Wicked

Lived the dream and saw a show on Broadway tonight - Wicked. Loved the experience: getting all dressed up, gathering in the foyer, the sheer spectacle of the show, the Playbill, etc.

The only problem is, I cannot decide if I actually liked the musical or not - whether its artistic flaws outweigh its clever message about moral amibiguity.

I am a big Wizard of Oz fan, and an even bigger fan of Gregory Maguire's novel. But I'm not so sure about the musical.

The plot must have been severely lacking for many people in the audience. I often found myself straining to remember aspects of the novel's plot to actually make the on stage action comprehensible. And while I do appreciate an adapted artistic work paying homage to its parent (and think that is all too infrequently done), they should be stand alone works, and the secondary work shouldn't require frequent cross-referencing.

There was also little sense of it being a developing story. These were characters that should evolve over time, that come to accept that where the line between good and, well, "wicked" lies is often difficult to determine. It all seemed like it happened in one brief squirt of activity in the merry ol' Land of Oz. Thankfully, it wasn't so bad as to lead to a failure of the "willing suspension of disbelief,"

All that said, the moral ambiguity of "fighting terror" was cleverly addressed: in a "one man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter" kind of way.

G(a)linda's internal moral struggle was delicately but cleverly handled, Fiyero's even more so. But the star was the Wicked Witch of the West herself - the perfect antiheroine. Her rejection of the seduction of power felt true and intelligent; her madness - her 'terrorism' - which developed as a reaction to the Wizard's autocratic, arbitrary government, seemed eminently justifiable and very sympathetic. It's good that kids, especially, are exposed to the ambiguity of real life like this. There is neither absolute good nor absolute bad; watching people act that now in a digestable, entertaining manner might just make the message sink through a little better!

"Theater" critic signing off now.