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  • vote for “Alice im Wunderland” / “Alice in Wonderland”


    When theatre begins to talk about dreams we’d do well to prick up our ears. And keep our eyes wide open. Well, we don’t want to miss the tricks with the sugar cakes, the empty headed boasters and the March Hares who might appear round the corner at any time. Alice’s dreams which take her down into Wonderland one afternoon are not really new. To be precise they don’t even belong to the world of theatre. But happily enough the best stories are simply timeless, and when we’re lucky they become a part of our lives without  us having to bother about names or first-night venues. Indeed grinning Cheshire cats and a neurotic Queen of Hearts can always occupy a fond place in our hearts and minds.

    The “Junges Schauspielhaus Hamburg” has chosen to stage an adaptation of the well-known box of tricks by Lewis Carroll, an increasingly sure-fire hit for young audiences which as such should pose no real problems. That said the director and adaptor Barbara Bürk has not simply fallen back on a series of weird characters and tried-and-tested favourite scenes which often result in a hastily cobbled together show. 

    This production from Hamburg takes apart the traditional story carefully and cleverly and puts it back together for the stage in a unique fashion. The director has extended all the classical ways of devising a story for young theatre audiences and broken through quite a few barriers. Nonetheless her production continually refers back to traditions of performance which have shaped the theatre to the present day, whilst avoiding the easy option of simply “preserving old monuments”. This light-footed version of the story turns Carroll’s absurd episodes once more on their head, comments on them and caricatures them, and gives the well-known chop-logic nonsense its own particular musical rhythm. Very much to the benefit of the original story and of course the audience, who are able to take this splendid piece of nonsense back with them into their everyday life.

    Bernd Mand