It is not a phenomenon that if something is successful others come along who also want to have a piece of that cake. After Disney released Tim Burton's successful adaptation of "Alice in Wonderland" in 2010, featuring elements from "Alice in Wonderland" and its sequel "Through the looking glass", the less-budget-Benelux-Disney-alike-company "Studio 100" presents us the talented girl group K3 starring in their fourth play "Alice in Wonderland - the musical". The show was announced as the first 3D-Musical ever, meaning the audience in Antwerpen and Den Haag, where the play was showed, were sitting with 3D-glasses, watching the actors on the stage performing in front of a giant screen, with actually decent graphics and some good effects, also on the stage.
Eventhrough the press release announces that this play is based on the famous Lewis Carroll books, this is only very loosely related to the story, featuring less elements from the wonderful stories than in some other Alice-adaptations. OK, they have Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dumb talking in rhyme, they have a heart king etc., which Tim Burton didn't have in his movie (still he took more care about the source material than here) but a Cheshire Cat or a turtle or Humpty Dumpty from the second book would be nice too.
The plot only features the girls from K3 going to a movie theater after a rainy day to see "Alice in Wonderland - the musical" (how random) and jump into to warn Alice about all the dangers waiting for her in Wonderland. But in Wonderland they don't want to release Alice because (quote White Rabbit named Hestor): "Without Alice there is no fairytale. And without the fairytale there is no cartoon." "And no movie with Johnny Depp?". So they walk around Wonderland, take part of some of the events, meet some characters, like the Mad Hatter and his party, the Catterpillar, the flowers and the once I mentioned here.
Some effects are good, e.g. during the Heartking- and queen song the dancing cards appear on the stage and on the screen and do the same moves as the actors. It looks good.
But I think this project wouldn't be done without the Tim Burton movie. Not only is "a movie with Johnny Depp" mentioned, some of the design and the costumes are very similar to the movie, including the font of the title card. That makes it more like a cash-in of the Disney movie.
And despite the fact that it's called "Alice in Wonderland" the character Alice, who is the main plot point in the play and is named all the time, only receives around 10 minutes of appearing time and appears nearly at the end (being kinda found) before the last two music numbers. Why isn't it called "K3 in Wonderland"? Maybe because there was a K3 concert show with that name in 2003. And K3 took also the most part of the singing. Maybe this is why some of the main actors are playing more roles, like Koen Crucke playing The Mad Hatter in the Act 1 and the Catterpillar in Act 2. Many of the elements are also related to Belgium itself or Studio100, including some of the actors, puns, cultural references. Is it necessary?
In short: this play is kinda fun but not really something we needed. Sure, the songs are nice, and the arrangements are great, Some of the actors have good singing voices and a few lines are funny but: if you want to tell the Alice story, tell the Alice story and don't try to copy existing stuff. The timeless Alice stories have so much potential for new ideas and creativity, but here it is mostly gone.
So if you like catchy music it is worth a seen, but if you want a play which actually tells the story then avoid it.
Eventhrough the press release announces that this play is based on the famous Lewis Carroll books, this is only very loosely related to the story, featuring less elements from the wonderful stories than in some other Alice-adaptations. OK, they have Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dumb talking in rhyme, they have a heart king etc., which Tim Burton didn't have in his movie (still he took more care about the source material than here) but a Cheshire Cat or a turtle or Humpty Dumpty from the second book would be nice too.
The plot only features the girls from K3 going to a movie theater after a rainy day to see "Alice in Wonderland - the musical" (how random) and jump into to warn Alice about all the dangers waiting for her in Wonderland. But in Wonderland they don't want to release Alice because (quote White Rabbit named Hestor): "Without Alice there is no fairytale. And without the fairytale there is no cartoon." "And no movie with Johnny Depp?". So they walk around Wonderland, take part of some of the events, meet some characters, like the Mad Hatter and his party, the Catterpillar, the flowers and the once I mentioned here.
Some effects are good, e.g. during the Heartking- and queen song the dancing cards appear on the stage and on the screen and do the same moves as the actors. It looks good.
But I think this project wouldn't be done without the Tim Burton movie. Not only is "a movie with Johnny Depp" mentioned, some of the design and the costumes are very similar to the movie, including the font of the title card. That makes it more like a cash-in of the Disney movie.
And despite the fact that it's called "Alice in Wonderland" the character Alice, who is the main plot point in the play and is named all the time, only receives around 10 minutes of appearing time and appears nearly at the end (being kinda found) before the last two music numbers. Why isn't it called "K3 in Wonderland"? Maybe because there was a K3 concert show with that name in 2003. And K3 took also the most part of the singing. Maybe this is why some of the main actors are playing more roles, like Koen Crucke playing The Mad Hatter in the Act 1 and the Catterpillar in Act 2. Many of the elements are also related to Belgium itself or Studio100, including some of the actors, puns, cultural references. Is it necessary?
In short: this play is kinda fun but not really something we needed. Sure, the songs are nice, and the arrangements are great, Some of the actors have good singing voices and a few lines are funny but: if you want to tell the Alice story, tell the Alice story and don't try to copy existing stuff. The timeless Alice stories have so much potential for new ideas and creativity, but here it is mostly gone.
So if you like catchy music it is worth a seen, but if you want a play which actually tells the story then avoid it.
