Sunday 21 January 2018

2018: My Urrwai



My Urrwai created and performed by Ghenoa Gela.  Belvoir and Performing Lines in association with Ilbijerri Theatre Company and Sydney Festival, at Belvoir Downstairs, January 20 – February 4, 2018.

Director – Rachael Maza
Dramaturg & Movement Consultant – Kate Champion
Set & Costume Designer – Michael Hankin
Lighting Designer – Niklas Pajanti
Composer – Ania Reynolds

Previewed by Frank McKone
January 19

Performing on stage is always a risk (break a leg!), but the greatest risk – to your sanity, if not in failing your audience – is to turn your own life into a public performance, and then perform it yourself.

For Ghenoa Gela to show the rest of us her personal salvation in re-connecting with her traditional culture is clearly more than a passion.  It’s a necessity as much for her sake as for ours.

Fortunately, for us as well as for her, the family into which she was born in Rockhampton did their best to maintain their previous Torres Strait singing and dance culture from Moa (where Ghenoa's mother grew up in St Paul's Village), and Erub (Darnley Island where her father hails from), despite all the influences from Christianity and economic forces which set aside the past – even on the Islands themselves.

What a revelation it was for Ghenoa to be taken on a visit “home” to Moa, discover the reality of her culture as she nervously performed traditional dance, only to realise that people at home had forgotten the very dances that she had been taught at “home” in Rockhampton. 

As she learns what it feels like to understand her place as the holder of knowledge for her people, we experience with her that great impact.  When Indigenous people say how important is their culture, we can now understand what they mean.

We also discover that Ghenoa is a magnificent performer in a rather different context – the one which has taken her, for example, to the Edinburgh Fringe and even to So You Think You Can Dance – Top 100 on tv.  She can make all of us, from whatever culture, laugh along with her as much as be fascinated by her story.

I have noted Ghenoa’s initiative before, such as her choreographing – for the whole company – of the finale for Kate Champion’s Nothing to Lose (Kate’s last show as artistic director of Force Majeure, reviewed here January 23, 2015), so I am not surprised Ghenoa has chosen to ask Kate’s advice as dramaturg for My Urrwai.  And, of course, to have another strong Indigenous woman in Rachael Maza to direct the production has guaranteed the solution to that potential problem of the risk of performing not only your own work, but your own self.  Add in the strongly creative input of Michael Hankin and Ania Reynolds for the visual and sound landscape for Ghenoa’s journey, inventively lit by Niklas Pajanti, for work which seems to me to be a new original and significant form, which I’ll call Theatre of the Personal Self.

If ever there was a need for cross-cultural understanding, and surely we need this more than ever before in our time of political divisiveness, Ghenoa Gela’s work is essential viewing.






 Photos supplied
 Ghenoa Gela in My Urrwai



 © Frank McKone, Canberra

Saturday 20 January 2018

2018: Alice in Wonderland - No 3

Dubs Yunupingu as Alice
Alice in Wonderland adapted by Mary Anne Butler, from the story by Lewis Carroll.  Produced by Michael Sieders for Sydney Festival at Lennox Theatre, Riverside Theatres, Parramatta, January 5 – 27, 2018.

Director – Cristabel Sved; Production Designer – Melanie Liertz; Composer and Sound Designer – Steve Toulmin; Lighting Designer – Matt Cox.

Cast:
Dubs Yunupingu – Alice
Alex Packard – Harry / Mad Hatter / Rabbit
Ebony Vagulans – Caterpillar / Chelsie / Cheshire Cat
Drew Wilson – Quinn / Queen of Hearts /March Hare / Dormouse

Other roles: Bottle, Door, Chocolate Tree, Shoes (2), Mouse, Jack of Hearts, Three of Spades – shared between the performers.

Program includes the script published by Currency Press

Reviewed by Frank McKone
January 19


The play begins before the action and ends, after the action, with distant crows, a little closer at hand honey-eaters – possibly the particular species I recall from north of Katherine and in the Kimberley – with the occasional close-up blow-fly: a soundscape that tells us we are in ancient Australia.  These sounds, plus the punt and catch of the high-flying AFL football between two young fellas, bring us into modern times – but what’s this girl who wants to take the mark?

