FREE THEATRE CHRISTCHURCH
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Alice

"Evocative, intelligent and effective"
​Erin Harrington, Theatreview
Production Credits

About

 This is kinda Lewis Carroll... You know he fell on the ice of a pond and he broke his watch one day and he never got it fixed. And he said, that's what happened to him. He said, as long as his watch was broken he could always stay in this world you know, that he invented for him and for her, so...
Tom Waits
Childhood is the paradise we all appear to have lost, but where none of us has actually ever been. The yearning for this lost wonderland is expressed in Lewis Carroll‘s Alice tales and in the popular success that they still have so many years later. But the childish fantasies that we find here also harbour beneath all their alluring whimsy the bitter cruelties that are part of our childhood experience, which we tend to erase from our memories. In Robert Wilson and Tom Waits‘ Alice these Victorian fantasies are replayed as bittersweet realities of the actual lives of the author Dodgson and his muse Alice and are revealed as still being alive today in our own minds. 

Alice combines and mixes two stories: one is about the Victorian fun fair Wonderland with its surface innocence; the other is about Charles Dodgson, the inhibited and speech impaired clergyman and mathematician at Christ Church College Oxford and his erotic dream life. The fun fair shows its darker underside and reveals a surreal freak show. Tom Waits called it a "fever dream" or a "time poem" with "adult songs for children, or children's songs for adults".


New Zealand Premiere: May, 3, 4, 5, 9, 10, 11, 12, 16, 17, 18, 19
Facebook Event Link. 


Views and Reviews

 
"Evocative, Intelligent and Effective"
Erin Harrington, Theatreview, 4 May 2018

Part II: "Second half of Alice musical 'truly outstanding'" (10 May 2018)
Part I: 
"Alice big fun for cast, stimulating for some, perplexing for others" (4 May 2018)
Chris Moore, The Press

RDU Interview, 7 May 2018

 'Tom Waits musical for Christchurch'

​

Audience responses

Thank you for an awesome experience last night. Thoroughly enjoyed an outstanding show.
Go treat yourself to this, it's absolutely brilliant.
Can totally recommend Free Theatre Christchurch's production of ALICE (Tom Waits) - New Zealand Premiere. Trippy AF.
A phenomenal performance...
Everyone in Christchurch! Go and see this wonderful Tom Waits musical, Alice. Illuminating and wonderful! Proud to support the Free Theatre Christchurch we are so lucky to have you. 
Wow!!! Amazing review - but then again I'm not surprised as it was an amazing performance!
Agree. And loved the musicianship too. Perfect mood and accompaniment!
A wonderful performance, well done, you have nailed it again.
Loved it. Just enough of Alice to be recognisable with the quirky touches we've come to expect and enjoy from the marvellous Free Theatre. The sheep monologue/rhyme were hilarious and amusing end was perfect. Keep being awesome guys.
Thanks all you lovely and talented people. We don't know how but you keep bringing the goods. Such quality and goodness. Thinking there should be a public holiday in the name of Free Theatre. ​
Thank you Free Theatre for a magnificent performance. Your complex characters, the music and the sets are all so very well done. ​
Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. Did I mention that it was brilliant? ​
This is worth travelling to Flatland for...a dickie-aroundie favourite Tom Waits musical/album of mine rendered in perfect creepy antihomage to m mmmm mm...Mr Dodgson...with the cleverest use of props/set/lights, phenomenal live music and beautiful renditions of the songs in sweet melodic ungravelly unTom glory
An amazing way to experience Tom Waits' Alice. Get along to this if you can!
Strongly recommend getting along to this! Only 4 nights left next week! I'm not even going to try and describe it ....JUST GO! Awesome work Free Theatre Christchurch
Our yesterday evening at “Alice” (Tom Waits) play. One word to describe the play - brilliant!
This is amazing! Bravo Free Theatre Christchurch!
Loved it tonight! So good!
Free Theatre you are brilliant ✨ Alice 🖤♥️🐇👑🐛🎩☕️⏱
Such an awesome show guys. Enjoyed it so much, made my trip to Christchurch all the more amazing.
Picture

"Alice is adult songs for children, or children's songs for adults. It's a maelstrom or fever-dream, a tone poem, with torch songs and waltzes...an odyssey in dream logic and nonsense".
​

