BHS thespians take on ‘Alice by Heart’

Photo Courtesy the BHS Thespian Society
From left, Jason Joseph, Felipe Espinosa, Xander RIvera and Alena Cudia party in ‘Alice By Heart.’

The recently concluded Bloomfield High School Thespian Society production of “Alice By Heart” is a story about conflicting territories.

One territory is the subterranean shelter for English children fleeing their city streets during the Nazi bombardment blitz of London during World War II.

The second territory is in the mind of Alice Spenser, a child in the shelter. By heart, she has memorized “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” the 1865 children’ s novel by Lewis Carroll. She conjures it as an escape from her wretched confinement.

The role of Alice is portrayed by sophomore Alena Cudia. Her boy counterpart is Alfred, portrayed by junior Felipe Espinosa. Alfred is always admonishing his friend to forget the book and get on with her life; turn the page. An easy thing for him to say. He has tuberculosis and his days are numbered. But Alice still has to live with the expectancy of sudden death and without him.

As noted in the program by the show’s producer and director, Brandon Doemling, his cast could understand the experience of the English children.

“Our cast and crew have vivid memories of the misery that was the pandemic which began five years ago next month,” he said. “That environment was its own war zone.”

Doemling and set designer Ralph Turano create, in the opening sequence, a sense that this children’s shelter is surrounded by walls of hard fear and its occupants have been made lifeless by it.

The lighting remained unchanged in the opening sequence keeping the set flat, the actors, motionless. One could deeply sense, nearly smell, the confinement and solitude on stage. But at stage right and left, when characters spoke, as Alice and Alfred did, they performed against a white wall which served to outline them without lifting the twilight somber from the rest of the stage.

Also to be noted is the costuming. The shelter inhabitants mostly wear contemporary clothing, something they would wear about the house waiting for the sirens ending the Covid shutdown. One character even wore a tie and sports jacket. After all, humor is human nature even in a bomb shelter.

There are several exceptionally imaginative scenes. One is when Alice pleads with Alfred to escape the shelter with her and depart into Wonderland through the rabbit hole. The boy is tubercular and knows his days are numbered and would prefer getting on with his own mortality and be done with the dreadful waiting. But he still has a boy’s heart and follows her down.

Their escape is wonderfully realized and psychedelic. With arms raised and shaking like congregants during an old-time church revival, a circle of children lift Alice and Alfred horizontally and deposit them into Wonderland. We know this scene changes because it is soon populated by eccentric, cantankerous, Wonderland denizens. They do not like Alice and tell her to her face, for even entertaining the thought that they exist only in her mind. No! Wonderland just is — with or without anyone’s help.

Another exceptional scene is when Alice is with the Jabberwock, a fearsome monster with a gaping mouth. The creature in the show was created by the ensemble, tightly grouped, using objects found on the shelter floor to suggest parts of this vision, wings, jaws opening and closing. It is very effective, the yawning maw and the children huddled together behind it eerily suggests the horrors and victims of Holocaust concentration camps.

“Alice By Heart” must be a tough production to stage. Kudos to Alena for her Alice. The show was 100 minutes, without an intermission, and she was on stage the whole time. She had the vocal chops plus the girlish qualities expected from Alice during her ordeals.

There is a line spoken at the end of the show and meant to be a final consideration. It is that sometimes one overcomes by just going on. That may be so. But there was a more compelling consideration at curtain, validated by experience. And that was the wonder and gratitude toward the cast and crew of high school kids for bringing to life a project like “Alice By Heart.”