Today’s Alice is an up-to-the-mark 14 year-old young modern woman.  She is offended, in fact oppressed by male dominance, specifically because she is not allowed to play in the under-15s – not even to train – simply because she is a girl.  “I don’t belong here,” she says.  “I don’t belong there.  I don’t seem to belong anywhere!”

By the end of the play, her experience of the magical world at the bottom of a children’s playground spiral slide – really consisting of her own imagination testing her thoughts and feelings in twisted forms derived from the real world – makes her ready to stand up for herself, face the taunts of the boys, and she will surely get to play her beloved AFL – the code.

In this production, the casting adds another layer: the two young women are clearly Indigenous, while the two young men are clearly not.

I’m sure there will be some purists who will see Mary Anne Butler’s updating of the oh-so-19th Century-English Alice as a travesty of literary tradition.  There may be others who think that theatre for children should not be so polemical – in this case absolutely feminist.  But why not? – when the conventions of male supremacy are still so obvious in too many families in the way wives and children are treated in the real world, where family violence is so often their experience.

Butler hasn’t taken up these thoughts as far as I have here: she concentrates on the positive development of Alice as a young woman finding her way towards a personal goal – not being willing to be left in her childhood state, accepting the strictures imposed by others, any more.

The code is a metaphor for the rules of the game which Alice needs to follow to achieve her goal – and it is the Caterpillar (firmly played by Ebony Vagulans) who teaches her, in the philosophical section about how you know who you are – which in this adaptation becomes about how you become what you want to be. 

The theatrical devices used in this production, with only four performers, were in their own right an education in drama for the young children watching, and maybe for many of the adults.  The rabbit, like the mouse and others, began as a small soft toy, turned very effectively into an apparently living puppet by the boys manipulating its head, legs, and giving it a voice.  As Alice grew smaller, the rabbit became the man/actor; while at another point Alice became giant-sized (that’s where the two very large shoes come in), while the full-size rabbit now seemed small in comparison.

This kind of playing around often became very funny, especially for the younger children – while at the same time sections of the script deliberately extended the vocabulary, even into words like ‘metaphor’ and ‘metamorphosis’ (which caterpillars naturally do, but which Alice must do for herself). 

It looked like little children’s drama, as if Alice was still 5 or 6; but the language took on a higher stage of learning, for the 14 year-old going on 15.

While watching, from my biassed drama-teacherish standpoint, I felt at times not sure if it all was working; but in the end the positive responses from the audience, ranging from about 4 to adult, and some comments I overheard in the foyer, indicated that people were very happy with the end-product.

So as the director, in her notes, explains: “We have set Alice’s world in a playground, and it is through her imagination that Wonderland with all its madcap characters and shifting shapes is conjured from the everyday people, discarded toys and playground equipment.  This imaginative capacity that is so important in the lives of children, and important to our creativity and enjoyment as adults, has been a guiding theme in this production.  Alice’s capacity for conjuring make-believe into a new reality for herself is there for all to take strength and purpose from.”

And all the actors’ skilful conjuring of their bodies, props, puppets and elements of the set made this Alice in Wonderland a playground full of surprises and wonder for young and old alike.



And so, to summarise this week of the Three Alices, it has been interesting to see that each adaptation and staging approach has been quite different. 

Of the three, personally I found the Ickle Pickle (No 2, on January 16th) the warmest and most engaging – perhaps because it was most suited to its setting in my local community.

The more conventional form of the commercially touring show (No 1, on January 14th) was in many ways the most satisfying in achieving a Lewis Carroll effect – but it might have been better to establish its audience at the 8 to 12 level, rather than promote it as fun for all ages, down to almost babes in arms who were there last Sunday.

Mary Anne Butler’s adaptation, (No 3 on Jan 19), was the version with the strongest dramatic throughline and sense of educational and political purpose – but, as in No 1, the use of mics distracted me at first and for the smaller Lennox Theatre I thought they were not really necessary. 

So, fit for local community purpose puts Ickle Pickle ahead; but Mary Anne Butler’s script and production puts Michael Sieders Presents ahead across the country; while Penny Farrow’s script and Rapidfire International and Boyd Productions win points for commercially touring beyond our borders a literally straight approach close to Lewis Carroll’s intentions.

And, indeed, Alice herself wins in all three – as she should.

