Theatre review: East Van Panto: Alice in Wonderland features little guys taking on e-commerce villains
Blazed caterpillars, banned bathroom breaks, and pandemic parody
Photo by Emily Cooper
Photo by Emily Cooper
East Van Panto: Alice in Wonderland runs in person at the York Theatre until January 2, and online starting December 18
TO GET A grip on how cleverly first-time East Van Panto writer Sonja Bennett channels our collective pandemic angst into cathartic laughter, look no further than the villain.
In this year’s warped spin on Alice in Wonderland, the Queen of Hearts—aka “Jess Cheetos”—heads up the Super Giant Evil Online Store, seeking e-commerce global domination. (In this world, you know it better as Amazon.) First order of duty: putting every small store out of business along Commercial Drive. Now there’s a bad guy we can all agree on. An ongoing joke is that her overworked delivery people have to hold their pee—a gag that allows for plenty of comic, er, release in the show’s finale.
After 2020’s online-only lockdown edition, Theatre Replacement’s Panto is back in fine, hilariously topical form—still finding fresh kinds of fun, nine years into its existence. (Credit the strong quota of laughs at least in part to Bennett’s background writing for the likes of Letterkenny.) There’s a lot to lift your spirits in this show that actually has something meaningful—and surprisingly moving—to say about these unprecedented times.
Much of this rendition’s whacked-out energy comes courtesy of Alice, fearless Panto favourite Dawn Petten and a veteran who dates back to the show’s Beanstalk beginnings. A running joke here is that her goofy blonde 10-year-old looks old for her age (“How old do I look?” “56?”), to Alice’s increasing consternation.
When we first meet Alice, she’s stuck—like countless other kids—at home after an extended pandemic lockdown, longing to connect with the world. Making matters worse, her mom won’t let her get a cellphone. (Cue a number that is, thanks to the show’s musical engine, Veda Hille, a revved-up take on the Violent Femmes’ “Add It Up”: “Why can’t I get just one f-f-f-phone?”) Escaping outdoors, Alice spots a rabbit wearing a “Free Cellphone” sandwich board, following him from New West all the way down the SkyTrain line to “Grandview Wonderland”, where all forms of surreal characters await along the Drive.
One of the best scenes reimagines the original book’s hookah-smoking caterpillar as a blazed weed retailer (a fantastic Ben Elliott, sharing live-music duties with Barry Mirochnik), complete with hazy dry-ice smoke, trippy green-glow lighting, and pipe-cleaner antennae. (The perma-stoned Lewis C. Carroll would no doubt have approved.)
Sticking to the Panto’s history of staying hyperlocal, Bennett gives a nod to the combined effects of e-commerce and pandemic limits on the neighbourhood landscape—especially in one ditty lamenting the loss of Drive mainstays, from Storm Crow to Magpie. And a reference to The Rio with “Theatre” then “Sportsbar” crossed out on its marquee, only to return to a “Theatre” sign again, reminds us all of the last year’s absurd social-distancing rules around venues.
Comedically strong across the board, the cast makes the most of every number. Amanda Sum’s winsome Cheshire Cat out-Olivias Olivia Rodrigo in a “Driver’s License” parody, and Mark Chavez brings warped genius to two bewigged characters—a half-witted COPE tea-party attendee, and a simpering assistant to the queen. Elsewhere, Ghazal Azarbad camps, vamps—and farts—it up as the Queen of Hearts.
Director Meg Roe keeps it all moving at a maniacal pace, building to a battle in cyberspace—one that will make you regret accepting some innocent-looking cookies at the top of the show. Making it all the more funny is how low-tech the production is—simple handpainted signs and 2-D props abound.
And then, when you least expect it, the Panto takes its biggest departure in nine years, pausing to give literal voice to the little people who have been hardest hit by the pandemic. We won’t give away that sequence here, but suffice it to say it’s moving in ways that, on this opening night, had even the wackiest cast members tearing up.
More than ever, this year’s Pandemic Panto is a vivid reminder that we’re all in this together—big and small. And, of course, that there’s no such thing as a free cellphone.
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