Something Wicked this way comes
The prequel to the Wizard of Oz dazzles... but it lacks the original’s humanity
What should sum up comradeship in a few words is laboured out at length
Wicked BordGáis EnergyTheatre Until September
When I first sawWicked some years ago I thought it was too preachy, too long, and too short on genuine feeling. Second time round, I was determined to enjoy everything that’s good about it. But it didn’t work. I’ve no complaints about the production. It’s a whopper of dazzling dancing, movement, lighting, singing, costumes and special effects, sound effects and whizz bangs. But I couldn’t get involved with the characters. They just don’t touch human failings and feelings in the way the original Oz picture did. When the flashing lights, strobe effects and sound effects weren’t prominent, it sagged. Admittedly those effects were rarely absent.
The story, based on a novel by Gregory Maguire that acts as a prequel to the original book by L. Frank Baum, turns the Wizard of Oz story on its head. Elphaba, the wicked green witch, dispatched by Dorothy with a can of water, is now a decent soul, turned by schemers into an unwilling villain. The good witch, Glinda here is a self-obsessed ditsy airhead who makes it to the top by being co-opted by the wicked Wizard. At least that super-syrupy good witch is dropped.
The underlying theme to it all is that we should be nice to people who are different, preaching the sermon at length in some of the songs and settings. And the story is carried to a great extent by songs that often just spell out the message. The humour is good when it gets a chance.
But it’s those songs that wearied me. Too many of them have that same style of soaring fortissimo that gives great opportunities to the main singers to reach stratospherically high notes, but that bring the story to a full stop, slowing down everything. As a result, the show runs for almost three hours including an interval. What should sum up comradeship in a few words, is laboured out at length in the song For Good – ‘Because I knew you, I have been changed for good.’ I couldn’t help remembering that the producers of the original Oz originally wanted to discard Somewhere Over the Rainbow. There’s nothing in this one that comes near that sort of insight. However, the performances by Amy Ross (Elphaba) and Helen Woolf (Glinda) are outstanding vocally and in terms of stamina, especially Ross, who has to carry a great deal of the story. And it’s a pity more is not made of Woolf’s deliciously dizzy Glinda.
For those who like in-jokes, the story eventually slides into the original film, although this one is meant to be a prequel. The occasional political nudge went unnoticed by an audience, who, it must be admitted, loved those roof-raising songs especially Defying Gravity, that brought the curtain down triumphantly on the first half, and the finale that brought them all to their feet.