The most-asked question exiting Saturday’s opening of the massive stage extravaganza “Wicked” was, “How could that not have won the Tony Award for best musical?”
There was a shocking, backroom backlash against the Broadway smash last year, when Tony voters apparently decided there was more heart in one “Avenue Q” sock puppet than in all of “Wicked’s” steel bubbles, snorting dragons and flying monkeys. Cynics saw the oppressive industrial gears and machinery that frame the stage as an unintentional allegory for the show itself: a manufactured spectacle designed for mass consumption. But that Tony voters chose to whip “Wicked,” of all shows, for a trend Broadway has fostered for two decades, seemed erratic and unfair.
This show is a cauldron of contradictions, one impossible to wholeheartedly adore or unilaterally dismiss. Like a witch’s brew, there are artistic and commercial contradictions at play. But clearly the national tour’s opening audience ate up everything this show has to sell, from brisk lobby merchandising to the complicated “Wizard of Oz” prequel unfolding on stage.
“Something bad is happening in Oz,” we are told, and it’s true. “Wicked” begins in a state of strangely sterile artificiality. Its players are covered in bizarrely garish costuming and a lackluster Stephen Schwartz score plays out at times like a bad ’70s “Pippin” acid flashback. Worst, the ending betrays Gregory Maguire’s 1995 book.
But here’s the rub: Something very good is undeniably happening in Oz, as well. This musical provides a marvelously inventive back story that should delight any devotee of “The Wizard of Oz.”
It is ridiculous fun visiting the intersecting childhoods of the calculatingly “good” Glinda and the not-so-mean, green Elphaba. And it’s a hoot seeing how key figures from L. Frank Baum’s source story, such as Tin Man, Scarecrow and the ruby-slippered Wicked Witch of the East, figure into the past (though some connections don’t line up under scrutiny, such as why the witch will one day light the scarecrow ablaze when it’s now clear they’re old, ahem, friends).
Still, “Wicked” is also a subversively meaty social commentary with real contemporary relevance. The premise: Elphaba is an illegitimate green child of indeterminate origin. She and her crippled half-sister are sent to university, where Elphaba’s magic powers draw the interest of the Wizard. But in this society, everyone is mislabeled: The “wonderful” wiz is a mad autocrat turning Oz from a land of equality into a class-based society that rewards loyalty. The Munchkins are slaves. Animals, who once spoke and interacted equally with humans, are being mutated into nonverbal grunters. The silence of the lambs here means silencing the dissenters.
When the wizard tricks Elphaba into creating a race of flying monkeys to spy on his citizenry, her rebellion is heroic but she is forced into exile. He publicly declares her to be wicked, and the adorably mean girl Glinda to be good. And the masses, of course, accept without question. References to affirmative action, racism, the abuse of power, media manipulation, ignorance and intolerance give the plot real significance.
Despite that weightiness, the best thing about “Wicked” is its achingly human friendship between these two girls. The performances by Stephanie J. Block as Elphaba and Kendra Kassebaum as Glinda are the stuff of legend. Block’s vocal command is a wonder, and Kassebaum’s natural comedic form as the black crow in blond curls is even more winning than Kristin Chenoweth’s on Broadway.
A nearly unrecognizable Carol Kane, the iconic comic actress from “Taxi” fame, is an exquisite addition as the (incongruously undastardly) Wizard’s weather-controlling lady in waiting, Madame Morrible. And the score actually managed to make this old heart soften at last on the climactic ballad “For Good,” which seals this sisterly friendship for eternity.
Yet it was telling that the evening’s greatest cheer went up not for any compelling individual artistic achievement, but for the moment Elphaba is launched into the sky while singing “Defying Gravity.” One can’t help but wonder if the artificial magic of the “Wicked” machinery is a white elephant in the room – the helicopter from “Miss Saigon.” It’s as if its dazzling ostentatiousness masks the beauty lying within.
Theater critic John Moore can be reached at 303-820-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com.
*** | “Wicked”
MUSICAL|National touring production|Buell Theatre at Denver Performing Arts Complex, 14th and Curtis streets|THROUGH OCT. 2|8 p.m. Tuesdays-Fridays, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Sundays|2 hours, 45 minutes|SOLD OUT|Note: A daily lottery for 24 orchestra seats is held before each performance. You must arrive at box office 2 1/2 hours before curtain to enter; lottery 30 minutes later. Tickets cost $25 for winners. Call 303-893-4100.
