Young Peoples Theater travels 'Through the Looking Glass'

D6 ■ ENTERTAINMENT

THE ANN ARBOR NEWS • FRIDAY, APRIL 22. 1983

Young Peoples Theater travels Through the Looking Glass'

By RACHELLE URIST

NEWS DRAMA REVIEWER

The next Young Peoples Theater extravaganza is “Alice,” opening Saturday at the Performance Network, 408 W. Washington.

Based primarily on “Through the Looking Glass,” Lewis Car-roll’s second Alice story, the show features a multi-unit monster as Jabberwocky, a white knight on a goofy horse that wears a walkman and tries to ride the knight, a train that dances the bunny hop, Humpty Dumpty, the famous Cheshire Cat and Caterpillar, Tweed ledifrn and Tweed ledee, talking flowers, kings snoring in the distance, and chess board images including rooks that advance in mirror-image pairs.

"The Walrus and the Carpenter,” like “The Jabberwocky” and other poems, will act itself out.

YPT’s “Alice,” representing the first of several new productions to be presented this spring, is adapted by Jim Moran and directed by Barbara Thorne and Jennifer Shikes, who helped direct last season’s delightful “Midsummer Night Revisited," also adapted by Moran. The directors describe this “Alice” as resting on patterned movement: on posturing, stock character patterns, straight lines and diagonals for the queen’s advances. This stylization will create an animated chess board on stage and a feeling of being inside the game.

These movements serve another purpose, explains Shikes. YPT’s schedule of shows represents a progression in learning and performance for the young people involved, and the show following “Alice” will be in the style of Corn-media dell’ Arte. There, patterned movement is woven into every story played.

“Alice” will see old-fashioned pantomime and parodies of old-style acting (proclamatory and melodramatic), so it is, then, a step toward the last project on this year’s program.

The translations of Carroll’s whimsical creatures to three dimensional compositions of bodies is based loosely on some of the work of The Imaginary Menagerie, a troupe that was a forerunner of Ann Arbor’s summertime Medieval Festival and of Detroit’s Attic Theatre. Some of those people, including Moran and David Bernstein, are still in town and are among the founders of The Performance Network, which is where YPT performs when it isn’t touring.

The two directors of “Alice” have a history with Young People’s Theatre. Barbara Thorne was last seen in “Scrooge.” which she co-directed with Moran. She also just finished an acting stint with Michigan Media and was among the directors of new plays seen recently at the Residential College. Shikes has been co-directing shows for YPT since January 1982, and she teaches drama at Emerson School.

“Alice” will be presented at 2

p.m. Saturday and Sunday, and 2 p.m. April 30 and May 1.

After “Alice’s” run, YPT Studio Productions will present “The Fabulous Fable Factory” at 2 p.m. on May 7, 8, 14 and 15, Finally, the major production of the season, “The Company of Wayward Saints,” will be presented by the

Repertory Company May 5-7 and 12-14 at 8 p.m., and Sundays, May 8 and 15 at 6:30 p.m. All matinees cost $3 for adults and $2 for students and senior citizens, and all evening shows cost $4 for adults and $3 for students and senior citizens. Group rates are available by calling YPT at 996-3888.