15 years of Wicked casting spell on theatre fans
NEW YORK — Fifteen years ago, one of the top films in the land was Finding Nemo, Shania Twain played the Super Bowl halftime show, 50 Cent’s Get Rich or Die Tryin’ was a hit album and a couple of witches-to-be took over Broadway.
The musical Wicked shook off tepid reviews to roar into Broadway history and, on Monday, is celebrating its coming-ofage with a Halloween-themed NBC special starring its original stars Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel, as well as Ariana Grande.
“First of all, I can’t believe it’s been 15 years. I think it was yesterday. And yet it feels like it’s been 15 years. So there’s that I’m battling in my brain,” Chenoweth says, laughing. “I just wanted to be in a show that someone would have heard of.”
Wicked is Broadway’s sixth longest running show and is regularly sold out. There is currently a North American tour, a West End production and another touring the U.K. The ice-cream company Ben & Jerry’s has launched a sandwich in its honour.
The musical reimagines the relationship between the Good Witch of the North (Chenoweth) and the Wicked Witch of the East (Menzel), who were introduced in L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and immortalized in a 1939 film adaptation. The songs by Stephen Schwartz include Defying Gravity, Popular and For Good.
“I knew it was something special,” says Menzel, who had already achieved success in Rent when she tried out for Wicked director Joe Mantello. Menzel shook while rehearsing the songs: “I knew I thought it was important and it moved me when I first auditioned and got a call-back.”
Critics were not always kind, with the New York Times sniffing that the musical “does not, alas, speak hopefully for the future of the Broadway musical.” Variety called it “lumbering, overstuffed” and New York’s Daily News described it as “an interminable show with no dramatic logic or emotional centre.”
Fans disagreed. The show went on to win a Grammy Award and three Tony Awards, opening in 16 countries, including Brazil, South Korea, Germany, Japan and Australia, and in Latin America.
The musical premièred long before the MeToo movement, but has benefited from its focus on two young women — one seemingly perfect in looks and popularity, the other a restless, greenskinned outsider — finding their voices and forging a bond.
“It’s a testament to the piece, to how good Wicked is that 15 years later, it’s even more important and really resonates with this movement that we’re in,” Menzel says.