The Wicked Report

[qos]

A week ago Saturday, I finally took the Daughter to see Wicked.

Of course there was a slight kerfluffle with the tickets at the box office -- how else, after all the rest of the drama, right? Because they had been purchased under kateri_thinks's subscriber number, they were under her name, and the box office people wanted photo ID to match. (This was despite the fact that George II had told me the tickets were under my name.) But they were mollified by me presenting the credit card that had been used to purchase the tickets, so we got in.

I was glad that I did not have to shed blood.

I am sure that one of the ways the world can be divided is into people who find a theater magical and those who don't. To me, there has always been something awesome and sacred about a big room with a stage in it, even an empty one. When the stage has been dressed with gorgeous richness and detail, it makes my heart race. When there's a dragon presiding above it all. . . . !!



The house was packed, and it was immediately clear that at least half the audience was made up of enthusiastic -- perhaps even fanatic -- fans. There's a certain energy to an audience that's not just 'live' but invested in the performance, and this one was. It was perhaps the most energetic audience I've ever been part of: hanging on every word, every gesture; quick with every laugh.

It's an amazing thing to hear music live for the first time that you've only heard recorded, especially for a show like this. When the lights went down and the orchestra struck, I got tears in my eyes (which is not uncommon for me at a show, any show), and I felt a sense of near wonder as the action started onstage. I could not believe that I was actually seeing Wicked!

When Glinda came floating in on her mechanical bubble, the crowd went wild: applauding and cheering so much that her first line -- "It's good to see me, isn't it?" -- was almost lost. But then everyone just cheered louder. And when Shoshona Bean, as Elphaba, came on, the place went nuts again.

The show is almost as different from the novel as the novel is from The Wizard of Oz, and although I'd read the outline of the show, I wasn't aware of several key plot points, so there were plenty of surprises, which was nice.

The performances were all excellent. Elphaba and Glinda were both supurb, and Fiyero was lovely. The supporting players were strong too, which is so important. Glinda brought down the house with "Popular."


The highlight was, of course, the climax of Act One when Elphaba sings "Defying Gravity." The first part of the song is shared with Glinda as they are cornered in a tower while escaping from the soldiers of the Wizard, then they each make their choice about how to respond to what they've just experienced. The soldiers start battering down the door. Glinda puts a cloak on Elphaba, and the music goes into a crescendo as Elphaba rises up from the stage, then starts to sing "So if you care to find me, look to the western sky!"

Usually you wait until the end of a song to cheer, but as that music hit -- and if you know the score, you know exactly which passage I mean -- and Elphaba started to rise into the air, I was one of several people who simply could not help cheering and applauding. It was an absolutely stunning moment. (Two weeks later, I'm crying as I type this.)

And the ending took me by surprise. I won't post a spoiler, but it was so unlike any other version I simply did not see it coming, despite the cue that was dropped. I'm usually pretty good at catching hints, but the story of The Wizard of Oz has been so important to me for most of my life that I literally could not imagine certain things being different.

There was only one disappointment to the whole affair. When leaving the theater I asked my darling daughter how she'd liked the show. Her response was a shrug. "It was okay."

Comments

[wlotus.livejournal.com]

There is nothing, nothing like live theatre.

It's been a few years. Next on my Must See list is "The Lion King". I need to see about tickets.