Sunday, July 24, 2005

Wicked - The Musical - My Review

I’ve been struggling with writing a review of Wicked, so I apologize for the delay.

I can tell you this:
- The Sets are amazing
- The Costumes are amazing
- The acting was great (who knew Ana Gastyer could sing like that?)
- The Singing was amazing
- The Dancing was just ok
- The Seats were good

But I sort of have a problem with the show “in general”

They followed the book as much as they could (I mean come on it’s a 2.5 hour show, I didn’t expect them to be completely true to the book. And I understand that it’s a ‘musical’ and it has to have a Happy Ending, but they totally screwed the ending.

***SPOILERS**** ***SPOILERS**** ***SPOILERS**** ***SPOILERS****

We all know what happens to the Wicked Witch of the West in the Wonderful Wizard of Oz. She gets melted, with a bucket of water, by Dorothy and her little dog Toto.

The book-writer decided that instead they wanted to the WWOTW to actually fake her death so that she could sneak off and live with Glinda’s ex- (husband/boyfriend, not sure).

I understand that musicals are supposed to have happy endings, but this is a total change. And yes, I understand that “we really don’t know what happened” but come on, just to make it happy?

The way it ends it makes it look as though Elphaba played everyone, just to get the man. She played Galinda, she played her sister and she played Fiyero.

Have you ever seen a good mystery (i.e. The Game) and once you know the end you sort of analyze everything you saw and heard to see what hints you get. Well when you get to the end of this show, you go back and analyze things and they don’t make sense.

***END OF SPOILERS*** ***END OF SPOILERS*** ***END OF SPOILERS***

But we did enjoy the show, it put a lot of the songs “together” for me. It made more sense of some of the lyrics that I didn’t understand.

There were some great lines from the show:
- Galinda – “Get over it, it’s just a pair of shoes.”
- Mrs. Morrible, to Galinda “Oh you’re terribly beautiful.” To Elphaba who replies “I’m beautifully terrible.”

I don’t want to say that I had high expectations for the show, I never do that because you’ll only end up disappointed, and I wasn’t disappointed but I think they really pander to the audience with the ending they chose.

Will I go see it again? Probably not, it’s not one of those shows that you have to see over and over, plus tickets are expensive, starting around $60, so it’s not like a $10 movie you can go see numerous times.

I loved the book, and I’ll probably re-read it now so that I can get a new perspective on it, but I doubt I’ll go see the show again (watch I’ll be wrong).

Would I recommend this show, YES. Because it is a beautiful show and the songs are amazing, the lyrics on their own are wonderful and the story is one that will entrance everyone because we all have a fascination with the Wizard of Oz.

But go see the Trailers it gives you a good sense of the show, here's the HIGH res and the MED Res

17 comments:

Nickle Annie said...

It looks like it would be really good. I have never seen a play....really I haven't. But I'm going to see Mama Mia this summer and I can't wait! :)

Katya Coldheart said...

glad you had a good time, did you get any piccies of the theatre...???

:0)

Kat said...

Great review. I've never been to a musical, but I would love to.

Ms Mac said...

Pleased you had a good time. I'm loving the idea of being "beautifully terrible"! I could so be that!

Anonymous said...

i saw the play while it was in mo and i thought that it was amazing! i think that the ending made perfect sense. i wasnt confused or anything in any aspect. fiyero and elphaba just wanted to be happy together without worrying about being ridiculed and everything. so they made their own little "get away" and i cried during the show. lol so i thought that it was amazing. as i do with all musicals, i listened to the soundtrack a million times b/c as you said the music is amazing! and when i saw the show i laughed and i cried!! it was such an amazing show!! i would probably be one of those people that would go see it again and again and again if i had that type of money...but i dont! so if i ever get the chance to see it again, i will definitely go see it! my favorite line was when elphaba said to glinda, "Well we all can't come and go by bubble!" i starting laughing sooo incredibly hard when she said that i thought that it was one of the funniest lines that i had ever heard! lol so thats my whole outlook on this wonderful musical!!!

Anonymous said...

if you hate wicked soo much then why did you make this blog. btw you should know the ending WAS THE BEST PART OF THE SHOW!! My god! I love wicked and If you want to make a blog don't lie to the people!! and the wwotw didn't cheat on fierro! he loved her
from wickeds #1 fan

Anonymous said...

THE ENDING MADE SENSE!!!!!! By the way Ms. Morrible said to NESSA she was beautiful. not glinda now fiyero and elphaba loved each other they "play anyone" they were just different!!!!The play sent a great message it showed that being predijuce against people because they are different. All you could think of was the negative made up parts of the play. you know the ending made sense and the book said that the WWOTW lived so you want to stay close to the book.

Anonymous said...

so keep the blog but say the good stuff ok idiot!!!

Anonymous said...

The play was great and you know it so give it some credit cuz you know they worked hard you butt.

Michael Lehet said...

Anonymous from 4/14/06 - Did I say I hated the show? Re-reading this, I don't see where I said that?

So why should a review only be about "the good stuff" that's what a review is, right? Giving one own's opinion.

I never said they didn't work hard or not give credit to the actors, in fact I said the singing was amazing and the dancing was just ok, so how is that not giving credit.

BTW if you're going to call someone an idiot shouldn't you have enough courage to leave your real name instead of anonymous?

Anonymous said...

okay mister you got it all wrong. FIRST OFF, Wicked was the best thing that ever happened to me (and FYI the dancing was awesomely awesome). Secondly, you got Morrible's name wrong. It's MADAME Morrible, not MRS. And lastly, the lines are given by Frex (yes i did read the book)and they are:

FREX: Oh this is Nessarose, shes tragically beautiful!
ELPHABA: Hello.
MORRIBLE: Oh he-Goodness gracious! Who are you!?!
ELPHABA: Oh, I'm his other daughter Elphaba. I'm beautifully tragic!

Michael Lehet said...

Anonymous - I never said that Wicked was a bad show. I loved the book, I knew the music LONG before the show ever came to Chicago and I was EXCITED to go see it.

I don't know when you saw the show, but if you look at the date of this post it was in July 2005...a LOT can happen in a few weeks and certainly almost 10 months later. A show can get better....much better because the cast has had a longer time to learn it, or at the same time it can become tragic and overbearing because the cast has been doing it for so long.

I've only seen the show once, but I listen to the music over and over again.

Oh, and I'm so sorry that I got Madame Morrible's name and lines incorrect, thank you for letting me know.

Anonymous said...

I don't like the musical much. Mainly because it overshadows the book so much but is far inferior to the book. The book is dark and wonderful and really made me think about the roots of evil. The musical is...well...peppy.

Anonymous said...

I didnt like it, END OF!!!

Monica said...

I really want to see it now! It sounds really good! I just got confused in the ending, did she fake her death and end up with the boy she loves? or what?

Monica said...

Okay, now I really want to see the musical! It sounds AMAZING! But how does it end? I got confused because one person wrote that she faked her death to stay with the guy she loves or I don't know what else? Please tell me, I won't end up seeing it because I'll never go to NY again and i'm pretty sure it won't come to my town anytime soon

Michael Lehet said...

@Monica - At the end when Dorothy throws the water on her, she doesn't die. It makes it seem as the whole water throwing thing was "faked" so that Elphaba could live an "anonymous" life (well as anonymous a green person could) with the man that loved her.

I still LOVE the show, I still HATE the ending.