© Frank McKone, Canberra

2018: Barber Shop Chronicles


Barber Shop Chronicles by Inua Ellems.  Sydney Festival: Fuel, National Theatre and West Yorkshire Playhouse, UK, at Seymour Centre, York Theatre, January 18 – 28, 2018.

Director – Bijan Sheibani; Designer – Rae Smith; Lighting Designer – Jack Knowles; Movement Director – Aline David; Sound Designer – Gareth Fry; Music – Michael Henry; Fight Director – Kev McCurdy; Staff Director – Stella Odunlami; Barber Consultant – Peter Atakpo; Company Voice Work – Charmian Hoare; Dialect Coach – Hazel Holder; Tour Casting Director – Amy Ball.

Cast: (alphabetical order)
Tanaka / Fiifi – David Ajao; Kwabena / Brian / Fabrice / Olawale – Peter BankolĂ©; Wallace / Timothy / Mohammed / Tinashe – Tuwaine Barrett; Musa / Andile / Mensah – Maynard Eziashi; Samuel – Bayo Gbadamosi; Winston / Shoni – Martins Imhangbe; Tokunbo / Paul / Simphiwe – Patrice Naiambana; Emmanuel – Cyril Nri; Ethan – Kwami Odoom; Elnathan / Benjamin / Dwain – Sule Rimi; Kwame / Simon / Wole – Abdul Salis; Abram / Ohene / Sizwe – David Webber.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
January 20


Though I was unable to follow about 60% of the dialogue, because of the dialects and accents of most of the characters in Barber Shop Chronicles, the importance of the story still came through. 

People from post-colonial Africa, particularly in this play from Nigeria (now Niger, pronounced Nijair), Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), Uganda and South Africa, for many different reasons left their homes and settled in Britain.  Inua Ellems, born in Nigeria, has become a significant “cross-art-form practitioner: a poet, playwright, performer, graphic artist, designer”.  His concern in this play is the state of play among the current community of first and second generation African immigrants, especially the men struggling to make their way in Britain.

Their barber shops are hardly a source of much wealth, especially since their customers are almost entirely from this small community, trying to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps (to use a phrase common in the England of my childhood there, after the Great Depression and World War II).  But it is in these barber shops, run and frequented, of course, only by men, that issues like their relationships with women – their wives in particular – and the younger generation, who know little about the past histories of their parents; and their attitudes about their home countries and the politics there still today, become sources of constant talk, argument, conflict – and hopefully some kind of accommodation.

Though I could follow little of the details (for example of old prejudices about Ibo and Yoruba in Nigeria; of differences of views about Mugabe’s role in Zimbabwe and the future now he is no longer President; or of the conflicting views about Nelson Mandela as a failure or great man in South Africa), I began to see the barber shops as a kind of TRC – a Truth and Reconcilation Commission, especially for the younger generation to be told disturbing truths about what their parents had done, to survive and escape in the turmoil of the past.  They may be ‘free’ in England, but no-one can escape their past except by knowing, acknowledging, and becoming reconciled with others, even with those who had previously kept the past secret as protection – and even with a parent who has died without revealing the truth to his son.

After many scenes in different barbers’ shops – the scene-changes are represented by lighting up their advertising signs, and accompanied by powerful African harmonic group singing and dancing – the play ends on a positive note for the central young man as he realises and comes to understand the truth about his father’s past, and is able now to treat his community’s elders with respect, as an equal.

Photos by Prudence Upton



 Changing moods in the Barber Shop Chronicals

Because of the, for me, overwhelming complexity of the relationships between such a huge range of characters, with so many actors doubling up, I am unable to name who played those final roles.  But in the end, I suggest that this doesn’t really matter, in the sense that the play is about the community as a whole rather than about individual personal tragedies and successes.

In this way, the play has universal significance.  We all, in whatever community we see ourselves belonging to, need to understand, appreciate and come to terms with everyone’s trials, tribulations and attempts at resolutions, however close to or far away from completion during our lifetimes.  The joy expressed so excitingly in the whole group’s singing and dancing which linked the scenes and stimulated such applause at the end, said it all.

Barber Shop Chronicles changing scenes

© Frank McKone, Canberra













2018: The Wider Earth

Emily Burton, Tom Conroy, Thomas Larkin
The Wider Earth by Writer / Director / Co-Designer / Puppet Designer David Morton.  Sydney Festival: Queensland Theatre and Dead Puppet Society co-presented with Sydney Opera House, Drama Theatre, January 6 – 28, 2018.

