This version of Alice in Wonderland isn’t exactly the sweet and sugary journey you’d expect. Unlike other children’s stories, Alice in Wonderland has no ‘moral of the story’, nor is there a learning-curve for the heroine. It is, above all, a deep-dive into the subconscious mind of a child with all the dark corners that could exist there. On this journey through her own dreams, the young girl loses herself more than she finds herself. The laws of space and time are distorted – just as they are in David Lynch’s film, whose dream sequences were a  primary reference for the creation of this show. 

The set – a large red curtain with multiple entrances – creates a space with indefinite, blurred boundaries. The objects used are two-dimensional and oversized, like something out of a surrealist painting.

In this world where the laws of reality are warped, we encounter
strange figures who are caught up in absurd problems that seem of little
relevance to anyone but them. These figures are rarely sympathetic
towards Alice. They continuously refuse to engage with her but rather
reduce her to a child over and over again. In our production these
figures, both human and animal, wear masks. The masks force the actors
to move and communicate in a coded way which echoes Samuel Beckett’s
trope of replaying the same scene over and over and which is similar to
the myth of Sisyphus. Behind each of these characters lies a fear or a
test closely linked to the world of « grown-ups ». As if the child has
manifested these fears and turned them into characters in her brain.
These include the fear of arbitrary authority, of misplaced ambition on
the part of adults, or of smugness towards younger people… Even if
Lewis Caroll himself never engaged in an explicit analysis of the
figures he created, we can only guess at the psychoanalytical knot that
each character embodies.

As for Alice, she has to fight to make herself heard while trying to
understand the rules of a world that escapes common logic. She tries to
take control, to understand with the tools she has been given, but
gradually she realises that the only possible course of action, in a
world that rejects her so wholeheartedly, is to rebel. When the
absurdity reaches its climax, the young girl says to herself:

« Alice, it is time to be rude. »