Logics and mathematics become a funny musical game

Musical pantomime in one act with 20 scenes without pause

Length of the performance: 75 minutes originally, reduced to 60 minutes

Expressive techniques: mime, dance, songs and acting.

Language: it makes reference to the well-known and funny logical and mathematical paradoxes invented by L. Carroll, adapted to the needs of the screenplay. 

 

Freely based on Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll, this play has the aim of presenting to young people a musical theatre production in which music, scenery, costumes, the language chosen and used, the choreographic part, as well as the mime and pantomime gestures on the scene, are characterized by a particular expressive and stylistic register which is the underlying theme and gives cohesion and coherence to the whole staging.

For Alice’s Mirror this unifying element is the game of logical and mathematical paradoxes presented in the masterpiece by L. Carroll and commented by the American mathematician Martin Gardner in his well-known analysis of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass

I have therefore revised the text with the precise intent of involving young people in the real dimension of Carroll’s mathematical thought. As underlined by Claudio Facchinelli in his review published on SIPARIO, the story “…rediscovers the charming dimension of a logic treaty…” and is not just a simplistic transposition of a children’s book on the stage (as it is not the case). It is in fact interested in the dialogue of the various possibilities of reason with imagination and fantasy. This excludes therefore any other kind of interpretation, especially the psychological one.

The surreal and fantastic part of the text has been respected, recreating a rhythmical and entertaining atmosphere on the stage, with theatrical hits and funny dialogues for their non-sense, whereas the décor and the costumes are in part inspired from the original drawings of Tenniel, the first illustrator of Carroll, and in part from Jean Dubuffet and Keith Haring, under the symbol of a labyrinthine graphics.

The musical part, which has a great importance in my works, has been praised from the critics for its perfect adherence to the situations presented. D. Mimmi (Alto Adige 13.06.2004) wrote: “a perfect choice of pieces difficult to classify…it is the music that Carroll would have probably chosen if he had staged his novel”.

 

Realized by BRICABRAC, thanks to the contribution of the MUNICIPALITY AND OF THE PROVINCE of BOLZANO

MUSIC:
heterogeneous collage of different kinds of music (contemporary-modern music: N. Rota, H. Le Bars, R. Aubry; jazz and classical music: S. Bechet, G.Gerschwin, I. Strawinskij)

SCENES AND COSTUMES:
inspired by the drawings of Tenniel, Dubuffet and Haring, they all present the leitmotif of the symbol of the labyrinth
Costumes by Armida Ostet
Scenes by Mariapia Doliana

COREOGRAPHY
rhythmic, lively, funny, definitely energetic

LANGUAGE
it makes continuous reference to the famous, funny logical and mathematical paradoxes invented by L. Carroll and freely adapted to the needs of the screenplay.

PICTURES:
Saverio Chindamo