddell in particular listens closely. She imagines the fictional “Alice” and all her adventures and dreams as Dodgson tells them to the party.

The imaginary Alice, aged 7 and a half, bright, and eccentric, is bored with sitting on a riverbank during a sleepy, hot day. She follows an unusually dressed, late rabbit down a rabbit hole into Wonderland. She falls very slowly through a deep well packed with furniture and cupboards, and has time to think about lessons and work out where she will land. (“Down, Down, Down“). Landing in a hall of endless doors, Alice tries adjusting her size with food and a drink, to fit a tiny door leading to a beautiful garden. As she fails, she cries an entire sea of tears. She attempts singing an old song to comfort herself, but instead recites a parody of it. (“How doth the little Crocodile“) Shrinking her size again after being given a fan by the White Rabbit, Alice swims with an irritated Mouse in the pool of tears, who she annoys with talk about her beloved cat Dinah. At the shore, Alice and the Mouse run a caucus race with absurd animals and birds (all played by the same actors as the prologue boating party sisters and friends). The mouse tells Alice why it hates cats and dogs, it had a legal battle with one. (“Fury said to a Mouse“) Alice accidentally insults it, and everyone leaves her behind. Now a very small size, Alice seeks advice from a precise Caterpillar. She again recites a poem incorrectly (“You are old father William“) before the Caterpillar gives her the secret of size changing via a mushroom. The correct size, Alice goes into a mysterious house. She defends a baby from an alarming Duchess and her Cook in the house’s kitchen, whilst being fascinated by a grinning cat, called a Cheshire Cat, who sits on the rug. (“Wow! Wow! Wow!“) Alice takes the Duchess’s baby away from the house, alarmed for its safety. Outside, it turns into a piglet and trots away, to her great surprise. Alice turns around and sees the Cheshire Cat sitting in a tree. The Cat reveals that everyone in Wonderland is bizarre and that Alice must be mad too, or else she wouldn’t have stumbled into the world. The cat directs her to the March Hare’s house and leaves Alice in wonder at its famous vanishing trick, leaving its grin only to be seen in the trees. Alice follows the cat’s advice and sits down to take tea with the strange Hatter, March Hare, and Dormouse. The hatter explains he argued with time, which condemned him to be stuck at tea time forever. (“Twinkle, Twinkle, little bat..“) The riddles, rhymes and nonsense the party tell Alice infuriates her as much as it amuses her. When the Hatter insults her, Alice decides she must leave the party. Finding a way back into the hall of doors, Alice uses the Caterpillar’s mushroom to change size. She can finally enter the garden through the small door. Alice is dismayed the garden is the realm of the bad tempered Queen of Hearts, the Queen of Wonderland itself, who loves beheading her subjects. After chatting with some card gardeners who have accidentally painted white roses red, Alice meets the Queen of Hearts herself, and is less than impressed. The Queen demands that everyone play croquet. Alice, along with the Queen’s subjects, play croquet with hedgehogs and flamingos, that Alice finds an impossible game. Everyone has a death sentence given by the Queen, which the King removes from behind her back when she is preoccupied with other things. Alice talks with the Duchess about morals and sayings, before the Queen spoils the fun through ordering the Duchess to leave or be executed. Alice meets again with the Cheshire cat, who offends the King, but avoids execution by the Queen via vanishing. Alice goes to Wonderland’s seashore, and meets with a sad Mock Turtle and his friend the Gryphon, who tell her about their schooldays, and teach her the Lobster Quadrille dance. (“The Lobster Quadrille“) Alice’s adventures in Wonderland end at a surreal trial for the Knave of Hearts (“The Queen of Hearts, she made some tarts…“) where the Hatter’s evidence is puns and rhymes, and the Duchess’s Cook’s is making everyone sneeze with pepper. The white Rabbit as herald sings a new piece of evidence that in fact confuses things even further. (“They told me you had been to Her“) Growing suddenly after eating a tart from the evidence, Alice comes to blows with the Queen of Hearts. A pack of cards attack her and she falls, awaking in an armchair, in her drawing room at home. Her sisters look across the room at Alice in some surprise. Alice talks to the sisters (who also happen to be called Lorina and Edith, a reference to Alice Liddell’s sisters) about her dream of Wonderland. Snow begins to come down outside, to the children’s delight.

