LEAVING WONDERLAND

A Play in 2 Acts by Kelly Gabriel Lee

LEAVING WONDERLAND is a hilarious and phantasmagorical play bursting with satiric wit, exuberant wordplay, and irrepressible characters that meshes Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland with sly and clever allusions drawn from both historical and contemporary events and phenomena. While being very funny, LEAVING WONDERLAND also features the personal and social struggles of the four main characters (Alice, Mad Hatter, March Hare, and White Rabbit), that are treated with due seriousness. Adhering to the play’s geographical/ historical settings (England and the U.S. in 1899), we see how the roots of such issues as immigration, racism, women’s rights, workers rights, LGBTQ+ identity, class, and colonialism that we are dealing on a daily basis can often be traced to those particular settings through the concerns and experiences of the protagonists.

SYNOPSIS: LEAVING WONDERLAND traces Alice’s return to Wonderland, after many years. It is 1899, and she finds that the Mad Hatter and March Hare have never left the Mad Tea Party. Both, however, plan to emigrate to America, lured by the promise of new opportunities. Alice has fled a troubled marriage and is looking for a cause, and decides to join them. Before that, however, she meets the bitter Miss Havisham (from Great Expectations), who is still waiting in her wedding dress, and also a mash-up of the fearful Queen of Hearts. Alice likewise encounters her estranged husband, Pip, the protagonist in Dickens’ novel and a mash-up of the White Rabbit. Upon their arrival to America, the protagonists unexpectedly encounter the authoritative figure of Humpty Dumpty (guess who?) atop a huge wall. As they plead for entry pass the wall, every imaginable insult is hurled at them by the blustering figure. They nonetheless succeed in entering New York. The characters each explores a different district of the city, where they encounter unexpected challenges while defining their own personal destinies.

PRODUCTION AVAILABILITY: LEAVING WONDERLAND is a copywritten dramatic work available for theatrical production by the playwright.

Contact: kellygabriel_lee@yahoo.com

“I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!

– the March Hare