Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Dramatized) recap

Bored beside her sister, Alice follows a waistcoated White Rabbit underground and reaches Wonderland, where food and drink repeatedly change her size. She meets a tear-pool full of animals, an advice-giving Caterpillar, the violent Duchess, the vanishing Cheshire Cat, and the Hatter's endless tea party. In the Queen of Hearts's garden she plays a chaotic game of croquet and sees how readily the Queen orders executions. The Gryphon and Mock Turtle describe their peculiar schooling before Alice is summoned to the Knave of Hearts's trial for stealing tarts. As the proceedings become increasingly irrational, Alice grows to her normal size, rejects the court's authority, and calls its members mere cards. They swarm at her, whereupon she wakes beside her sister and realizes that Wonderland was a dream.

Alice is sitting sleepily beside her sister when she notices a White Rabbit wearing a waistcoat and consulting a watch. She follows him down a deep rabbit hole and arrives in a hall of locked doors. A tiny door opens onto a beautiful garden, but Alice cannot fit through it. Drinking from a labeled bottle makes her very small, while eating cake makes her enormous. Frustrated and confused about her identity, she cries enough to create a large pool. When she shrinks again, she falls into her own tears and encounters a Mouse and other animals swimming toward safety.

On the bank, the Dodo organizes a race in which everyone runs at will and everyone is declared a winner. Alice distributes sweets as prizes, but her innocent talk about her cat frightens and offends the company. The White Rabbit then mistakes Alice for his housemaid and sends her to fetch gloves. Another drink makes her grow until she fills his house; when the animals try to remove her, small cakes thrown through the window shrink her enough to escape. In the woods she meets a puppy and then confronts the continuing problem of her altered size.

A Caterpillar questions Alice about her changing identity and tells her that opposite sides of a mushroom will make her taller or shorter. After awkward experiments, she gains more control of her size and enters the Duchess's pepper-filled house. The cook throws utensils, the Duchess handles a howling baby roughly, and the Cheshire Cat grins from the hearth. Alice carries the baby away, but it turns into a pig. The Cat directs her toward the March Hare and the Hatter, observing that Wonderland's inhabitants are mad. At their crowded tea table, Time has stopped at six, so the guests endlessly move around the places. Their riddles and contradictions finally drive Alice away.

Alice finds the garden and sees card-shaped gardeners painting white roses red to hide their error. The Queen of Hearts arrives with the King and threatens executions for every offense. Alice joins a croquet game played with flamingos, hedgehogs, and wandering card soldiers, making orderly play impossible. The Cheshire Cat's detached head irritates the royal party and produces an argument about how to behead something without a body. The Duchess reappears in a suddenly friendly mood. The Queen then sends Alice with the Gryphon to meet the Mock Turtle, who mournfully describes his underwater school.

The Mock Turtle and Gryphon perform and discuss their dances and songs until a summons calls them to court. The Knave of Hearts is on trial for stealing the Queen's tarts. The King acts as judge, the White Rabbit manages the evidence, and the jurors struggle even to record their own names. The Hatter and the Duchess's cook give confused testimony while the court treats irrelevant details as if they mattered. Alice has begun growing again as she watches. At the end of the testimony, the White Rabbit unexpectedly calls Alice as the next witness.

Alice says she knows nothing about the missing tarts. The court produces an unsigned verse and tries to force it into a confession, although it proves nothing. When the Queen calls for punishment before the verdict, Alice openly rejects the proceeding. Now back at her full size, she tells the court that its kings, queens, and attendants are only playing cards. The whole pack rises and flies at her. Alice wakes beside her sister on the riverbank and discovers that the adventure was a dream. She recounts it, then goes home, while her sister imagines Wonderland and hopes Alice will retain her generous childhood imagination as she grows older.

At the Knave of Hearts's trial, Alice is called as a witness just as she begins growing again. The King and Queen treat meaningless statements as evidence and try to manipulate the rules, while the Queen demands punishment before a verdict. Now full-sized and no longer intimidated, Alice tells the court that its members are only a pack of cards. The cards fly at her, and she wakes on the riverbank with her head in her sister's lap. She explains her extraordinary dream and runs home for tea. Her sister remains behind, imagines the people and sounds of Wonderland, and pictures Alice growing into an adult who will preserve the sympathy and imagination of childhood.