Dead Puppet Society acknowledges St Ann’s Warehouse as the original development partner.

Creative Producer / Puppet Fabricator – Nicholas Paine; Co-Designer – Aaron Barton; Lighting Designer – David Walters; Co-Composer – Lior; Co-Composer – Tony Buchen; Sound Designer – Tony Brumpton; AV/Animation Designer – Justin Harrison; Dramaturg – Louise Gough.

Assistant Puppet Coach – Helen Stephens; Voice and Dialect Coach – Melissa Agnew; Illustrator (AV) and Puppet Arting – Anna Straker; Puppet Fabricator – Matthew Seery; Puppet Arting – Jen Livingstone; Puppet Fabricator (Secondment) – Tia-Hanee Cleary.

Technical Manager – Sam Maher; Stage Manager – Nicole Neil.

Cast: (alphabetical order)
Margi Brown Ash – Reverend John Henslow; Emily Burton – Emma Wedgwood; Tom Conroy – Charles Darwin; Thomas Larkin – John Wickham; David Lynch – Richard Matthews / Robert Darwin / John Herschel; Anthony Standish – Robert Fitzroy; Jaime Ureta – Jemmy Button.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
January 20


Photos by Jamie Williams

The set design for The Wider Earth
Video screen above, the full width of the stage
The revolve showing one aspect used for on board The Beagle and other locations,
here on Galapagos



 “If your theory is fit, it will survive.” – David Morton, whose  The Wider Earth is that wonderful, all too rare theatre in which form and content are unified.  What’s more it’s a great example of the art of communicating science.

Even though Charles Darwin himself began a perpetual misunderstanding by writing that evolution is the “survival of the ‘fittest’” – which uncomprehending people ever since have interpreted as meaning ‘biggest and strongest’ – at last, in this grand theatrical story of Darwin’s moment of epiphany, we get the real picture.  The procession of evolving new species and extinction of others is all about the often tiny changes in all the small parts which at any moment in time fit together to make up the whole.

Dead Puppet Society’s Morton, thanking the Queensland Theatre “who were responsible for elevating this project from a playful exploration into a fully-fledged work”, states his hopes – that I say he has fully achieved – writing “The Wider Earth is a work of fiction drawn loosely from the historical record.  It takes memories of real people, places and events and passes them through the lens of myth.  Some may call it blasphemous.  Others may caution that the simplicity of the tale undermines the real work of its hero.  I hope it might stand as a celebration of the incredible complexity of our planet, and go some way towards humanising the part played by those brave enough to stand against the dominant thought of their time.”

It’s exciting to see the mystery of art in action.  Can you imagine making clear the scientific thinking process Darwin went through on his first trip around the world in The Beagle, as he observed and was almost trapped in volcanic eruptions in the Land of Fires (Tierra del Fuego) on the tip of South America, returning to England finally after five years (via the Galapagos, Hobart and Cape Town) – using a revolving stage, a video projector, a few coloured lights, a sound system, a few (expensive) actors that you can dress up, and the idea that animals can be represented by puppets on the ends of sticks, visibly manipulated by actors when they’re not doing something else?

If you find it hard to see how you would do it, then it would take me pages of writing to describe.  It’s a great shame if you can’t get to see it for yourself, but all I can say is this team have done it! That’s why I’ve listed all their names, to show how huge the task has been – and how amazing that all these people could make David Morton’s ‘fiction’ tell a truth which has fundamentally changed our understanding of life on earth.

The Wider Earth is a Wider Understanding of ourselves.  Please try not to miss it.  I hope it can continue to be played long after the end of this season in only 8 days’ time.

Darwin with his favourite beagle in
The Wider Earth

Darwin examines an iguanadon on Galapagos
in The Wider Earth

Darwin feeds a turtle on Galapagos
in The Wider Earth

© Frank McKone, Canberra










Tuesday 16 January 2018

2018: Alice in Wonderland - No 2


Alice in Wonderland, adapted by Jason Pizzarello from the story by Lewis Carroll, with additional material from Alice Through the Looking Glass, and original music and songs by Peter Best.

Ickle Pickle Productions at Belconnen Theatre, Canberra, January 12 – 20, 2018.

