The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party
James Hyland, inspired by Lewis Carroll
Brother Wolf Productions
White Bear Theatre
Star rating: 4
Lewis Carroll’s surrealist novel Alice in Wonderland (1865) predates the development of Theatre of the Absurd in the late 1950s by almost a century but it’s a perfect marriage. Carroll’s plotless original is full of non-sequiturs, circular conversations, word play and puns all of which Hyland’s version runs with in this two hander, 60 minute play. He uses most of Carroll’s material, from The Mad Hatter chapter and from elsewhere in the novel and then takes it further.
Hyland is a first class character actor and his Mad Hatter is, well, mad as a hatter – seriously and terrifyingly so as we richochet “from rabbit hole to heart of darkness”. Hyland snivels, shakes, shouts, pants, laughs, weeps, croons, acts with his tongue and does a wonderful job with a farting dormouse glove puppet. There is anger, confusion and fear in this volatile character.
Joshua Jewkes is an excellent foil as the March Hare, white faced and wearing a splendid long eared headpiece (costumes by A Child of the Jago). He seems to be sensible, throwing cold logic back at Hyland and trying to reason with him although of course he’s actually pretty bonkers too. The comic and physical timing is exemplary.
They are both seated slumbering at the table as the audience enters and, as the world’s most fidgety fidget, I marvel at how actors learn to hold that stillness for so long. Jewkes in particular is “asleep” for the best part of 20 minutes.
Towards the end of the show Jessica Ivy is drawn from the audience and dances as Alison (or Alice-son – get it?). The sequence is too long and doesn’t add much, although she does it well enough.
This show is James Hyland’s latest dive into nineteenth century fiction from a new angle. I’ve seen him in Fagin’s Last Hour, A Christmas Carol as told by Jacob Marley – deceased, Jeckyll and Hyde and Dracula. His imaginative writing is as impressive as his acting.
