Only Alice in Wonderland works wonders (so far) at this year's Festival of Independent Theatres.

Comments (0) By Elaine Liner Thursday, Jul 22 2010

WingSpan Productions' Feeding the Moonfish, written by Barbara Wiechmann and directed by Susan Sargeant, stars two attractive young actors, Josh Glover and Barrett Nash, as unhappy restaurant workers sharing a weird moment in the moonlight on a Florida dock. They flirt, they fight, they kiss. The ending suggests he kills her, but you won't care. It's a bad play. You'll just be glad it's over.

Same goes for The Drama Club's unamusing The Muse, an all-movement, no-dialogue piece conceived by Jeffrey Schmidt and performed by four actors who work up a lather flinging themselves around the stage for 55 minutes. Is there a story? Not so much. There is a nearly naked girl (Anastasia Munoz) and a furry goat-dog (John M. Flores), a crone (Lulu Ward) and a look-alike crone puppet (Maryam Baig Lush). Continuous sound effects, from tinkling bells to deafening drumbeats, come from an upstage cage manned by Newton Pittman.

White Rock Pollution

Danielle Pickard and White Rock Pollution make found objects beautiful in a weird, funny Alice in Wonderland at the FIT fest.

Details

The Festival of Independent Theatres continues through August 7 at the Bath House Cultural Center. Call 214-880-0202.

More About

From notes scribbled during this show: "Crone puppet smokes a joint, hands it to goat-dog." That sounds more entertaining than it is.

After opening night, critics received an e-mail explaining that because of a last-minute equipment problem, the crone had done that first performance without her wheels. We were invited to see the show again to witness its full artistic intent. Good lord, the only thing worse than 55 minutes of sweaty, meaningless pantomime would be 55 more minutes of it on wheels.