Every spring, Drama allows the students to take over with the Annual Student Produced One Act Festival. Students, as the name suggests, produced individual one hour one act plays over the course of a month.

Senior Soham Chowdhury took this a step further with his brain child, “Out Past the Rabbit Hole,” produced by junior Thaddeus J. Tarshis. “Out Past the Rabbit Hole” explores the world of Wonderland during Alice’s adulthood, a premise which, aside from Tim Burton’s 2010 movie and two video games, is hardly explored in mainstream media. Chowdhury wrote and directed the new play, complete with a musical track that included one of his own creations. While the play has its rough parts that don’t quite flow with the rest—the early dialogue being mostly exposition— the overall product is an emotional ride that explores maturation and longing to return to childhood.

The one hour-long play follows an adult Alice (junior Fay Neil) as she wanders back into Wonderland in order to escape her adult life under the guise of searching for two of her missing childhood companions, Tweedledee and Tweedledum. She finds a largely unchanged Wonderland, though the inhabitants are anything but the same; their obsession with Alice and the order she brought to Wonderland has twisted them even more than before. Along the way, she meets up with a colorfully twisted cast of characters from her past ranging from the original Alice in Wonderland adventure, like the dying Mad Hatter (junior Eric Crouch) who is fading into depression and an unknown sickness, and her own personal favorite literary figures, like Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (junior Zarek Peris). Each character retains their original flavor—the Red Queen (junior Fatima Mejia) still rages and Harry Potter’s Professor McGonagall (sophomore Skyler Barr) gives lectures regarding the nature of magic—but quickly adapts to the changing world and people. The play features the traditional hallmark Wonderland cast of Alice, the Mad Hatter, and the Queen of Hearts alongside Hamlet, Professor McGonagall, The Cat in the Hat (sophomore Sithara Menon), and Iris, the messenger of the Greek Gods (junior Janani Vijaykumar). During her search, certain characters reveal their less-than-charitable intent and Alice soon finds that the truth is far from what she was told.

The play is brimming with entertaining bits and quips throughout. By opening the previously esoteric world of Wonderland to outside literary and real life culture, the play allows for brilliant synergy. After all, who is better to complement the Mad Hatter than the Cat in the Hat, rhymes and all? The story references all manners of literature, ranging from William Shakespeare’s To Be or Not To Be to Lewis Carroll’s Raven and Desk (“Why is a raven like a writing desk?”). It all culminates in a blend of pop culture and literary classics that works most of the time but falls short on occasion. Some of the Harry Potter magic references seem out of place, considering a relative lack of magic in the play, and Hamlet’s depression is mentioned far more often than necessary within his first few scenes. Some of the jokes felt shoehorned in, but that probably depends on one’s own taste.

One of the play’s greatest strengths lay in the actors. For example, Crouch plays the Mad Hatter to the T(ea). The little details like the deranged laugh, occasional nervous tics, and wild stare really made him look, well, mad. Brimming with energy, madness, and occasional depression, Crouch bounces around the stage, stops to contemplate deeper thoughts like the meaning of life, then proceeds to throw away all care and act like a buffoon until he keels over coughing up blood. He doesn’t even seem to think about the action. It is the flow and the sheer uncalculated ease of the action that makes it brilliant. Mejia, on the other hand, maintains her character’s unquenchable hunger for tarts and executions as the tech crew shines her with red light. She makes the scene changes one of the most charming aspects of the story. Mejia, with all the pomp and rage of the Queen of Hearts, screams at the cast, who she calls “imbeciles and morons” to hurry up and remove and add set pieces “some time today.” It felt abusive just by proximity.

While the story feels a little rushed, the emotional payoff is well worth the hour. The show might not appeal to everyone, but, for those looking for an emotional ride with wit and familiar characters, it is well worth checking out.

Buy tickets to watch Out Past the Rabbit Hole and the other student produced plays, Blood Relations and Devilish, this Saturday and Sunday on May 16th and 17th at 6 to 9 p.m. Tickets are $5 for one play, $8 for two, and $10 for all three.