{"id":741,"date":"2009-09-06T23:15:31","date_gmt":"2009-09-06T13:15:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/batrock.net\/?p=741"},"modified":"2009-09-07T01:19:52","modified_gmt":"2009-09-06T15:19:52","slug":"wicked-capitol-theatre-september-6-2009","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/batrock.net\/?p=741","title":{"rendered":"Wicked – Capitol Theatre, September 6 2009"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wicked<\/em> is one of those ridiculously popular Broadway and West End musicals, and it made its way to Australia last year. Just yesterday it opened in Sydney, the second tier musical town in Australia (as far as I can tell, there are no tiers after that). I caught the matinee Sunday performance, and it was amazing even in day time.<\/p>\n

Wicked <\/em>is what happens when you take strong, resonant source material \u00e2\u20ac\u201c both Gregory Maguire\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s book and the Wizard of Oz<\/em> itself \u00e2\u20ac\u201c set it to music, and then have it performed by a strong cast and, uh … Bert Newton.<\/p>\n

A great show all around and a great production, Wicked <\/em>is definitely something that should be seen if you like musicals. If you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s probably no helping you.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Wicked <\/em>tells the story of the younger days of Elphaba \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Wicked Witch of the West\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of The Wizard of Oz<\/em> fame \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and her relationship with the good witch Glinda. Things change for the justifiably embittered Elphaba when she discovers sorcery, friendship and love, but she is destined for wickedness.<\/p>\n

Wicked <\/em>is light hearted fantasy but at the same time it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an exercise in propaganda and political spin. One could say that the entire production is just propaganda extolling the virtues of Elphaba, because she does come across rather sympathetically, but everything presented here can conceivably fit with the movie (I am uncertain about the Oz<\/em> book, save for the fact that the ruby slippers are here there original silver). It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s easy to make political comparisons, and the program notes that the book was written around the time of the first Gulf War. The fact that a story that is on at least one level about the ethics of flying monkeys retains political cache to this day says more about the constants of politics than it does about the content of the show itself. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a nice and comfortable parallel and all the more believable for it \u00e2\u20ac\u201c although comparing Glinda to Sarah Palin isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t exactly accurate or helpful: she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s one of the good guys.<\/p>\n

Political allegory is not where Wicked <\/em>focuses most of its energy, though: the lynchpin of the exercise is the relationship between Elphaba and Glinda. Glinda begins as Galinda, an insufferable, albeit hilarious, blonde who seems modelled after the likes of Reese Witherspoon\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Elle Woods,[1]<\/a> but both of them reveal a sensitivity that neither believed they could have possessed. The theme of deceptive appearances and function following form are never exactly subtle here, but they are explored more than satisfactorily: in a way, I came to love Elphaba and Glinda, genuinely investing myself in their drama.<\/p>\n

The story itself is good, although the animal censorship bit seems a little tacked on to give Elphaba a cause to dedicate herself to \u00e2\u20ac\u201c at least in this incarnation. The passage of time is also handled somewhat confusingly (when, for instance, did Glinda actually learn magic?). Thematically, however, and character wise, the show is damned near perfect – and the second act is actually ridiculously strong, handily defeating a common curse.<\/p>\n

The interesting thing about Wicked <\/em>is that, while the songs are fairly amazing, they don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t stand up that well outside of the context of the show. The cast recording, featuring the amazing Idina Menzel and the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153born-to-play-Glinda\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Kristin Chenoweth is performed and orchestrated strongly, but the show is a production<\/em>, and it loses something in the translation. More than half of the show is dialogue as opposed to song, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not something where you can divine the story simply through listening to the recording (see: Chicago, Avenue Q <\/em>and, ahem, Xanadu<\/em>. Miss Saigon <\/em>and the like are special because the recordings are pretty much the entire shows). All of the songs advance the plot \u00e2\u20ac\u201c because, frankly, a song in a musical can be the equivalent of a montage \u00e2\u20ac\u201c but they slot into a larger schematic and don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t work so well by themselves.<\/p>\n

