The original Honolulu Theatre for Youth production of “Anime Alice and Her Adventures in Wonderland” will be presented Sunday afternoon at Kahilu Theatre in Waimea.
The original Honolulu Theatre for Youth production of “Anime Alice and Her Adventures in Wonderland” will be presented Sunday afternoon at Kahilu Theatre in Waimea.
In celebration of the 150th anniversary of the Lewis Carroll classic story, playwright Alvin Chan and the creative team behind the Honolulu Theatre for Youth’s recent hits “A Korean Cinderella,” “Anime Momotaro” and “A Bollywood Robin Hood” have created an original production inspired by traditional Japanese theatre and eye-popping anime-inspired staging techniques.
In this “Alice,” the protagonist is apprehensive about her family’s impending move to Japan — it’s hard enough figuring out how to be a proper young girl in her own country. After discarding a challenging Japanese travel book in favor of a game of solitaire, she’s paid a visit by a mysterious white rabbit. She follows him down the rabbit hole to a wild anime world filled with maddening characters. But here, the tea party devolves into a food fight, then shifts to slow-motion, then reverses. The queen is obsessed with jan ken po (not croquet), and big cartoon emoticons and thought bubbles float overhead like the pages of a mad manga comic book come to life.
“Anime Alice and Her Adventures in Wonderland” is performed by Alvin Chan, Maile Holck, Junior Tesoro and Christina Uyeno. Director is Eric Johnson; set, props, and puppet designer is Tom Lee; costume, props, and puppet designer is Lacy Rohlf; lighting and projection design is by Chesley Cannon; sound designer is Barett Hoover, and the production features original shamisen and taiko music recorded by Patrick Oiye, and additional music by Max Louie.
Founded in 1955, HTY is Hawaii’s nonprofit professional theater company providing theater and drama education programs for keiki and adults.
Tickets to the 4 p.m. show range in price from $8 to $24. They can be purchased available online at www.kahilutheatre.org, by calling 885-6868, or from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday through Friday at the Kahilu Theatre box office in Waimea.