Wicked

THE MUSICAL

Grade: A

If you see one musical this summer, see Wicked.

I'm a fan of the classics: Les Miserables makes me cry every time, The Phantom of the Opera never gets old, and Miss Saigon always wrenches at my heartstrings. But Wicked is good, really good. Based loosely off of the book of the same name by Gregory Maguire, Wicked is the "true" tale of the Wicked Witch of the West.

The unfortunately-named, unfortunate-appearing Elphaba ("Like a froggy, ferny cabbage, the baby is unnaturally green!") winds up at school with the unlikely roommate Galinda ("With a 'gah'"), a girl who is more concerned with her appearance and popularity than the deeper problems in Oz which worry Elphaba. Enter Fiyero, the handsome, charming, vapid man who wins both witches' hearts. Follow their journey as the two head on the inevitable path that leads to the climactic finale we all know so well from The Wizard of Oz.

A good friend of mine came to visit me during Spring Break last year and we went to NYC a couple of times. She had never been to Broadway. She has long been a Wicked fan. Of course, we hadn't thought to get tickets far enough in advance and the show was sold out (it still sells out every night)--but, fortunately for us, and unfortunately for a lot of people, there was a freak snowstorm which closed a number of airports and forced people to cancel their tickets, leading to some very nice last-minute seats for us.

The show was simply splendid. The music is highly enjoyable, and the Elphaba/Galinda dynamic is marvelous. The story is intricately woven and plays the emotions of the audience masterfully, building empathy for both Elphaba and Galinda and painting the transitions both characters make over the course of the show. "Defying Gravity," the song directly before intermission, is perhaps the most powerful end of act 1 song other than "One Day More." "For Good," near the end of the second half, is probably my favorite two-women duet in any show, and is poignant and realistic. The lyrics are almost unfailingly clever (Elphaba's first song, the Wizard and I, is full of witty references to later events: "I've just had a vision almost like a prophecy...I swear someday there'll be/a celebration throughout Oz/that's all to do.../with me!"), even when the music is at times jarring. Overall, a stunning production.

Despite its premise, this musical is rarely absurd (and only then when it wants to be), and promises to entertain even the most staunch fans of the classics.

As a side note, I saw Wicked again earlier this summer, when Stephanie J. Block (who is on the original soundtrack of The Pirate Queen, the Boublil and Schonberg flop from last summer) was playing Elphaba, and she was simply amazing. It was the first time I had ever seen a stage production and thought that the stage cast was better than the original Broadway recording. Ms. Block has since left the cast, but she is definitely one to watch out for.


THE BOOK

Grade: C

I read the book of Wicked long before the musical came into production, and it was almost enough to turn me off of the musical without ever seeing it. Gregory Maguire had a lot of big ideas for the book, most of them far grander than the show's more simplistic "what must it have been like to be the Wicked Witch of the West?" He wanted to portray social unrest, a microcosm of our society and America in the early 1900s. He wanted Elphaba to be a truly deep character, with different facets to explore. Unfortunately, as a result, the book is painful to read, both because the language is somewhat inaccessible and because Elphaba is so darned unlikeable. The book has none of the nods toward the absurdity of the original Wizard of Oz to add humor and to keep it from taking itself too seriously that the show does.

A book to be avoided.