Wicked!

[furtech]

This has been a week of culture: Taiko exhibit opening and then (partial-- oops!) concert, then Wicked! And ten million comics in between!



I can't recommend Wicked enough. The more I see it, the better it gets. Spectacular songs and acts, great sets and a novel story. The show hits on some pretty sensitive issues regarding friendship and who we are and how our actions define us. Wicked is adapted from the book of the same name and expands on the characters from Baum's Oz books and the MGM movie, "The Wizard of Oz". The characters are fleshed out and given histories, motivations, feeling and emotion. Suddenly the story's no longer black and white-- just shades of grey (tinted green!). Just imagine any story that can make both Glinda AND the WWotW into heroes by the end of the show-- it's just great!

This show is a HUGE hit with young girls, but anyone who's ever felt alienated or different or just confused in friendship and growing up will love the show. Elphaba/Wicked Witch of the West is a masterwork of characterization. Like "Daria" crossed with Judy Garland. The cast is terrific, though none can compare to Chenoweth (the original Galinda). And this is one of the few musicals that I've seen people dress up in-theme for (usually green and black). Just amazing stuff!

I think the show's next stop is Seattle: Steve, Tracy, Gene, Sarah: I HIGHLY recommend that you guys call for tickets ASAP: I think you'd love the show and it was the hottest ticket in town (L.A.)-- first time in ages that a show has sold out its entire run! Scalpers around here were getting upwards of $300/ticket, if that's any indication of how hard it was to find tickets. If you like musicals at all, you'll really enjoy this!

Comments

[cooner.livejournal.com]

I'm going to see Wicked in San Jose on August 31st .... looking forward to it very much!

Just out of curiousity, have you read the book it's based on? I read it recently, and actually disliked it and was very annoyed by it .... but I was talking to a friend of mine who'd both read and seen it, and he said it's one of those rare cases where the adaptation actually fixes all the things that were wrong with the novel. :)

[furtech.livejournal.com]

In many ways I think the musical is far superior to the book (much tighter storytelling and a more satisfying ending). I found many parts of the book frustrating as well-- like the writer was a little too intrusive or trying too hard to be clever.

I enjoyed the book-- but personally I think the show is better. The people behind the show did a wonderful job adapting the story.

[cooner.livejournal.com]

Yeah .... **POSSIBLE SPOILERS, but probably not really** I just felt there were too many vague loose ends throughout the book that the writer spent a lot of time focusing on, that just never got wrapped up by the end, or explained ... Also, I felt like the writer was merrily chugging along for the first 5/6ths of the book, then suddenly realized, "Oh, crap, I need to work Dorothy Gale into this somehow ..."

And ... the ending. Hoo, boy. Yeah, my friend told me how they fixed that. :) (And it wasn't a 'Oh you spoiled it!' thing, but more of a 'Oh, wow, now that I wanna see' thing. :) )