I recently watched the new musical Wonderland on broadway and i have to say, unlike the critics, i really loved this show.The acting is truly amazing, the singing is beyond description, and the sets are unique and innovative, it is truly a shame that the plot was not strong enough to carry all the amazing talent that this show had to offer.
Acting
Janet Dacal (Alice) Holy Cow!!!!!! where do i begin with her. she is an incredible singer with an extremely powerful and unique singing voice that blew the audience away. the songs she sings were all very well done, even though there was a slight pacing problem toward the end that made it hard to fully appreciate it. My favorite part of her performance was the final song "Finding Wonderland" it was so heartfelt and beautiful, i was in tears by the end of it. Her acting is fairly good as well, though she does not carry the same stage presence as the Queen or The Hatter, when watching you immediately feel connected to her and want her to succede. Kate Shindle (Ms. Quizzle, Mad Hatter), Holy f******n shit!!!!!!!!!!! this has to be one of the best performances out of an actress that i have ever seen. Shindle is truly amazing here for so many reasons. one being her voice. know she is not as strong as Dacal but her voice has such an amazing range to it and her songs fit that so well. each song she sings has is extremely catchy (which is probably why i like her so much). She also has an amazing stage presence in fact in the second act all i wanted was to see the Hatter again just to see Shindle performance. Karen Mason (Mrs. Everheart, Queen of Hearts)continues Wonderland's vocal power as the Queen of Hearts. she seemed to have so much fun with this performance, like Shindle she was a hoot to watch, and her big number "Off With Their Heads" is such a fun song, it's hard not to get it stuck in your head. Darren Ritchie (Jack, White Knight) was ok, his performance ranged from mediocre to decent nothing about me really made an impression on him. i mean he sang fine and was funny because of the material they gave him, so i believe anything likable about him came from his character and not the actor. Carly Rose Sonenclar (Chloe) is probably the best child actress i have ever seen on Broadway. Her voice is so amazingly beautiful that i feel like i am listening to one of those famous singers on the radio. From the moment she opened her mouth she blew me away with her talent.
Plot
Frist i must address the critiques who call this a knock off of The Wiz. This is about Alice going back to Wonderland not Dorthy going back to OZ, these are two completely different characters from two different stories, they might be making similar adventures but the content off both is very different. Now that aside wonderland is a very generic "finding yourself" story. however there are two things i really should note one being The Hatter. in Wonderland The Hatter is Alice's alter ego, now that is a really cool concept and they could have done a lot with that but sadly they just touched on it a little bit which really kinda makes it a tease if you ask me. the second thing is the ending, i was really, really, really pissed at the ending. the final battle takes two seconds, makes no sense and Alice, has the dumbest epiphany ever, which even though it is really dumb, it doesn't ruin the show. it does however put a damper on it. oh i forgot to add something, THE WATCH, this stupid idiotic plot device is the thing that keep me from ranking wonderland in my top 3. THE WATCH carried by the white rabbit can turn back time when pointed at a specific object, the heroes then use this to eliminate all the enemy forces which is so infuriating, you see this really cool army and it's defeated in less then two seconds by this dumb watch!!!!!!!!! it's as if the writers had to think of a way to end the story really quickly beacuse they spent to much time introducing us to the main characters.
Music
Frank Wildhorn and Jack Murphy did an amazing job on Wonderland. Most of the songs are powerful, beautiful, and extremely catchy. For the best song(which is abit biased because i love the performance) is "The Mad Hatter" the song introduces us to our main antagonist and it tells us the depths to which this Hatter will go to get what she wants she will "lie, cheat, and track you down and hit delete." for the worst song is a tie "Heroes" and "Together" now the songs might be well written but they are both slow tempo and sound too much alike i was bored with both off these songs and during both of them i was wishing a Jabberwacky would come and add some excitment to the bloody scenes.
Sets
Wonderland's sets are an amazing sight to take in. Neil Patel did an amazing job. when trying to create another world it is often difficult to create a set that projects another reality. Wonderland accomplishes this by using a lot of digital effects, which work very well with the backdrops. the sets seem to progress with the show, in the first scene Chole's bedroom is very simple, plain, and gray not to much going on but it serves as a great contrast to the color and scale of the future sets. The scenes in Wonderland are all very colorful and dramatic.
Final Thoughts
Wonderland is a visual masterpiece of theater that shows you do not need 60 mill to make a good show. it features some of the best vocal talent i have ever heard in live theater in the form of Dacal and Shindle, but it does have a big weakness in terms of plot and pacing. I would recommend this show to any person remotely interested in theater (just not a theatrical critic.)
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