Surprisingly, for a show that was produced only last year at The Tank, The March Hare was done fully as a script-in-hand reading. Director Rosie Corr began the show by saying that they had had only five hours of rehearsal. Given that this play is in the 4th week of the festival and that the show was on the original schedule, the lack of preparedness was incredible.

Since this presentation was a reading and a straight play, rather than a musical, reviewing the actors makes no sense since they are unlikely to have involvement with any full production going forward. Attention must go to the script and the direction, both of which left a lot to be desired.

The story follows the life of Andra, a barista in a Manhattan Tea House. Andra immediately tells us that she has forms of autism and OCD. That is a fact that is relevant for about the first two scenes. After that, Andra is just a quirky, underachieving 31 years-old who tends toward narcissism.

The story begins with Andra in the office of her, we shall soon learn, incompetent therapist. She relates her enthusiasm for her job in the tea shop where each day she creates a “new” tea flavor. As she works with her owner who we are somehow expected to know represents the Mad Hatter and frequent female visitor who represents the Cheshire Cat. Andra does have a fiancée who she seems to have agreed to marry because of the stability he provides and an overprotective mother who warns her against going down the rabbit hole, the New York City Subway. Of course, Andra, being much younger mentally than her 31 years, dismisses her finance and ignores her mother. While she pines for the occasional New York visitor who comes into the tea house just to see her. This older man represents the March Hare. He is fully absorbed in satisfying his own desires with little actual indication of the ambition he sells himself as having.

Problematically, none of this symbolism is apparent from the play’s text. Only by looking up March Hare may it be determines what the symbolism of the title is, why it is important that the tea shop owner briefly wears a floppy top hat and the co-dependent relationship between the coffee shop visitor and the owner. Attending the play without knowing the meaning of the title in advanced will leave an audience member floundering. DeLalla does nothing in the script to help any attendee recognize her allusions and the story is not helped by the fact that the store owner and the visitor disappear after a few brief scenes.

Most of the show is taken up by the occasional New York visitor’s seduction of the very willing Andra. Andra who forgets about her fiancée and her mother for the wonder of the stranger’s language of “love”. Andra believes the occasional visitor’s protest that he has no intention of seduction.

Finally, the therapist (the Queen?) assists the March Hare (the occasional visitor) in his seduction of the willing woman who thinks like a child.

Corr’s direction does nothing to help get the audience through this mess. Her scene changes are frequent, sloppy and unnecessary. They do nothing to move the story, which stops moving forward after about twenty minutes. They are even more inexplicable in a show where every actor had script-in-hand and required that script throughput the show. More time learning the script and less on learning scene changes might have been a smarter investment of limited rehearsal time.

The two plays that the March Hare currently is don’t seem to have mush future, even if divided. This is one of the shows that need to be put in a draw and “discovered” after a hundred years.