David Hurst takes a look at Alice By Heart:
It seems incomprehensible a new musical with a score by Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater could be a tedious, incoherent mess, but, sadly, Alice By Heart is such a musical. As the inaugural production in Andrew Berman's beautiful Newman Mills Theater at the Robert W. Wilson MCC Theater Space in Hell's Kitchen, the individual pieces of Alice By Heart appear promising. Set in 1941 London at the height of the Blitz, the premise of Alice (now a young woman) revisiting Wonderland in her imagination in an attempt to stave off the death of a young man she loves holds promise. The cast is attractive and fully committed to the material, the production's design team appears first-rate, and Sheik and Sater are joined by Jessie Nelson (Waitress) as the show's director and co-book writer. And yet, the pieces simply don't fit. . . . |