Act 2 continues with the fictional Alice unwittingly annoying her sisters by attempting to play a chess game with them. Lorina, cold and alienated, goes to bed. Edith, too young to understand the game, leaves as she fears she will lose. Alice is left with her three cats, Kitty, Snowdrop, and old cat Dinah. The night grows later. Alice drifts into a daydream before being drawn to the mirror above the fireplace, which she magically traverses. (“Moonlight on the Mirror“) On the other side, she reads a nonsense poem, Jabberwocky, by holding a book up to the glass so the words can be read. (“The Jabberwocky“) The poem is a nonsense epic about a monster’s death. Outside the mirror house is the Looking-Glass World, another world which turns out to be just as strange as Wonderland was. After chatting with a Tiger-lily flower which advises her to walk the opposite way to reach a far off figure, Alice meets the Red Queen, who is governess like and sharp. As they both walk up to a hill that has a view like a massive chessboard, the Red Queen explains that Alice has become a pawn in a life sized chess game, and must now adventure to get to the 8th square, where she will become Queen herself. The Red Queen exits and Alice jumps into the 3rd square, the carriage of a surreal train ride. Getting out in the 4th square, Alice enters a wood where things have no names, where people forget who they are. Alice befriends a kind fawn, before it bounds away on both of them remembering their names. Following a split path leading to the same house, Alice comes across childish Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dee who argue over a rattle. She sings the old poem. (“Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dee“) The twins tell Alice she is only the dream of the sleeping Red King. They further annoy Alice with the dark story of the Walrus and the Carpenter who ate up oysters because they could. (“The Walrus and the Carpenter“) The twins run away as a crow flies in. Alice runs further into her surroundings, and meets the White Queen who remembers things before they happen. In a magical shop, she buys an egg from an old Sheep, remembering she must meet Humpty Dumpty in the next square. As Alice suspects, the egg turns into arrogant egg Humpty Dumpty. Alice finds she is standing by his wall in the 6th square. She sings the poem, smiling to herself. (“Humpty Dumpty“) Alice and Humpty argue about names, cravats, and meaning. He recites an absurd poem about waking fish up, that Alice can’t understand at all. (“In winter when the fields are White…“) As Alice walks away, he falls off his wall. Alice sees the White King’s soldiers fall over as they try to put Humpty back together. The White King and his messengers, a Hare and a Hatter, take Alice to a small village to meet the Lion and the Unicorn from the famous rhyme, who are fighting for the White King’s crown. The group sing as they run to meet them. (“The Lion and the Unicorn“) Alice befriends the Unicorn who didn’t believe humans exist, until it met her. The Lion meanwhile considers Alice to be a monster. Drums close in and Alice jumps to the 7th square to shield herself from the noise. In the 7th Square, the kindly White Knight (played by the same actor who plays Charles Dodgson) saves Alice from a bizarre battle with the Red Knight. He helps Alice through the thick forest. He keeps falling off his horse so Alice helps him back. He tells her about useless inventions he has made, that Alice finds very funny. Before leaving, the Knight tenderly sings Alice a nonsense song (“Haddock’s Eyes (A-sitting on a Gate)“) and sees her to the 8th Square, but not before falling off his horse one final time. Alice runs across the brook and realises she suddenly has a beautiful but very heavy golden crown on her head and finds she is in the 8th square and at her coronation banquet. The Looking-Glass characters greet her in joy. (“Welcome Queen Alice“) The Red and White Queens, not moved by festivities, decide to “test” Alice on knowledge with questions that make no sense. Alice becomes confused and half longs for home as the two queens fall asleep on her. (“Hushaby Lady“) Suddenly, the Jabberwock monster from the poem descends on the feast. Alice grabs the two queens, now small puppets, and runs through the mirror, trying to avoid the monster. She wakes with a start at home, on the rug, on the right side of the mirror. She is holding her cats Kitty and Snowdrop in her hands. She muses on the meaning of her second dream adventure and concludes her kitten Kitty was the Red Queen, and Snowdrop was the White Queen. Alice wonders if the dream of Looking-Glass World was hers or the Red King’s.

In Oxford on the bank of the Thames, it is evening. The boating party are preparing to go back home. Alice Liddell hears Dodgson’s voice calling her back to earth, as she is so immersed in his stories about the fictional Alice and her dream adventures, that she has forgotten it is the hour for leaving. Alice Liddell gets into the boat with her sisters and the two grown up friends. Alice Liddell implores Charles Dodgson to “Write down Alice’s adventures.” Charles Dodgson isn’t sure if he can, but promises her he will try. The boating crew row home. (“Golden Afternoon (Reprise)”)

• “Golden afternoon” – Dodgson, Duckworth, Alice Liddell, Lorina Liddell, Edith Liddell and Company
• “Down, Down, Down” – Company
• “How Doth the Little Crocodile…” – Alice, Crocodile Voice
• “Fury Said to a Mouse…” – Mouse and Company
• “You are Old Father William….” – Father William, Youth
• “Wow! Wow! Wow!” – Duchess, Cook, Baby, Cheshire Cat and Company
• “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Bat” – Hatter
• “The Lobster Quadrille” – Mock Turtle, Gryphon and Company
• “Beautiful Soup” – Mock Turtle, Gryphon and Company
• “The Queen of Hearts…” – White Rabbit
• “They told me you had been to her…” – White Rabbit

• “Moonlight on the Mirror” – Alice and Company
• “The Jabberwocky” – Alice, Father, Youth and Company
• “Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dee…” – Alice and Company
• “The Walrus and the Carpenter” – Tweedle-Dum, Tweedle-Dee, Walrus, Carpenter and Company
• “Humpty Dumpty…” – Alice
• “In Winter when the fields are White…” – Humpty Dumpty
• “The Lion and the Unicorn…” – Company
• “Haddocks Eyes (A-sitting on a Gate)” – White Knight, Aged Aged Man
• “Welcome Queen Alice” – White Rabbit and Company
• “Hushaby Lady” – Red Queen, White Queen, Alice
• “Golden Afternoon (Reprise) – Dodgson, Duckworth, Alice Liddell, Lorina Liddell, Edith Liddell and Company

Despite being one of the closest adaptations yet made to Carroll’s books, there are a few, mostly minor changes that Adrian Mitchell made, to help both books flow better as a stage experience:

When we first meet the 7 year old fictional Alice in Mitchell’s play, she is bored sat on the riverbank by 2 sisters, not one older one. This change was made to reference the Liddell sisters who appear in this adaptation.