That is a strange relationship, and I may be forced to change my mind as I subject myself to repeat listenings of the material. The fact of the matter is that the songs on offer feature unexpected and unconventional rhymes. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Planned \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcem\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Tandem\u00e2\u20ac\u009d have never gone together so well, and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t understand, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re having delusions of grandeur\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is a pleasant surprise.<\/p>\n

The Sydney production is identical to the Melbourne production, and is impressive: if one wants endless spectacle in a musical, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got it here. Contrast that to the excellent, deliberately threadbare Chicago<\/em> that was recently put on at Lyric Theatre and you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got two very different but still entertaining shows. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not entirely sure of the aesthetic of the costumes of Emerald City, the denizens of whom look like eccentric homeless people, but everything is in line with the cinematic look save the silver slippers.<\/p>\n

The two leads are brilliantly cast, with Jemma Rix technically <\/em>an understudy for Amanda Harrison as Elphaba, but she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been doing it so long and does it so well that you could hardly notice. She brings the right vulnerability and standoffishness to the character and she can certainly sing. Lucy Durack as Glinda, on the other hand, absolutely kills<\/em> it. I was a bit worried about her trilling at the start but, as it turns out, she brings a marvellous sense of humour to the part (Glinda got almost all of the laughs from my audience), she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s got the dance and she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s got the sensitivity to play the more delicate parts of the second act. Durack\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Popular\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is something that I had always considered funny before I saw the show, but performed in person it becomes one of the pillars of the performance and turns a funny ditz into something that is fundamentally the same as it once was, but just that little bit deeper.<\/p>\n

The role of Fiyero, the romantic interest, was today understudied by Michael Snell \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and this was a good thing. The problem with the role of Fiyero is that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s normally filled in by Rob \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Millsy\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Mills, an Australian Idol <\/em>alum. It would have been very hard to take him seriously in this \u00e2\u20ac\u201c or any other \u00e2\u20ac\u201c role. It is no small blessing that the part of Boq is no longer played by Idol<\/em> runner up Anthony Callea.<\/p>\n

The other draw card of Wicked <\/em>is Bert Newton as the Wizard, who stepped in to replace Rob Guest after his death last year. Newton is one of the mysteries of actors \u00e2\u20ac\u201c in that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s more of a trained comedian than an actor, and that his appearance on stage will lead to an automatic cheer from an audience (see also: The Producers<\/em>, and similarly Magda Szjubanski\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s inexplicable turn in Guys and Dolls<\/em>). I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen Newton as the Wizard before, in an old performance of The Wizard of Oz<\/em> (starring Nikki Webster as Dorothy!), but this is a different sort of character and a different take on him. Newton is interesting, but he can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t maintain an accent and is easily overshadowed by Rix. His role is important and pivotal but not so much that Newton\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s performance does not suffice.<\/p>\n

Wicked <\/em>is not the perfect show, but it is a surprisingly heartfelt story of friendship, love, betrayal and all of the best themes of literature and musicals. It is one of those shows that has picked up steam to the point that it will probably never stop playing internationally \u00e2\u20ac\u201c it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s even been translated into Japanese! \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and I really can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t recommend it more.<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> It scares me that I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have to look up the name of that character.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wicked is one of those ridiculously popular Broadway and West End musicals, and it made its way to Australia last year. Just yesterday it opened in Sydney, the second tier musical town in Australia (as far as I can tell, there are no tiers after that). I caught the matinee Sunday performance, and it was amazing even in day time. Wicked is what happens when you take strong, resonant source material \u00e2\u20ac\u201c both Gregory Maguire\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s book and the Wizard of Oz itself \u00e2\u20ac\u201c set it to music, and then have it performed by a strong cast and, uh … Bert <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stage"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1HLZ6-bX","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/batrock.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/batrock.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/batrock.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/batrock.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/batrock.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=741"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/batrock.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":743,"href":"https:\/\/batrock.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741\/revisions\/743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/batrock.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/batrock.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/batrock.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}