Review - Wonderland on Broadway

We've come to expect the worst from Frank Wildhorn. The composer who gave us Jekyll & Hyde, The Civil War, The Scarlet Pimpernel, and Dracula, the Musical has certainly made a name for himself, but it's not a name I'd mention in mixed company.

So perhaps it's not surprising that I entered Wonderland, Wildhorn's latest show to hit the main stem, with a profound sense of dread. However, halfway through the first act, I was pleasantly surprised at how much I was enjoying the show.

Don't get me wrong: Wonderland is a godawful mess, a muddled attempt to capture a little bit of that Wicked-inspired, updated-classic cash and cachet. But Wonderland is not quite the abject disaster that many people were expecting. There are some genuine moments of delight amid the admittedly long stretches of tedium and ineptitude.

Like Andrew Lloyd Webber, Frank Wildhorn has pretty much always had trouble finding and keeping decent collaborators. Here, his production partners are Gregory Boyd (book and direction) and Jack Murphy (book and lyrics), with whom he also collaborated on The Civil War. I never saw Civil War, but it only lasted two months in 1999 on Broadway, and has pretty much disappeared since.

Their work here actually starts off surprisingly strong: the book and lyrics during act one have a sort of a sweet and occasionally smart tone. Early in the first act, once our modern-day, grown-up Alice (Janet Dacal) has been transported to Wonderland, we witness a raft of rapid-fire, character-introduction production numbers, and the songs, while unremarkable, were mostly landing the night I saw the show. This was in no small part due to a terrific cast of Broadway regulars, including E. Clayton Cornelious as the Caterpillar, and Jose Llana  as El Gato (AKA the Cheshire Cat). The always reliable Karen Mason, whom I had the great pleasure of seeing as Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard, is a scream as the Queen of Hearts, and gives both of her big numbers a rousing delivery that in another day and age would have made her a star.

The first sign of trouble comes with the entrance of Kate Shindle as the Mad Hatter. It wasn't clear to me whether it was Shindle's fault or the authors', but suddenly the songs became uninspired and predictable, right down to their quotidian titles: "The Mad Hatter," "Through the Looking Glass, "Off With Their Heads." The holes in the plot and the dialog also started to show: for instance, it's not entirely clear why the Hatter takes an instant dislike to Alice and sets out to...well, come to think of it, I'm not exactly sure what the Mad Hatter was even trying to do to Alice. Just your ordinary, everyday malicious mischief, I suppose.

The real turning point for me, when the show started going downhill, was when late in the first act we suddenly we hit a plant-and-belt ballad called "Home," and we're transported away from the magic of Wonderland to the derivative, showboating world of Frank Wildhorn ballads. (Modulations included.) Even so, as of the act 1 curtain, I found myself thinking that this was the closest that Wildhorn had yet come to concocting a decent show.

Then came act 2, the rank amateurishness of which quickly dissipates any goodwill left over from Wonderland's flawed but passable act one. Once Alice has gone through the looking glass, we the audience have a mind-altering experience of our own to contend with: a libretto that becomes a muddled morass of clumsy exposition ("Wait. White Rabbit, don't you have that pocket watch that can turn back time?") and pop-psychology bromides. ("Don't you see, Alice? Wonderland is inside you.")

Wonderland's latter half put me in mind of the late and unlamented second act of Spider-Man, with its inscrutable plot developments, obtuse character motivations, and utterly befuddling denouement. Of course, the $70-million-and-climbing Spider-Man is taking a three-week hiatus to retool and to shed its much-maligned second half. Wonderland, budgeted at a mere $14 million, doesn't have that luxury.

Comments

[Robert]

Your review is probably the kindest that I've seen of this show. It's still early, but I imagine the family and tourists crowd will manage to keep Wonderland open through the summer, and then it will close in the Fall, or if it's lucky, in January.

It's a real shame, I thought it had some great potential based on the high-caliber performers involved and what I heard on the concept album.

[Neil Reilly]

Frank Wildhorn has kept a great deal of his collaborators! He has a wonderful orchestrator whose been with him for years, and uses the same music staff frequently.

[ccaggiano]

Oh, Neil. You and your one-track mind. By "collaborators," I meant writing partners. The wordsmiths.

I know: Me and my one-track mind.

[ccaggiano]

Robert: I suppose it was inevitable. My review came after all the major critic had weighed in, and it was such a torrent of vitriol that anyone seeing the show afterwards might be inclined to say: "Geez, it wasn't *that* bad."

But I actually saw Winderland before the reviews came out, and I genuinely enjoyed some parts of the show. But overall, it was pretty awful.

[SarahB]

It was a pleasure sitting next to you at the show and I can't agree with you more on this one. My first Wildhorn! It was funny learning that it wasn't nearly as bad as everybody told me it would be. Ha! I loved reading your thoughts on this. I wouldn't mind having the opportunity to "First Act" this one again, especially to see those costumes and numbers by Karen Mason.

[Bob]

I heard about this show and all I've ever heard was negative remarks. Not to mention Alice in Wonderland has scared me as a child and I think it was the smoking caterpillar. I think some movies are meant to stay movies... just like Spiderman: Turn off the Dark. As much as I love Peter Parker and his web shooting hands, he doesn't need to be singing and dancing on a stage as he's doing it.

[-Rich]

Unfortunately for Wonderland though, it won't be open through the summer, it wont even make it to summer. Closing May 15th.

[Nick]

I saw the two of the tampa "tryouts" and the broadway final version of the show. I must say; they had something in the original Tampa versions. By something, i mean something good.

In the original version, there is much more exposition that, in this case, works a lot better than what we currently have in the Broadway finalized version. The song "Worst Day of My Life" was sung just by Alice (as opposed to Alice and Chloe) and it was much more effective as we feel more sympathy for Alice and it was just overall a much better song in that incarnation of the show.

The worst decision, in my opinion, made by the creative team had to have been replacing Nikki Snelson with Kate Shindle. Shindle, whose Mad Hatter was...interesting, was not nearly as fulfilling as Snelsons. Snelsons Hatter was almost a completely different character. Not only did she have a completely different song where I Will Prevail now stands (Nick Of Time), she danced. Yes, that's right, she danced. AND IT WAS AMAZING. I would much rather prefer Snelson's version over Shindle's While they both have quality factors, Snelson's mad hatter was the greater one.

They changed the show up because it was too lighthearted (and because they got mixed reviews) What's wrong with the show being too lighthearted? The show was much better in its original form. Sure, it wasn't the GREATEST, but it would've made more money then the version that made it to broadway.

In regards to Wildhorns music contribution, it's my favorite of his (though i think Bonnie and Clyde might change my mind). Sure, it's definitely generic in some songs, but I would have to say it is the best part of the show. Even then, that's putting it nicely. The book will always be crap.

I really wish you could've seen the original incarnation. It had a lot of redeeming factors and Jabberwocks.

[Jonathan]

This show is awful. Being a big fan of the source material, I was totally let down by this interpretation. The music was good in places but book was absolutely awful. Had they gone with a campier approach, this could've been a hit. I loved Mason's Queen of Hearts, though! That woman has a great voice and spot-on comic skills.

[Nick]

Bonnie and Clyde opens tonight. Oh boy.