‘Glass’ Designed to Please

There’s magic in the Cal State Northridge children’s play, “Through the Looking Glass.” Designer magic.

The play itself, a simple, superficial adaptation of the Lewis Carroll classic by Rosemary Nursey-Bray, is a competent college production, directed by Owen W. Smith.

The visual delights are courtesy of designer Jim Houle, who has adapted the classic Tenniel drawings and brought Carroll’s rich gallery of characters to life.

On black-and-white chess board squares, Alice (perky Liz Hewitt) meets and exchanges repartee with one Wonderland eccentric after another, from a snooty Tiger Lily to life-size Red and White Queens, jousting Knights on tricycle steeds and quarrelsome Tweedledee and Tweedledum.

That repartee is problematic here, as it is in almost any “Alice” production aimed at young childrens: Adults often forget that much of the wordplay in Carroll’s stories passes over the heads of preschoolers; even in this condensed version, verbal absurdities inspire audience shuffles.

But Houle’s vivid costume designs are continual attention-getters and Humpty Dumpty (Randy Haege) picks up the pace when he interrupts the show and talks directly to the audience, introduces birthday celebrants and leads a group stretch.

And Tweedledee and Tweedledum, played by brothers Steven Robert Ross and Philip Arthur Ross, tickle funny bones with a droll tandem performance of slapstick silliness.