I went to see "WICKED" tonight with my roommate and her boyfriend. I had to see it before I leave for home, since Idina MEnzel, the woman who originated the role on Broadway is only going to be here until Christmas. (and then the girl who originated the role of "Meat" in "We Will Rock You" is going to take over. Which reminds me, I also need to egg Ben Elton before I leave...) So we went to the Victoria Apollo which is a gorgeous art deco theatre near Victoria station. The lobby is a riot of deco and it's all...green! How appropriate.
The show was really good. Not amazing, but a really solid piece of musical theatre. I would have liked more politics than this faffing about with people being popular, but I think for the type of show they were going for they definitely succeded. So the twelve year olds in front of me led the standing applause charge, but I was left sitting in the middle of the second act going "wait! wait! Explore this theme of looks vs identity! Please!"
The star of the show was without a doubt Idina Menzel and she rocked. Oh Lord, she has a golden voice. And you could see that she had spent longer with her character than any of the other actors: the woman playing Glinda looked like an understudy next to her. One of the annoying points was that the English actors used their own accents, which is fine, but when they were singing the vowel sounds didn't match up, so they sounded out of tune with each other. Thank you, vocal training. I could have listened to Idina all night. I'm slightly mollified that she stole the Tony from Tonya Pinkins, but I need to see "Caroline, or Change" this week as well to make sure it was still awarded correctly.
I think my favourite part had to be the costumes but I'm not sure I liked the ones people wore for the OzDust Ballroom, they looked too modern. I was also pleased to see that James Gillam, the man who played Hinckley in the Sheffield version of Assassins was in Wicked as Boq. I'm glad to see he managed to get over his obsession with Glinda just so he could become obsessed with Jodie Foster and try to shoot Reagan. Brings a whole new meaning to the words "kill the witch!"
1 comment:
I thought when I saw it in Chicago it was pretty politcal. I wonder if they changed it or I was just in a political mindframe. I remember Brent Elbowing me quite a bit for both gasping audibly, pointing out the quick changes and laughing in that deep meaningful way...
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