First Stage’s ‘Wiz’ lacks sinister side, but Lion leads the way
Inventive and subversive, “The Wiz” has an assured and deserved place in theater history, and its inspiring message that black is beautiful – delivered through a score that makes one wish Charlie Smalls hadn’t died so young – will never grow old.
But for all the Tony hardware it took home in a subpar year offering little competition, “The Wiz” hasn’t aged gracefully as it has eased on down the road. Unlike Langston Hughes’ slightly older, similarly themed and still luminously resonant “Black Nativity,” “The Wiz” can play like a colorful candyland period piece, long on ’70s style but short on substance.
That’s even more true in the relentlessly upbeat adaptation for young audiences by Jeff Frank and Richard Carsey, which premiered at First Stage eight years ago and is now back for an encore, under the direction of Sheri Williams Pannell and Ameenah Kaplan. I saw it Saturday afternoon, in a performance featuring the Winkie Cast of alternating young performers.
Staged with a multiracial cast dominated by actors of color, this version of “The Wiz” presents the story we all know.
Or think we do. The young people in the matinee audience around me were restive, because the storytelling is confusing. That’s what can happen when an already short Broadway book — not very good to begin with — is further reduced by nearly a quarter, with most of Smalls’ songs losing a verse or two.
In what’s left, the darkness present in both the classic 1939 movie and in “The Wiz” is gone, often replaced by camp. There’s scant generational tension down on the farm. Not much that’s wicked about Raven Dockery’s Evillene or her cloyingly cute monkeys. And little that’s scary or sinister about the Wiz (Shawn Holmes, channeling James Brown).
No dramatic tension, no drama. And when the intrepid Dorothy has nothing significant to overcome — in herself or the world — the gloriously uplifting numbers that bring this score home don’t pack the punch they should. Even when they’re as well sung as they are here, by Camara Stampley’s Dorothy, Cynthia Cobb’s Glinda, and the rest of this fine-voiced cast.
Instead of drama we get sanitized reverence, from the kente-patterned scenic design and costumes to the tributes paid to Brown and Josephine Baker, Michael Jackson as Captain EO and Erykah Badu. Nothing wrong with ensuring attention gets paid to such icons. But it must complement rather than substitute for compelling storytelling.
That’s why James Carrington’s Lion is a standout in this cast.
More than any character in this production, this Lion conveys how little he’s figured out and how long that yellow brick road to the promised land can be, for a man and a people. Big and sloppy as well as vulnerable and unsure, he nevertheless ultimately finds his way, helping us fully value a reclaimed heritage by suggesting how easily it can be lost.
“The Wiz” continues through March 25 at the Marcus Center’s Todd Wehr Theater, 929 N. Water St. For tickets, call (414) 273-7206 or go online at www.firststage.org. Read more at Tap Milwaukee.com.