The chapters in the novel, where Alice gets trapped in the white rabbit’s house after searching for his gloves and fan, and annoys a Wonderland Pidgeon with how tall she is, are both omitted, likely due to staging constraints of the 2000s era.

At the end of act 1 of Mitchell’s play, Alice awakes from her Wonderland dream in her drawing room curled in an armchair, with her sisters who have been playing cards realising she is awake. In the novel, Alice both falls asleep and wakes up on the riverbank, and the setting is not implied to be part of her dream.

Through the Looking-Glass occurs 6 months after Alice’s adventures in Wonderland. Mitchell’s play has both of Alice’s dreams happen possibly on one day or in a unspecified short period of time.

The opening argument in the Looking-Glass act of the play, about chess, between the 3 sisters, does not occur in the novels. It is invented to give a transition from one book to another. The garden of live flowers contains more critical flowers who annoy Alice. In Mitchell’s play, she only meets Tiger-lily. The train ride in square 3 ends in the novel with a difficult to stage transition to a forest. It is cut to a more simple train stop. Alice also does not discuss looking-Glass insects with the Gnat in the play.

In the novel, Alice’s dream of Looking-Glass World ends with a chaotic banquet where she is introduced to talking food, and given a riddle about fish from the White Queen, before everything explodes into mayhem. Alice takes the Red Queen, who has grown small, and shakes her until Alice wakes at home, holding Kitty. The play has a more abrupt end to the 2nd dream, of a jabberwock attack and a sudden awakening in the drawing room. This happens right after Alice is quizzed on useful questions by the Red and White Queens. The Jabberwock monster does not appear again in the novel. This is a change likely made for a more theatrical ending.

The original Royal Shakespeare production was produced by Denise Wood and directed by Rachel Kavanaugh. Terry Davies and Stephen Warbeck composed for the songs and incidental music.^[4] The set, designed by Peter Mackintosh, had the two key colours of a green set with red backgrounds and props, including a large golden video projection hole at the back of the set to depict trees, Alice falling into Wonderland, forest, or sky. In the Looking-Glass act, the video projection became a large gold mirror which showed a background of chessboard patterned hills. Puppetry was used to depict Alice’s shrinking and growing in Wonderland, for the Wonderland court at the end of act 1, and for the Jabberwock in Looking-Glass World.^[16]

The review in The Independent called the original 2001 Royal Shakespeare Company production “a magic-free tundra of non-idiosyncrasy” and its Alice, played by Katherine Heath, “charmless”.^[1] The Guardian thought it faithful to Carroll’s text, but called it a game of two halves, Wonderland working well enough, but that Looking-Glass went “off the boil.”^[17] Media studies scholar Will Brooker noted in his 2004 cultural research on Lewis Carroll and the Alice books, that some of the negative reviews of the RSC production, could be interpreted as the play not fitting into the media discourse around the novels at that time. Brooker notes that reviewing journalists wanted “dark undertones” in how Wonderland and Looking-Glass World were portrayed. Brooker further adds that Mitchell’s script, being family friendly, did not offer this fully.^[5]

In December 2009, Alice in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass was produced by the University of Essex, ^[18] soon after the play had entered into licencing by Samuel French/Concord theatricals. Mitchell’s play has since become a popular staple of youth, student, regional and amateur theatre, in particular with Universities ^{[19] [20] [21]} Youth Companies,^{[22] [23]} regional theatres,^{[24] [25]} and Schools due to its easy licencing availability, large flexible cast list, and faithfulness to Carroll’s original novels.

Alice in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass received a significant professional revival at the Chichester Festival Theatre in 2010, by the Youth Theatre, as directed by Dale Rooks. Emily Dyble and Winter Loseby alternated as Alice. The revival featured new set designs by Simon Higlett and puppetry by Toby Olié.^[26] This revival, unlike its premiere, received more positive reviews, the Angus noting Emily Dyble’s “delightful” performance as Alice.^[24] This revival reused the song arrangements composed by Terry Davies and Stephen Warbeck for the RSC production.

The 2022 revival by ARTComedia and Jersey Arts centre also received a positive response, with the Bailwick Express Jersey observing “The sheer scale of the madness played out over the two hours beggars any kind of coherent description, as it should.”^[27] Other productions such as Courtyard Theatre’s have been praised for being “vibrant, colourful and energetic“^[28]

Licencing to Perform:

Miscellaneous