By Courtney Wentz | Editor-in-Chief
The Wizard of Oz is a fun movie, but Wicked is even more fun, dazzling, and has many surprising twists.
Wicked the musical tells the story of everything leading up to the death of the Wicked Witch of the West, but they do it with catchy songs like “Dancing Through Life” and “One Short Day.” Then there’s the annoyingly catchy song “Popular,” sung by Glinda about making Elphaba, the wicked witch, popular.
The stage was set up like the insides of an old timey clock, along with a mechanical dragon perched at the top of the stage. Anytime Elphaba used magic, the dragon’s eyes would glow red and smoke would come out of its nostrils. The Wizard also has a mechanical head that looked like it was floating, while he was talking to Glinda and Elphaba.
The story wasn’t about how the Wicked Witch became evil, which was expected. I went into this show not knowing anything about it, other than the fact it was about the “untold story of the witches of Oz” as the subtitle says. It was about how Elphaba was tricked by the Wizard and her teacher, Madame Morrible, and in turn Elphaba became misunderstood by Ozians because nobody corrected their perception of her.
It was an interesting twist to a classic story about good versus evil, especially since it wasn’t actually good versus evil. It was easy for the Ozians to believe Elphaba could be evil, or bad because of the color of her skin, which I believe might be a comment on race in our country.
The audience also got to see how characters like the Cowardly Lion, the Tinman, and the Scarecrow came to be. They were citizens of Oz, minus the lion. He was an abused animal.
Jennifer Dinoia played Elphaba wonderfully. Having nothing to compare her to, expect the original Broadway soundtrack, I thought she did a great job portraying her character. She has played Elphaba multiple times, in multiple countries like London, England, Sydney, Australia, and Seoul, Korea. She has plenty of experience getting this misunderstood character’s emotions across through songs and actions.
The playwright, Stephen Schwartz, touched on the fact that it was too easy to kill the witch. Is she really dead? Or did she make the Ozians believe she is?
Wicked has been on Broadway for over ten years. It can be seen at the Gershwin Theatre in New York City, or at the Boston Opera House this summer from June 7th to July 23th. It can be purchased on iTunes or Google Play.
Comments are closed.