Wicked the Musical

It takes a lot to tempt me into wandering into a theater.  I can count on one hand the number of professional shows I’ve been to – and the last time I saw a show was in 2001 when Rent was playing at the Orpheum in San Francisco. 

Now I’ve added Wicked the Musical to that list. 

It was first workshopped here in SF years ago, and then there was a previous run a few years ago.  I wasn’t interested then because A) I was still living in Texas so I wasn’t exactly near where it was playing and B) I read a review in Entertainment Weekly that kind of panned it with a C grade and C) I hadn’t yet reread the book so I didn’t quite realize what a literary masterpiece it was! (Honestly, don’t be 15 and try to read the book, no matter how much you love the Wizard of Oz.)

Anyway, so six months ago my sister and I decided to go see the new run at the Orpheum and Abby ordered our tickets.  Finally the day came and we headed to the city.  The show has been sold out, so the theatre was packed.  Somehow, Abby managed to get seats on the bottom floor – there are two sections on the bottom, orchestra level and mezzanine, I think (louge [sic?] is upstairs) and we were in the mezzanine in the middle of the left side section.  Really decent view of the stage and kind of exciting to actually be on that level, especially since I thought we’d be upstairs.  My participation in acquiring the tickets was pretty much telling Abby to keep it around $100 if she could and then paying her back for my ticket. So it was a nice surprise that we were so close!

I will say right here that I am not a fan of Stephen Schwartz, the composer of this musical.  I think his work lacks cohesion and singable tunes.  He’s responsible for the crap soundtracks of Disney’s animated musicals Pocahontas and Hunchback of Notre Dame, and various other stage musicals that I’d like to punch him in the face for (Godspell, etc.). I’d gotten the Wicked soundtrack out of the library last year or the year before and was disappointed at how ultimately blah it was. 

So, yeah, I still decided to go, despite this.  I do love the book, and I love the Wizard of Oz.

The sets were amazing.  The costumes were fantastic.  The woman who played Glinda was absolutely fantastic (Kendra Kesselbaum, I think her name is).  We had a surprise in that Madame Morrible was played by Patty Duke! She was great. (Abby was all, “Who’s Patty Duke?”) Also, the Wizard was played by the guy who played Steve on Married With Children – he was good too.  But nobody was as good as Kendra Kesselbaum, who I was pretty much blown away by.

There was a cop-out happy ending, which I found slightly irksome, though understandable. However, because of that, I would definitely say that it’s kid-friendly, since, basically, NO ONE DIES. Also, it’s totally funny.

My ultimate grade would be a B- because I feel that the music really does drag it down that much.  But as a stage production, the sets, direction, comedic timing, fabulous costumes, and excellent performances really elevate the show past lame music.  I would definitely recommend going to see it if you have the opportunity!