Broadway/San Diego’s scrappy Wicked calls it like it sees it
by MARTIN JONES WESTLIN
One of the 19 songs from the runaway hit Broadway musical Wicked is titled “No Good Deed.” It marks the point at which the character Elphaba turns into one serious adversary amid a houseful of life’s hard knocks. Hands down, it’s the evening’s showstopper, and not just because it’s the last number before intermission. Julia Murney’s vocals explode from the top of Elphaba’s head to somewhere below her knees; Kenneth Posner’s world-beating light design ignites her lethal sneer from high above the stage to just shy of B Street. Exceptional turn.
While few moments in the show equal that one, there’s enough pop culture in the rest of ’em to hold your attention. Like the perky Hairspray before it and the darkly outstanding Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street before the both of ’em, Broadway/San Diego’s current Wicked proudly wears its social commentary on its sleeve, without apology for its sometimes maudlin, breathless feel. And the fact that it draws from two legendary characters in Western literature—or, more accurately, from a Gregory Maguire novel about them, also called Wicked—helps lay the big, bawdy foundation on which this show mostly succeeds.
Maguire’s story centers on The Wizard of Oz’s Glinda the Good Witch and the Wicked Witch of the West (Wicked’s Elphaba) before Dorothy Gale happened along. The Winnie Holzman script finds the two studying sorcery at the college level—Elphaba is a feisty, brilliant student, whom a chorus member calls “a sin” amid her green-tinted skin, while Galinda (she’ll later drop the first “a”) is a lily-white socialite and Elphaba’s eventual romantic and social rival.
The gals’ relationship is charted amid lots of Broadway-tinged tunes—but don’t sell Stephen Schwartz’s work short. His music and words are animated and direct, cleanly advancing the action. Not so for Holzman’s silly afterthoughts, from the lame wordplay (“Lemons and melons and pears!”—“Oh, my!”) to the mangled vocables (“scandalicious,” “gratitution”) to the glaringly obscure literary reference (“Elphaba” truncates to “L. Frank Baum,” author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and 13 other such novels).
Elphaba’s emerald skin, of course, is a metaphor for the cultural and physical differences among nations and races. She’ll suffer the according slings and arrows along with Dr. Dillamond (K. Todd Freeman), a professor at the university—Dillamond also happens to be a goat, and he’s the flagship figure for the oppression of his kind. At the seat of it all is Madame Morrible (Alma Cuervo), a sorceress who takes the vulnerable under her evil wing and tricks Elphaba into creating an army of those ugly winged monkeys. All these subplots mean a certain set of loose ends, none of which materially threatens the theme. Wicked’s world is a xenophobe’s pay dirt, a place of certain death for cultural diversity as a socially bankrupt majority turns a blind eye.
The physical differences between Elphaba and Glinda (a very well-coached Kendra Kassebaum) are almost too stark; it takes a minute to adjust to them, as if they’d ever have reason to establish contact. Beyond that, director Joe Mantello and costumer Susan Hilferty have coaxed an ensemble feel from a daunting set of colors, sounds and shifting moods.
Wayne Cilento is responsible for something called “musical staging” in lieu of “choreography.” There must be a distinction—the dance element seems almost muted against Schwartz’s tunes, and that’s not necessarily bad. The music explains a lot about set designer Eugene Lee’s art deco clock-face backdrop and the ersatz winged monkey that watches over everything. For that, you can thank music director Stephen Oremus.
This show has been virtually sold out here since before The Wizard of Oz’s Elvira Gulch, that chalky Kansas spinster who nearly smoked little Toto, gave it up to Uncle Henry on Auntie Em’s one and only poker night away from home. That was many years ago—so rest assured your wait was worth it (there’s a lottery under way for the few remaining seats; inquire at the phone number below). The ballsy Murney slams Elphaba home, and Kassebaum’s Glinda is a scrumptious little doll. As everybody knows, the pair would confront each other anew under even more unfavorable circumstances. Now, we have a little better real-world idea about why.
This review is based on the opening-night performance of July 27. Wicked runs through Aug. 6 at the Civic Theatre, 202 B. St., Downtown. $29-$127. 619-570-1100.
Easy choice
It’s hard to tell what director Darko Tresnjak really thinks of Titus Andronicus, third of The Old Globe Theatre’s three summer Shakespeares. So many of his gimmicks are so off the wall (police tape across the stage, flying limbs, “The Teddy Bears’ Picnic” as musical backdrop to a rape) that it seems he’s satirizing the violence Shakespeare creates as the Roman Titus (Leonard Kelly-Young) defeats Tamora, queen of the Goths (Celesta Ciulla). If that’s the case, what’s he proven?
Your night is probably better spent at All in the Timing, six speech-intensive one-acts by David Ives. The Universal Language, a Carla Nell-directed parody on the establishment of a global tongue, is the coolest.
