Bouncing back from the pandemic, Chicago’s ensemble of literate, hyperkinetic acting gymnasts revives an exhilarating signature piece after a rest of seven seasons. Punch and Judy meets Looney Tunes meets Cirque du Soleil! Alongside the heroine, an all-male quartet of zanies juggles roles from the White Rabbit and the Cheshire Cat to a pair of queens, one of whom lives backwards. In an unusual twist, the Victorian author Charles Dodgson (best known to generations of readers by his pseudonym Lewis Carroll) takes direct part in the action, too. At the very beginning, when Alice passes from one side of the looking glass to the other, so does he—moving in the opposite direction. Together, the players and their tech team deliver coups de théâtre galore, from a mad tea party at its maddest to Humpty Dumpty’s greatest ever of great falls. —Matthew Gurewitsch