This past Sunday we went and saw the musical Wicked, in Boston. A very fun exploration of the backstory of The Wizard of Oz, calling into question the black and white portrayal of the original story and movie.
Basically, for those that are unfamiliar either with the book or the musical, it is the story of the slightly more complex interpersonal relationships that weave around the events in The Wizard of Oz. Elphaba is the gifted, though shunned, unnaturally green girl that becomes the Wicked Witch of the West, and Glinda is the vacuous good hearted girl that becomes The Good Witch. Neither is quite as you expect and the plot cleverly weaves in pretty much all of the significant plot elements from the original story, leaving the conclusions you originally true about good and evil far muddier than when you began.
As a general fan of musicals though with little exposure to more recent ones (I grew up watching the classics that were made into movies - Oklahoma, Guys and Dolls, My Fair Lady, etc) other than seeing the touring show of The Producers a few years back, I was totally entertained through the entirety of the production despite knowing none of the songs.
It was a hoot, and something that children of 10 or older who like the original movie would probably get a kick out of and anyone older than that would definitely dig.
4 comments:
Sounds like a very interesting concept, and a very good time.
In Minneapolis, they've got a company doing a musical version of "War of the Worlds." They have taglines something like:
They're Here!!!
They've Got Three Giant Mechanical Legs!!!
And They're Dancing!!!!!!
Oof.
The same author (Maguire) has also taken on Cinderella from the point of view of the step sisters and I think has a sequel to the WoO one.
I saw a lot of these advertisements when I was in Chicago. I was very interested, but it was not on our radar when we made up our itinerary. No luck of it being anywhere around my little town. Glad that you liked it.
Chicago, Minneapolis and even Des Moines generally host the touring shows of Broadway musicals. Des Moines usually gets them later, but they do get there.
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