Titus Andronicus runs through Sept. 30 at The Lowell Davies Festival Theatre, 1363 Old Globe Way, Balboa Park. $19-$56. 619-23-GLOBE. All in the Timing runs through Aug. 13 at New World Stage, 917 Ninth Ave., Downtown. $15. 619-374-6894.
http://www.sdcitybeat.com/article.php?id=4620&atype=
One of the 19 songs from the runaway hit Broadway musical Wicked is titled “No Good Deed.” It marks the point at which the character Elphaba turns into one serious adversary amid a houseful of life’s hard knocks. Hands down, it’s the evening’s showstopper, and not just because it’s the last number before intermission. Julia Murney’s vocals explode from the top of Elphaba’s head to somewhere below her knees; Kenneth Posner’s world-beating light design ignites her lethal sneer from high above the stage to just shy of B Street. Exceptional turn.
While few moments in the show equal that one, there’s enough pop culture in the rest of ’em to hold your attention. Like the perky Hairspray before it and the darkly outstanding Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street before the both of ’em, Broadway/San Diego’s current Wicked proudly wears its social commentary on its sleeve, without apology for its sometimes maudlin, breathless feel. And the fact that it draws from two legendary characters in Western literature—or, more accurately, from a Gregory Maguire novel about them, also called Wicked—helps lay the big, bawdy foundation on which this show mostly succeeds.
Maguire’s story centers on The Wizard of Oz’s Glinda the Good Witch and the Wicked Witch of the West (Wicked’s Elphaba) before Dorothy Gale happened along. The Winnie Holzman script finds the two studying sorcery at the college level—Elphaba is a feisty, brilliant student, whom a chorus member calls “a sin” amid her green-tinted skin, while Galinda (she’ll later drop the first “a”) is a lily-white socialite and Elphaba’s eventual romantic and social rival.
The gals’ relationship is charted amid lots of Broadway-tinged tunes—but don’t sell Stephen Schwartz’s work short. His music and words are animated and direct, cleanly advancing the action. Not so for Holzman’s silly afterthoughts, from the lame wordplay (“Lemons and melons and pears!”—“Oh, my!”) to the mangled vocables (“scandalicious,” “gratitution”) to the glaringly obscure literary reference (“Elphaba” truncates to “L. Frank Baum,” author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and 13 other such novels).
Elphaba’s emerald skin, of course, is a metaphor for the cultural and physical differences among nations and races. She’ll suffer the according slings and arrows along with Dr. Dillamond (K. Todd Freeman), a professor at the university—Dillamond also happens to be a goat, and he’s the flagship figure for the oppression of his kind. At the seat of it all is Madame Morrible (Alma Cuervo), a sorceress who takes the vulnerable under her evil wing and tricks Elphaba into creating an army of those ugly winged monkeys. All these subplots mean a certain set of loose ends, none of which materially threatens the theme. Wicked’s world is a xenophobe’s pay dirt, a place of certain death for cultural diversity as a socially bankrupt majority turns a blind eye.
The physical differences between Elphaba and Glinda (a very well-coached Kendra Kassebaum) are almost too stark; it takes a minute to adjust to them, as if they’d ever have reason to establish contact. Beyond that, director Joe Mantello and costumer Susan Hilferty have coaxed an ensemble feel from a daunting set of colors, sounds and shifting moods.
Wayne Cilento is responsible for something called “musical staging” in lieu of “choreography.” There must be a distinction—the dance element seems almost muted against Schwartz’s tunes, and that’s not necessarily bad. The music explains a lot about set designer Eugene Lee’s art deco clock-face backdrop and the ersatz winged monkey that watches over everything. For that, you can thank music director Stephen Oremus.
This show has been virtually sold out here since before The Wizard of Oz’s Elvira Gulch, that chalky Kansas spinster who nearly smoked little Toto, gave it up to Uncle Henry on Auntie Em’s one and only poker night away from home. That was many years ago—so rest assured your wait was worth it (there’s a lottery under way for the few remaining seats; inquire at the phone number below). The ballsy Murney slams Elphaba home, and Kassebaum’s Glinda is a scrumptious little doll. As everybody knows, the pair would confront each other anew under even more unfavorable circumstances. Now, we have a little better real-world idea about why.
This review is based on the opening-night performance of July 27. Wicked runs through Aug. 6 at the Civic Theatre, 202 B. St., Downtown. $29-$127. 619-570-1100.
Easy choice
It’s hard to tell what director Darko Tresnjak really thinks of Titus Andronicus, third of The Old Globe Theatre’s three summer Shakespeares. So many of his gimmicks are so off the wall (police tape across the stage, flying limbs, “The Teddy Bears’ Picnic” as musical backdrop to a rape) that it seems he’s satirizing the violence Shakespeare creates as the Roman Titus (Leonard Kelly-Young) defeats Tamora, queen of the Goths (Celesta Ciulla). If that’s the case, what’s he proven?
Your night is probably better spent at All in the Timing, six speech-intensive one-acts by David Ives. The Universal Language, a Carla Nell-directed parody on the establishment of a global tongue, is the coolest.
Titus Andronicus runs through Sept. 30 at The Lowell Davies Festival Theatre, 1363 Old Globe Way, Balboa Park. $19-$56. 619-23-GLOBE. All in the Timing runs through Aug. 13 at New World Stage, 917 Ninth Ave., Downtown. $15. 619-374-6894.
http://www.sdcitybeat.com/article.php?id=4620&atype=
