Characters:

• Charles Dodgson: lecturer in mathematics at Christ Church College, Oxford. Avid amateur photographer, with a focus on portraits. Loved language and words. Fairly quiet man, raised in a large family, with a number of siblings whom he would write little books and magazines for, and make up puzzles for them to solve. Did not travel much, never married. Had relationships with children, often little girls, but there is no evidence that he was a pedophile. He also had relationships with people his own age, both men and woman, and sometimes with married woman.
• Alice Liddell: somewhat of an old soul, dark hair, bright eyes, an imagination that never stops. Youngest Loves to be outside, loves stories. Shy around people she does not know. Passionate about life, doesn't like rules/strictures, or boring stories (which is why she likes Mr. Dodgson, he tells good ones!). To her: "Wonderland is so much better than here!" (Almost Wonderland, Scene 4).
• Dean Liddell: family man, Dean of Christ Church College, Oxford. Loves his wife and children. Victorian gentleman, protector. Does not want to lose Alice.
• Lorina Liddell: Eldest, apple of her mother's eye. Victorian through and through, especially more as she grows up. Nickname: Ina. Once maybe believed in Wonderland. She also plays the Mad Hatter, why is a raven like a writing desk, in Scene 3.)
• Edith Liddell: Middle child, caught betwen Lorina and Alice in more than one way. Caught between following rules and being proper and joining Alice in her world, which truly does seem a lot more fun. She also plays the March Hare in Scene 3).
• White Rabbit, is what he sounds like. Lives in the Deanery Garden.
• Cheshire Cat..."I've seen a cat without a grin, but never a grin without a cat." (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland).

"Almost Wonderland" is a play...

So now that I have that worked out let's move on, shall we? I feel like, and I know I should be, coming at the play from a different perspective. It's had two productions, the first of which I co-directed, which were Youth Infringement 2002 and Canterbury Arts Fest 2003. Gone through a succession of drafts, I've lost track, but at it's very core has never changed. Even when I essentially rewrote it once with the help of my lovely and talented writer mentor Lesley Buxton, going into auditions for Youth Infringment, it still had its centre and I believe soul, Alice Liddell and Charles Dodgson and their relationship.

I have in mind all these incredible images and pictures of how I want it to be, how I want to use the backyard, the play itself in this environmental space.

Themes:

• escape
• dreams
• wonder
• stories
• love (different forms, focus on father/daughter)
• family
• exposure (especially camera sense)
• topsy-turvy
• loss
• growing up

Mysterious, genius, a tad eccentric

I consider this a journal, a record, a meeting place...but sometimes trying to sound all creative and artistic is hard work let me tell you. Although I want to in some bizarre way because somehow my mind is making me believe that I have to be and in some way justifying that. I have to be mysterious and a genius and maybe a little eccentric. Because after all, I am an artist.

That's also a hard thing to say: I am an artist! What a loaded statement, and that produces a myraid of different responses. Everything from: okay, that's great, always good having a hobby but what's your day job? to that's wonderful, where I can see some of your work? You have to brave to be able to say that, to believe entirely in yourself and what you do, to trust that deep within to the very core of your soul and your entire being that you are what you say you are. And that's damn difficult. Sometimes I worry that I'm not that brave, and sometimes I feel like giving up, and sometimes well...I am that brave, and I have that much courage.

Alot to think about but who wants life to be boring?

Mary

I NEED ACTORS! (and that is all, for now at least, what I am focusing on.)