Review: With THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS at the Triple Door, More is Just More

Lily Verlaine and Jasper McCann return to the Triple Door for their 11thseason with their adaptation of Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland", "Through the Looking Glass, The Burlesque Alice in Wonderland". And while "Wonderland" might seem a perfect setting for a Burlesque show, since the whole thing can be looked at as a giant drug trip, any adaptation should use more than just the characters and name as a backdrop. Unfortunately, that's not the case here as the evening is simply a series of numbers, strung together with the loosest of Wonderland threads holding it together, and so much thrown at the audience in order to obscure the downfalls of the show that it really only serves to spotlight the downfalls.

In Verlaine and McCann's Wonderland we follow not one but two Alices (Dreamy Tangerine and Hannah Simmons) down the rabbit hole, one serving as Alice and the other serving as her mirror image. The two never speak but the emcees for the evening, The White Rabbit (McCann) and two waitresses known as Eat Me and Drink Me (Bo Mellinger and Isobella Bloom) know what she wants which is to become queen of the ... um ... show, I think. And they introduce act after act to perform in this show. And that's really the story, at least I think it is as it was difficult to decipher but we'll come back to that.

The initial downfall for me was the lack of an engaging story. If it's a revue, then don't use the Carroll story and if it's a story then let's have some stakes and not a list of numbers. If there was more to the story, I couldn't really tell which leads me to downfall number two. The band, a Jazz sextet known as the Aces and 8s, while being quite talented at performing the score composed and arranged by McCann, they were also quite loud obscuring most vocals and much dialogue. Even when they weren't obscuring vocals and just backing up a number, it was so loud as it felt like an assault. The overpowering band was not aided by the few speaking members practically screaming, even though they were mic'd, to be heard which muddied their lines as well.

The costumes from Stephanie Seymour are stunning but often times it felt they were relying too heavily on a clever costume rather than having clever choreography. In fact, some of the choreography from Verlaine consisted of "walk to one end of the stage, turn and walk back, and repeat". Again, if you're going to have these characters then tell a story, don't just take your clothes off. Some numbers did work. Paris Original as the Knave of Hearts was quite athletic and even managed to convey the story of the missing tarts. But moments like that were too few and far between to make up the entire show.

Some may say I'm missing the point of Burlesque, and that as long as it's boisterous and sexy then that's all you need but I've been to enough Burlesque shows to know that when you tell a story as well, you engage much more than if you just have pretty people getting naked. And so, with my three-letter rating system, I give Verlaine and McCann's "Through the Looking Glass, The Burlesque Alice in Wonderland" a disappointed MEH+. I didn't have a horrible evening but with the too loud band and a lack of story and clever choreography, I definitely wanted it over more than I wanted to stay.

"Through the Looking Glass, The Burlesque Alice in Wonderland" from Verlaine and McCann performs at the Triple Door through April 7th. For tickets or information contact the Triple Door box office at 206-838-4333 or visit them online at www.tripledoor.net.

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