Alice
Even after decades of relentless pawing, however, this exuberant, illogical tale retains its primal innocence. The author may have been a shy, stammering professor of mathematics (many students thought him the most boring teacher they’d ever had), but when he took boat rides on the Thames with the three Liddell girls clamoring for nonsensical stories, he could tap into a vein of unfiltered whimsy yet also remain open to the girls’ suggestions. It’s no surprise the book he wrote from these impromptu tales, originally a Christmas present for little Alice Liddell, careens giddily along until it simply stops when the fictional Alice wakes up.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
While these chapters retain some of Carroll’s iconography, Brian Torrey Scott’s “Advice From a Caterpillar” seems to bear no relation to it. At a table in Simon’s Tavern, one man tells a convoluted story while berating another who’s attempting to transcribe it in cryptic diagrams. A third man has had his throat freshly slit (a bloody knife rests on the table) and appears to be dead until, for no apparent reason, he revives. Despite its tenuous connection to Carroll’s text, this performance’s motifs–impenetrable language, short tempers, the suspension of cause and effect, and a constant threat of decapitation–crystallize many of the book’s preoccupations. On the afternoon I attended, a bit of unintended surrealism added to the piece’s effect: a career alcoholic sitting a few feet away at the bar paid the actors no mind, as though they were his d.t.’s acting up in the corner.
