"Alice in Wonderland" is coming to Savannah.
But thanks to artist Eoley Mulally’s Saw the Wheel Theatre and local clown and composer SKiPpY Spiral, don’t expect to see the same old Cheshire Cat and Mad Hatter that you’re used to.
“A writer named Jacilyn Ledford, a Savannah local writer, rewrote 'Alice in Wonderland' to be a very rhyme-y, sing-y-song-y script,” Mulally explained during this week’s episode of Art on the Air. “That SKiPpY then took and turned into some wild party electronic music segment.”
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The March Hare, as the inventive adaptation is called, will be performed for free in the parking lot of Cosmic Corner on Saturday at 3 and 6:30 p.m. “It brings together ten local artists to perform music, puppetry, (and) live action, out of the back of my pickup truck,” she added.
“Pickup truck” doesn’t quite describe Mulally’s ’98 Dodge Dakota, which she said was “basically donated” to her by fellow local artist Meg Mack. Over the course of several weeks last year, she built a collapsible wooden puppet stage for the truck’s bed that is capable of extending out into whatever area they’re performing. And she’s hand painted the truck itself with clouds and winged creatures, as well as her Saw the Wheel moniker.
“It is most definitely one of the most fun things I’ve ever done,” Mulally said of transforming the truck into a performance space. "And I’ve done a lot of fun things. But it was inspired by the work I have done and seen in other cities through DIY community theatre, which is something that I felt I couldn’t find in Savannah. And so, because I couldn’t find it, I decided to build it.”
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Back in late January of this year, Mulally conducted what she described as a “test run” of the performance truck. Similarly staged in the parking lot of Cosmic Corner, she produced an adaptation of another of Ledford’s works, “The Diver.” Although it was perhaps colder than she would have hoped, the experiment proved to be otherwise a great success, and she knew that she would perform at the spot again.
Reconnecting with many of the same folks she’s worked with for years, and supported wholeheartedly by Cosmic Corner’s owners Carmen and Zach, she and her collaborators began working on The March Hare in earnest.
“We busted out a lot, a lot, a lot of papier-mâché to make handheld puppets, as well as masks and carnival puppets and a lot of live action elements,” related Mulally. “So when you say this might not be what people think of as a typical puppet show… There is a marionette, but it’s not all marionettes. There is a hand puppet, but it’s not all hand puppets. And there’s a carnival puppet. There’s a cranky, which I’m so excited to debut, which is a very fun element of puppet theatre, which is cranking scenery.”
And there will also be an adorable mushroom, played by the artist’s daughter Sukey.
“So I was assigned the role of Alice, which I didn’t want,” Mulally laughed. “I wanted to be the director, I didn’t want to be the star. I’m really into behind the scenes stuff. So I got roped into it.
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“And when Sukey found out what show we were doing she said she wanted to be Alice. And I was like, ‘Ugh, sorry, I’m being Alice.’ And she was like, ‘It’s okay, I’ll just be the mushroom.’ And she assigned herself the role of the mushroom, and we’re making her a papier-mâché mushroom costume.”
Beyond including Sukey because she’s her daughter, involving children in her productions is an integral part of Mulally’s personal artistic philosophy.
“I feel like it’s so important to make art for the whole family,” she said. “I feel like kids are often kind of left out of the art scene a lot.”
Given that Saw the Wheel’s truck-turned-puppetry-venue allows for art to be experienced outdoors and socially distant, the multi-talented artist is hoping that people will bring the whole family out to the performances of The March Hare as a soft re-introduction to the kind of gatherings we had pre-COVID.
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“Everything that artists have done to share their work via Zoom and the Internet is amazing and powerful, and kept us all alive this year,” noted Mulally. “But there’s also something very important about being ‘in the presence of.’ And so I thought how can we safely, slowly buy surely, pull the people of Savannah back together to see some live action art.”
“When I did this years ago (former SavArtScene columnist) Kris Monroe wrote an article and called it ‘lawless art,’ she recalled. “And that is what I love about puppetry. It’s anarchy. It’s lawless. You can just really go any direction with it. And we did. We went all the directions. We just took it to the max and did every idea.
“We needed this when we were kids. We still need this.”
The March Hare will take place on Saturday in the parking lot of Cosmic Corner at 305 East 38th Street. There are two shows, on at 3 p.m. designed specifically with children in mind, and another at 6:30 p.m. Both are free and suitable for all-ages.
For more information about Eoloy Mulally and Saw the Wheel, including behind the scenes photographs and details about future performances, follow @_saw_the_wheel_ on Instagram.
Art off the Air is a companion piece to the radio program “Art on the Air” hosted by Rob Hessler and Gretchen Hilmers. The column can also be found at savannahnow.com/entertainment.
The show airs Wednesday from 3-4pm on WRUU 107.5 FM Savannah and at WRUU.org.
The Link LonkMarch 31, 2021 at 06:07PM
https://www.savannahnow.com/story/entertainment/2021/03/31/saw-wheel-theatre-alice-in-wonderland-cosmic-corner-savannah-ga/7015572002/
Eoley Mulally, Saw the Wheel Theatre are taking us down the rabbit hole – but with puppets - Savannah Morning News
https://news.google.com/search?q=Wheel&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en
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