Director – Jordan Best; Choreography – Talisha Jackson; Set Design and Scenic Art –
Steven Galinec; Costume Design – Fiona Leach; Makeup Design – Janette Humphrey; Graphic Design – Jenny Watson; Sound Design – Jordan Best; Original Design Concept – Wayne Shepherd

Cast:
Alice – Sarah O’Neil; Alice #2 – Emily O’Brien; White Rabbit – Jade Breen;
Mad Hatter – Jim Adamik; Cheshire Cat – Nicole Carr; March Hare – Oliver Johnstone; Dormouse – William Best;
TweedleDee – Brenton Cleaves; TweedleDum – Kay Liddiard; Queen of Hearts – Alex MacPherson; King of Hearts – Janie Lawson; Duchess – Shaylie Maskell;
Two of Hearts – Jack Morton; Five of Hearts – Joss Kent; Seven of Hearts – Callum Doherty; Knave of Hearts – Joe Moores;
Cook / Mock Turtle – Eryn Marshall; Caterpillar – Caitlin Simkin; Humpty Dumpty – Lucy O’Sullivan;
Old Squirrel – Jim Tweddle; General – Bailey Lutton; Fish Footman – Jacinta Rush; Frog Footman – Bianca Lawson; Flower (Rose) – Kellee-Rose Hand; Flower (Tiger Lily) – Zoe Lee-Archer; Executioner – Aron Tweddle.

Ensemble: Aimee Halley, Alysandra Grant, Annabelle Ferrington, Ella Colquhoun, Sabine Zen, Layla Wilson, Victoria Hunt, Reba Nelson, Erica Karlstrom.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
January 16



Jordan Best’s Alice is definitively aged 10 years and 9 months.  Humpty Dumpty tells her “I should have stayed at 10.  But it’s too late now.”  And promptly falls off the wall, “never to be put back together again”.  Alice notes that the line is too long for the poem.  Like so much of her experience down the rabbit hole, it doesn’t fit.

Before the age of 10 she lived in a naĂŻve kind of wonderland, thoroughly engrossed in reading storybooks; now she lives in a new growing-up land making her wonder about all sorts of things, from how we know who we are, how we know what’s true, to how we know what’s right. 

Best splits her Alice into two: the one in her dream keeps chasing but can never catch up with the one who fell asleep in the real world.  But they meet in the court of justice, and sing with the whole cast in the finale of a world where we all live together.  All put back together again, as a family, in a fitting song, I Wonder, by Jordan’s father, film composer Peter Best (Crocodile Dundee and Muriel’s Wedding) while her husband, Jim Adamik, perhaps ironically, makes a wonderful Mad Hatter  – and not forgetting their son, William, always asleep as the Dormouse.

This is genuine community theatre, in the Belconnen Community Centre, for our local audience of young families and the occasional oldie like me.  It doesn’t matter that not all the performers have polished technical skills – what’s essential is their commitment, enthusiasm, and appreciation of the purpose in putting on such a meaningful play.  In fact, though, the younger players matched those of greater acting years and experience very well, while Talisha Jackson’s choreography kept the show moving – with, I thought, a special highlight being the dance/movement work by Nicole Carr as the Cheshire Cat.

The sound design – also by Jordan Best – used a mix of recorded background music (between the music for the songs) which oddly worked – taking us back in time to early 20th Century ragtime, and particularly to the song Ain’t She Sweet? (composed by Milton Ager, lyrics by Jack Yellen, 1927).  Perhaps the question in mind was how sweet is Alice, at least in her dream form, when she refuses to accept the Queen of Hearts’ autocratic idea of justice?

The set design also worked very well, especially considering the limitations of this theatre, allowing for much rapid movement on and off stage for such a large cast and ensemble, with a simple device of roll-on flats for scene changes, keeping the show literally rolling along.  And lighting was nicely done, with changing colour spots making the move from the real to the dream and back again – again a simple device, but all that was needed.

Overall, then, this Alice in Wonderland is a highly satisfying piece of community theatre, with significance beyond the merely local: more than mere entertainment, and certainly an enjoyable evening.  Different, of course, from this week’s commercial Alice in Wonderland No 1 touring at the Canberra Theatre Centre (reviewed here January 14), but in some ways more fitting.


