Don’t go into the performance expecting to see a strung-out Peter Pan chilling with the Cheshire cat somewhere down the rabbit hole. And Alice is still in Wonderland, not in a pirate’s cove for some clockodile’s luncheon.

The play “Peter and Alice,” which will be showing at Theatre on the Ridge in Paradise, is about the real people that inspired J.M. Barrie and Lewis Carroll to create their signature characters.

The subjects, Alice Liddell and Peter Llewelyn Davies, apparently met in real life in London at a bookstore display honoring Carroll in 1932. Liddell was 80 years old at the time and Davies was in his 30s — not exactly the conversation one would expect from characters so strongly representative of youth — but age and experience give the play true power.

Showings will be every Thursday, Friday and Saturday from March 26 through April 18 at Theatre on the Ridge in Paradise. Tickets can also be purchased online at www.totr.org.

Trevor Whitney can be reached at [email protected] or @nicegrandmas on Twitter.