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OSCAR J. EVANS LOST A THEATRE. THE MAYOR GAVE HIM COMMUNITY SERVICE. HE RESPONDED WITH AN EIGHT-PART MUSICAL FANTASY.

The Trillberry Script Society will premiere WONDERLAND: THE AUDIO DRAMA September 2, because punishment works differently when the person being punished owns a microphone.

By Shirley O'Sinagin

Arts & Culture

TRILLBERRY — There are mornings in journalism when a woman gets coffee, checks the police blotter, argues with circulation and goes home having contributed modestly to democracy.

Then there are mornings when the recorder you left inside a rehearsal studio comes back with Oscar J. Evans explaining why losing access to a theatre does not technically constitute “losing a theatre.”

This is why I drink.

The Trillberry Script Society is preparing to launch WONDERLAND: THE AUDIO DRAMA, an eight-part serialized production beginning September 2 with its first installment, “The Child They Sent Away.”

Yes, this is connected to the theatre situation.

Of course it is.

Mayor Mrs. G assigned Oscar community service after the theatre debacle. A normal person might have cleaned a park. Oscar appears to have interpreted the sentence as authorization for an eight-part fantasy production complete with original music, extensive sound design and enough performance ambition to qualify as a counterattack.

So now we have Wonderland.

The Gazette has heard portions of rehearsals through entirely legitimate journalistic means that nobody needs to examine too closely.

What can safely be reported without ruining the production is this: Alice is older, Wonderland is not doing particularly well, and the people she left behind seem to have spent the intervening years becoming very comfortable with their own versions of history.

There is tea.

There are rabbits.

There are queens.

There is madness.

And underneath all of it is something considerably less comfortable about memory, responsibility and what people tell themselves when they would rather not examine what they did.

That is as much plot as you’re getting from me.

I know more.

I am choosing civilization.

Oscar performs the Mad Hatter.

Oscar also performs the Red Queen.

Oscar also sings the original vocal music.

Yes, all of it.

During one rehearsal, Calabe noted the peculiar situation this creates: opposing forces within Wonderland are, at least vocally, being represented by the same man.

Oscar’s explanation was that Wonderland has a “limited talent pool.”

Trillberry has actors.

I have met them.

Make of that what you will.

The rehearsals have also revealed that Roger has apparently inherited the unenviable responsibility of keeping this production attached to reality. Whenever Oscar drifts into a lengthy defense of his artistic suffering, Roger brings the conversation back to schedules, scenes, recording and the small matter of the community service order that started all of this.

Oscar has attempted to rename the punishment several times.

The paperwork remains unmoved.

Calabe has proven equally inconvenient. More than once, Oscar has begun confidently explaining how something happened only for Calabe to supply one additional fact that dramatically changes the story.

There is a particular pleasure in hearing Oscar construct his own defense and then hearing Calabe remove one load-bearing wall.

The sound work may be where the production becomes most ambitious.

An audio drama cannot hide behind scenery. The audience has to understand where it is through performance, music and sound alone, and the rehearsals suggest they are taking that challenge seriously.

Oscar wants the production to sound expensive.

Roger wants it to tell the story.

Oscar insists these are not competing goals.

At one point he requested an effect roughly describable as “reality developing a lawsuit.”

I cannot tell you whether the sound department achieved this.

I can tell you they deserve dental.

What surprised me is how quickly the nonsense disappears once they actually begin working.

The jokes stop.

People listen.

They argue about what characters remember, what they refuse to remember and what one person may believe they are owed by another.

For a production born out of civic punishment, Wonderland is taking itself remarkably seriously without becoming humorless.

The Trillberry Script Society also appears, against my expectations, to be an actual idea rather than simply another title somebody printed before Town Hall could object.

Its slogan is:

Stories Elevated. Classics Retold.

Annoyingly respectable.

The first installment, “The Child They Sent Away,” is currently scheduled for September 2.

Seven additional installments are tentatively expected to follow.

I emphasize tentatively because this newspaper has covered Oscar J. Evans long enough to understand that a release schedule in his possession is not so much a calendar as a statement of optimism.

Roger can make schedules.

Calabe can remind him of schedules.

Mrs. G can presumably stamp the schedule with the full authority of municipal government.

Oscar can still wake up before sunrise and decide a teacup sounds emotionally dishonest.

So September 2 is the date I am willing to place in print.

After that, Godspeed.

Now comes the part of this article I deeply resent.

I placed that recorder because I expected material.

I expected Oscar complaining.

I expected production chaos.

I expected several excellent sentences at his expense.

I got all of those things.

What I did not expect was to stop taking notes.

At some point during the rehearsal, I realized I was no longer waiting for somebody to say something ridiculous.

I was listening to the story.

Then I replayed part of it.

Then another part.

And because journalism occasionally requires a woman to publish information that causes her personal discomfort, here it is:

WONDERLAND is really good.

Not charming because we know the people involved.

Not impressive “for Trillberry.”

Not good considering it began as community service.

Good.

It is funny, strange, richly performed, more thoughtful than I expected and occasionally sharp enough that the room on my recording goes completely silent.

I had every intention of ending this announcement with another joke about Oscar.

Instead, I am going to do something considerably more dangerous.

I am recommending his work.

Listen to it.

WONDERLAND: THE AUDIO DRAMA begins September 2 with “The Child They Sent Away.”

If you hate it, write me a letter.

If you love it, please have the decency not to tell Oscar I sent you.

His head already requires its own zoning district.

— Shirley O'Sinagin

Did You Know?

The citizens of Trillberry affectionately refer to newcomers as future Trillberians