CB West Harlequin Club’s Fall Show: Alice by Heart
By: Julia Donald
With production licensing becoming unavailable as of June 2025, West’s Harlequin Club brought the unique and mystical story of Alice by Heart to our stage the nights of November 21st through 24th. Through the storytelling by an incredibly talented cast, crew, and orchestra, the show took the audience along with protagonist Alice Spencer as she travelled between her reality in an underground London tube station during World War II and her fantasies within the pages of Lewis Caroll’s classic Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
The small cast was one of the key elements for the show, as each of the characters residing in the shelter also played a parallel role in Wonderland. As Alice’s childhood best friend Alfred becomes sick and detached, he morphs into the iconic bolting White Rabbit who similarly never seems to have time to stay. Alice is ridiculed in the shelter for her optimism and the strength in which she clings to her childhood. Bonded through their mutual love for the book Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Alice and Alfred go “Down the Hole” into Wonderland as Alice attempts to escape the reality of Alfred’s demise and spend more time with him.
Alice attempts to alter the pages of the story and is faced with mockery and opposition by the autocratic Queen of Hearts, who exchanges the red cross on her shelter nurse uniform for a red heart and crown; the deranged Mad Hatter, paralleled by a veteran named Harold who suffers from PTSD, often shouting nonsense; and an additional assortment of expressive characters. The Cheshire Cat, a woman named Tabatha in the shelter, is a calmer, wise mentor for Alice, encouraging her to leave Alfred and the storybook in the past and face her inevitable grief. Eventually coming to terms with Alfred’s fate, Alice closes the book and leaves Wonderland one last time, returning to life in the shelter as a more mature, accepting character.
Along with the imaginative costumes, a humorous script, and animated songs, the use of projections and dream sequences helped the piece come alive. Between the colorful puffs of smoke during the Caterpillars’ “Chillin’ the Regrets” and the heavy raindrops during the Mock Turtles’ “Your Shell of Grief”, the art projections behind the characters helped add emotion and detail to the storytelling, enhancing the experience and performance. The club also filmed Alice’s dream sequences of her and Alfred over the summer- local child actors portrayed young Alice and Alfred, enhancing the childhood backstory that helped contribute to the show’s captivating plotline.