© Frank McKone, Canberra

Saturday 13 January 2018

2018: Alice in Wonderland - No 1


Alice in Wonderland, adapted by Penny Farrow from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, with additional material from Alice Through the Looking-Glass and Rhyme? And Reason? by Lewis Carroll.

Produced by Rapidfire International Inc (USA) in association with Boyd Productions Pty Ltd (Melbourne)  on tour at Canberra Theatre Centre, January 14, 2018.

Director – Penny Farrow; Production Designer – Zachary Lieberman; Lighting Designer – Sam Gibb; Costume Designer – Zachary Lieberman; Puppets by Deiter Barry Creations.

Cast:
Alice – Georgina Walker; White Rabbit – Jacqui McLaren; Queen of Hearts – Simon Burvill-Holmes; Mad Hatter – Karen Crone; March Hare – Liam Nunan; Dormouse/Caterpillar – Jackson McGovern; Tweedle Dum – Merlyn Tong; Tweedle Dee – Tamara Meade; Cheshire Cat – Simon Burvill-Holmes / Jackson McGovern.
Narrators – Ensemble

Reviewed by Frank McKone

This version of Alice in Wonderland is essentially straight theatre.  It has a Prologue, including parts of The Hunting of the Snark, as Alice falls asleep and begins to dream of tulgey woods and a white rabbit with a stop-watch; and ends with an Epilogue as she re-awakes – and yet still seems to see the same white rabbit hurrying away off-stage.

In Scene 1, miming very effectively creates Alice’s falling down the rabbit-hole, and her shrinking enough to use the tiny key in the tiny door into Wonderland, where characters are created in a combination of extraordinary costumes and puppet figures in

Scene 2 – Advice from a Caterpillar about who she thinks she really is.  (His hookah doesn’t produce smoke, and was probably a complete mystery to modern very much non-smoking Canberra children);
Scene 3 – Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee, where Alice learns about language and logic;
Scene 4 – A Mad Tea Party, where logic simply doesn’t apply;
Scene 5 – A Rattle Battle, where Alice shows the Tweedles that fighting over inconsequential issues is unnecessary;
Scene 6 – A Game of Croquet, where the Queen of Hearts always wins and continually orders executions for losers and questioners, extending into
Scene 7 – Who Stole the Tarts?, where the rule of law means whatever the Queen thinks is ‘evidence’, even though Alice can see that no evidence is ever presented.

It’s just as well Alice wakes up at this point, considering where her logic might take her – presumably about Queen Victoria in the days of the author, who was really the mathematician and logician Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (d.1898); while we have plenty of weird interpretations of ‘rule of law’ in modern times, even among elected prima donnas.

The characterisation of Alice by Georgina Walker was a key (not so tiny) to the success of this production.  She is a very skilful mover, not only literally as a dancer but as an upfront thinking Alice who won’t take nonsense for an answer – including making it perfectly clear that she is not afraid of the bully Queen, and tells it to her face.  Definitely a role model for the modern woman, but in fact for any of the children in the audience.  Not all of the nearly full theatre were old enough to follow all the intellectual argument (two in fact were made afraid by the hunting of the snark), but even the very young could not but be impressed by Alice’s determination.

The rest of the cast, of course, provided the platform and surroundings for Walker to perform on and bounce off, in costumes and a set design that made it all work.  The only quibble I have was with the use of microphones, though I recognise the difficult choice in a 1244 seat theatre.  Miking inevitably takes away the sense of direct communication with the actors, making it harder to feel empathy with the characters.

Walker and Simon Burvill-Holmes as the Queen were the most effective in making their voices rounded and more personal (and perhaps they had the best-scripted parts for doing this).  For children’s education in theatre – and after all that’s surely an important motivation in presenting Alice in Wonderland – their human connection with the people (and their characters) on stage needs to be enhanced.  I’m not sure that even modern technology can quite do the trick.

However I’m pleased to have seen this ‘straight’ approach to Lewis Carroll and the originality of incorporating the poems.  It will be interesting to see the other two productions showing this week, one in Canberra and one in Sydney, in comparison.


Georgina Walker, Liam Nuna, Jackson McGovern and Karen Crone as
L to R: Alice, March Hare, Dormouse and Mad Hatter in
Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, adapted by Penny Farrow


© Frank McKone, Canberra