Tom Waits
Picture
Picture
  • HOME
  • ABOUT
    • A brief history...
    • Jarry, Ubu, Pataphysics and Free Theatres
    • Manifestos and Writings
    • Who We Are
    • Shirley Horrocks documentary
    • Training and Devising
    • Home, Space and Design
    • Praise and Awards
  • Te Puna Toi
    • Past Te Puna Toi Projects
    • Artists in Residence
  • UPCOMING
    • Woyzeck
  • EDUCATION
    • Kidsfest and Holiday Programmes
    • Schools Workshops
    • Adult workshops
  • ARCHIVE
    • Productions 1979 - present >
      • The Tempest
      • The Axe
      • Endgame
      • Digitising Performance
      • Erewhon: Over the Range
      • A Summer Night's Dream
      • How Dare You
      • A Winter's Tale
      • Ubu Nights >
        • Past Ubu Nights >
          • Ma Ubu Night
          • Ubu Through the Looking Glass
          • Ubu in Wonderland Ubu Night
          • Frankenstein Ubu Night
          • Casablanca Ubu Night
          • Faust Ubu Night
          • Not Hamlet Ubu Night
          • Punk Ubu Night
          • The Art of the Deal Ubu Night
          • Crossroads Ubu Night
          • Ubu Shows Us the Way to Brecht's Whiskey Bar
          • The Devil and the Blues Ubu Night
          • Bowie Ubu Night
          • Warhol Ubu Night
          • Berlin Kabarette
          • Beat Ubu Night
          • Twin Peaks Ubu Night
          • David Lynch Ubu Night
          • Kafka Ubu Night
          • Tango Ubu Night
          • Ubu Ubu Night
          • Lovecraft Ubu Night
      • Ars Acustica
      • Alice
      • The Black Rider
      • Frankenstein
      • The Mauricio Kagel Project
      • Te Puna Toi 2015: Footprints/Tapuwae
      • Kafka's Amerika
      • The Soldier's Tale
      • Canterbury Tales
      • I Sing the Body Electric
      • Hereafter
      • Passion, Pulse and Power
      • The Earthquake in Chile
      • Doctor Faustus
      • The Marvellous Corricks >
        • Corricks - Credits
      • Distraction Camp
      • Remake
      • Ella and Susn
      • Free Theatre - 25 years and counting...
      • Faust Chroma
      • Enigma Emmy Goering/Nico Sphinx of Ice
      • Faust Feast
      • Diana Down Under
      • Philoctetes >
        • Production Credits - Piloctetes
      • Fantasia
      • Christmas Shopping
      • Grimm's Sleeping Beauty
      • Achternbusch in the Antipodes
      • Caucasian Chalk Circle
      • Samson Airline
      • Kabarett Kabul
      • Footprints/Tapuwae
      • Last Days of Mankind
      • Medea
      • Bakkhai / Diotek
      • Krapp's Last Tape
      • Murderer Hope of Women / The Philosopher's Stone
      • Comrade Savage
      • Love on a Bicycle
      • Resolution Island
      • Songs for the Judges
      • Crusoe
      • Oedipus Rex/Oedipus at Colonus
      • States of Shock
      • Empire Builders
      • Yes
      • Power
      • Robinson Crusoe: Or I THat Was Born To Be My Own Destroyer
      • Newsbites
      • Dumped in Space
      • MedeaMaterial
      • Salome
      • Electra
      • Sphinx and Strawmen
      • The Girl Who Sings Waterfalls
      • Hamletmachine
      • Oresteia
      • A Respectable Wedding
      • Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant
      • Double Act and Postponeless
      • Cloudkiwiland
      • Preversions
      • G.O.P. Helpomatic
      • The Mortal Pleasure of Wander Lust
      • Red Cross & Takeaway
      • Lulu Earth Spirit
      • The Meeting
      • Action / Tongues
      • Cowboy Mouth
      • The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny
      • A Letter from L
      • Dinosaurs and All the Rubbish / The Hunting of the Snark
      • The Ride Across Lake Constance
      • Electra
      • In Three Minds
      • The Rapist Over Suzannah
      • 1984: The Future Is Now
      • Leonce and Lena
      • Kabernette
      • The Joffongract
      • My Foot, My Tutor
      • King Lear
      • King Ubu
      • Jazz Cellar Dada / Heavy Metal Cabaret
      • Kabarett
      • Black Cat Cabaret
      • The Gas Heart/Ox on the Roof/The Mirror Wardrobe One Fine Evening
      • Round Dance
      • Woyzeck
      • Make-up Ground down / Texts for Decomposition
      • Court Case: Arts Centre vs Free Theatre
    • Image Gallery 1979 - present
    • TV3 Clips
    • Selected Reviews
  • SUPPORT
  • BLOG