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Alice in Bed
By Susan Sontag
Directed by Dado
At Trap Door Theatre
1655 W. Cortland Ave.
Chicago, IL
Call 773-384-0494, tickets $20 (2 for 1 Thursdays)
Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 PM
Sundays at 5 PM
Through February 17, 2007
Dreaming and insanity depicts Alice James’ sad life.
Trap Door Theatre’s mission is “to seek out challenging yet obscure works and bring them to life.” European classics, especially Eastern European plays filled with artsy, absurdist’s tendencies are often produced by this polished non-Equity troupe. Their latest work, Susan Sontag’s Alice in Bed is a dramatic fantasy which merges the life of Alice James, the brilliant sister of William and Henry James, with the heroine of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. The work is a marvelous role for the talented Nicole Wiesner who plays Alice James. She nails the pain, anxiety and hopelessness of a life of an invalid.
Alice James was the fascinating woman who suffered physical and mental trauma throughout most of her 43 years (she died in 1892). Alice was bed ridden for much of her life. Playwright Susan Sontag (the author of the popular essay, “Illness as Metaphor”) shows Alice in a drugged state as we see her receiving an injection of painkiller, then she takes laudanum, a widely prescribed nineteenth-century opiate. Later, she smokes opium and drinks a flask of gin. We see Alice as a child and in a stupor for much of the 85 minutes. She dreams, hallucinates and joins Margaret Fuller and Emily Dickinson in a tea party. The play’s action is dreamy and fantasy filled.
This engaging work is artsy, provocative and insightful. Filled with poetic monologues, cute banter and surprising twists, Alice in Bed vividly demonstrates the pain Alice suffered as her debilitating physical and psychological conditions lead her to an unfulfilled and unhappy life. We see how she welcomed an early death as the ultimate relief from her pain.
Dado’s staging and Nicole Wiesner’s performance offer a worthy evening of theatre. This off-beat work will appeal to those who cherish experimental, non-conventional theatre. This play will surprise you.
Recommended
Tom Williams
Tom99@chicagocritic.com for comments
Talk Theatre in Chicago podcast
Date Reviewed: January 11, 2007
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