So I went on a great date last night to the lovely Academy of Music to see the touring broadway show of Wicked. An when I say date, I mean, my dad and I went together. Somewhere along the line we have fallen into the tradition of seeing musicals together, just the two of us (sorry mom). We met up in KOP and then drove into the city together and had a nice dinner before hand. My dad works such long hours I rarely see him, so it was fun to catch up, just the two of us.
I am on the Kimmel Center's preferred person e-mail list, so I bought the tickets before they went on sale to the general public. We were in the fifth row and it was pretty much amazing. This was especially nice because the last time I was at that particular venue we had snatched up discounted tickets to see White Christmas and we were in the absolute last row of the highest balcony and we were basically watching the show between our knees. Anyways, the Academy of Music is such a beautiful venue and everything from the set and stage and costuming was so incredible.
I had ganked the soundtrack from a friend in preparation and pieced together bits and pieces of the plot based on the music. But there were so many little details that were pulled from the Wizard of Oz that we learned the back story too: the ruby slippers, her hat, the broomstick, how Dorothy got to Oz, the winged monkeys, etc. Although I wasn't a huge fan of the music before hand (none of it is terrifically catchy, compared to, say Les Mis) in the climax of the first act when Elphaba is souring above the stage as pictured left, the energy the whole performance was so amazing that I had to bite my lip to keep from belting out "Defying Gravity" with her.
My favorite part of the play was how it made you challenge your own definitions of what was good and what was "wicked". How often do we try to force people into boxes of being 100% good or 100% bad and how everyone is really a shade of grey? "Are people born wicked or is wickedness thrust upon them?" is one of the opening lines of the play. At what cost does popularity come? There is a really great lesson about making assumptions about a person when you don't likely have the whole story.
Anyone else out there check it out?
4 comments:
LOVED Wicked. We saw it on Broadway a couple years ago and thought it was great fun. We saw Les Mis the next night, and there's definitely a huge difference there. Les Mis is definitely the better storyline and the music is fantastic. Wicked is just fun, and a few of the songs are fabulous to belt in the car. I loved how creative it was to hear/see the other side of the Oz story.
Have you read the book? I don't recommend it. It's just weird. And the musical is WAAAYY better. You do get a better distinction between animals and Animals, and you can understand more about the background and the green dragon clock, but you also get weirdo drunken animal sex scenes.
I would love to see it and haven't yet but I know many people who have and loved it.
I've heard a lot of people liked the musical, it must be very different from the book, or at least toned down. I started the book and absolutely hated it because of all the filth and vulgarity so I threw it away. Don't need that kind of stuff floating around in my head. I had been intrigued by the idea, by the execution in the book was poorly done. Sounds like it was pulled together better for live performance. I miss musicals and broadway. Enjoy your Dad while you're around. You never know when you will end up too far away to do fun things like that.
This was my first b-way show and I'd never heard of it at the time. The family I nannied for was taking me and the kids and I was worried from the title that it wasn't appropriate :) Glad you got to go!
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