Alice in WonderSLand

The Avatar Repertory Company staged their version of the Lewis Carroll classic last night. As my first taste of a fullscale theatrical production in SL, I was mightily impressed, both with the performances and with the staging. The story lends itself brilliantly to SL with the consistently excellent Alice changing in size as required in a way that would be hard to imagine in RL. The absence of facial expression beyond lip movement did not affect my enjoyment at all. The voices were well able to convey the emotional dimension and a real-life production would probably have resorted to a degree of deadpan anyway.

The staging was highly imaginative and made use of the potential of both the environment and the story to deliver a full sense of wonderment. There may have been more standing on tables than would have been the case in RL but this is the stuff of an avatar's existence and taken therefore as read and barely noticed. You can occasionally see how things are done but I think only in a way that makes one complicit with the cast (who chatted amiably with the audience at the end and admitted to a degree of improv on one or two occasions). Given that they are drawn from multiple continents, the ensemble playing was wonderful.

I don't know whether it puts an unbearable load on the sim but being able to alt-zoom the avatar camera gives the audience the ability to stage one's own play-within-a-play and steal some keepsake photos in a way that would not be possible in RL. With 55 in the sim, SL did a splendid job of sustaining what was at times a very kinetic performance and deserves a full measure of credit as well. Tickets (L$500 well spent in my opinion) can be obtained from xstreetsl: just search for Alice in WonderSLand. The very able front-of-house staff also contributed to the experience but do make sure to turn up early to follow the guidance on setting viewers (instructions cover Emerald and Viewer 2.0) and allow SL to cache textures.