The Cincinnati Playhouse presented this piece first in their Young Person’s Theatre Series in November 1997.
Roger presents the important sequences from Lewis Carroll’s 2 books (Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass) with the aid of outsize playing cards which have the immortal characters on their faces. Carroll was a master of language and the riddles/puzzles/paradoxes/logical games are so helpful in assisting children becoming aware of the subtleties of language. These days shows like Sponge Bob or South Park or The Simpsons play with language but the Alice books are unequalled in their power to get students’ brains working.
The audience experiences mirroring/ being a scary Jabberwock/ stumping Roger with their riddles/ singing Will You Walk a Little Faster?/ saying ‘Wonderland’ in a spooky voice.
The show has a surprise ending and each audience member goes home with their own playing card.
ROGER JEROME
