Wicked. I read Gregory Maguire’s book thirty years ago and was transformed. In this pre-internet era, the idea of approaching a well-worn tale like The Wizard of Oz (which had always been an obsession of mine) from the “villain’s” perspective was relatively, er, novel. But Maguire had more than a gimmick – he had an incisive message to relay, a takedown of the patriarchy, an attack on racism and classism, a desire to champion the rights of all creatures great and small. I had never read anything like it.
A few years later, Stephen Schwartz (another obsession) adapted the novel into a big, brassy Broadway musical. My husband and I would finally see the show in Toronto a few years after its debut, and John fell deeply in love with the score and the narrative around an underdog and a top dog striking an unlikely friendship that changed both of their lives … for good. I enjoyed the show but felt something had been lost. The novel’s thornier edges had all been sanded down and replaced with an equally moving but slightly different message around empowerment in the face of institutional adversity.
Twenty years later, director John M. Chu crafted a cinematic hybrid of sorts between novel and stage show to generally positive results. Wicked, Part 1 as it has come to be known felt like a revelation (again), bringing the zip of Schwartz’s score into an overlit landscape that didn’t shy away from Maguire’s cultural critique, while remaining a family-friendly, infinitely merchandisable affair. Chu made the arguably controversial, definitely monetizable decision to break the stage show into two films. Given that the first act of the stage show remained unencumbered from too many specific ties to L. Frank Baum’s Oz books and was thereby free to do a good bit of world-building around the school years of Elphaba and G(a)linda, the first film felt like a complete thought, ending with the triumphant anthem “Defying Gravity.”
So what to do with the stage show’s more problematic second act which episodically barrels through key moments in Elphaba’s and Glinda’s adult life, intersecting frequently, sometime elegantly, often cumbersomely with key moments in Dorothy’s overly familiar journey through Oz? On balance, Chu blessedly gives us some breathing room to digest all that is happening. It took me four views of the Broadway show to actually remember and process what the heck transpires in that second act. Offering that second act material more cinematic real estate is both good and bad. In Wicked: For Good, we get far more character moments, enriching the dynamic between the former school chums as they lead their separate yet symbiotic lives. The downside? There’s more time for us to scratch our heads and ask, “Wait, where were Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, the Lion just then?” From a chronological perspective, at times it just feels like that math ain’t mathing.
But Chu was damned if he did, damned if he didn’t. If he drastically reworked act two to unravel some of the nonsensical bits, 20 years of Wicked-heads would have revolted. If he changed too little, the more casual audience members (and mean-spirited critics) would declare this second installment a letdown. “It’s just not as much fun as the first one.” Well, duh. Elphaba does still have to become the “Wicked Witch” we all knew and feared as children. Schrodinger’s witch as it were.
For the tl;dr crowd, I enjoyed the film. A lot. It took me a week, though, to figure out what if anything I wanted to say about it. So here’s this. Go see it. Be open-minded. Hold space for revelatory turns by both Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo. And remember how disappointed you were with The Empire Strikes Back as a child, but how eventually it became your favorite Star Wars film in adulthood because it dares to be dark … and, well, real. Or as real as fantasy can be. Through a mirror darkly revealing that even in a magical land of escapism there are, in fact, lions, and tigers, and bears. Oh my.
Wicked. An adjective. A thirty year old book by Gregory Maguire. A twenty year old musical by Stephen Schwartz. A present day marketing/merchandising juggernaut by Universal Pictures. And, oddly enough, the post-2024 presidential election escapist allegorical cautionary tale none of us quite realized we would need.
(And here my money would have been onJoker: Folie à Deuxto fill that niche.)
As an inversion of L. Frank Baum’s classic The Wizard of Oz (itself a sly critique of populist politics and presidential scandal of its time), Maguire’s source text has always served as a post-feminist, pro-queer indictment of classism, patriarchy, misogyny, and speciesism. A good bit of that got lost in Broadway’s necessary streamlining for a 2.5 hour tune-filled run time. But the DNA of questioning “the man behind the curtain” has always been a constant in every version of this oft told tale. As Jeff Goldblum’s Wizard intones, “Nothing brings people together like a common enemy.” And in this instance, it’s the hat trick of turning an entire population against one woman whose primary “crimes” are difference, compassion, ferocity, and intelligence. Sound familiar?
(I still hope one day the BBC turns the original novel and its subsequent literary sequels into a mini series.)
Director Jon M. Chu made the controversial (to some minds) choice of splitting his film adaptation of the stage musical into two parts. I’m sure doubling the potential box office returns helped sweeten the idea. But it also turns out to be an inspired artistic choice. It feels like the story can breathe a bit more now. The Broadway show is a spectacular spectacle but it’s also a bit of a bombastic freight train with nary a pause from one BIG! number to the next.
Yes, as a Thanksgiving family film offering, there is still plenty of “bigness” – set design that looks like M.C. Escher on an acid trip, costumes that could be an Edith Head x Dr. Seuss collab, CGI that resembles a Chat GPT “Mad Libs.” All to be expected. But the best “special effect” of all? How Chu turns his cinematic gaze to the politics of the personal, giving his A-list cast clear moments of haunting, poignant, or humorous introspection and connection. Expanding her book from the stage show deftly, Winnie Holzman pulls from Maguire’s source text to build out back story, deepen relationships, and bring increased credibility to character developments that the compressed theatrical stagetime glossed over.
Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba, Ariana Grande-Butera as Galinda, and Jonathan Bailey as Fiyero – the show’s/film’s three principal characters – make effective use of the additional airtime. Yes, they all are gifted singers/dancers who sell all the big iconic moments – “The Wizard and I,” “Popular,” and “Dancing Through Life” are respective highlights for this talented trio, honoring their theatrical forebears while adding mucho cinematic surprises and emotional delights.
Yet where the film establishes its heart, gravitas, and, quite frankly, staying power is in the expanded scene work among the trio. They all effectively leverage the relative intimacy of film versus stage to bring grace notes of heartache, insecurity, loneliness, and fear that counterbalance the more day glo elements of the enterprise. I don’t know that audiences will realize the excellent technique and timing these three actors have brought to this production. It will all seem effortless (as it should) but hopefully not taken for granted.
Also, unlike the stage show, the film effectively explores the anti-animal propaganda that propels the Wizard’s rise to power in Oz. (Shades of James Gunn’s last Guardians of the Galaxy.) This is the element from Maguire’s novel that gripped my heart thirty years ago, so I was glad to see it restake bigger, clearer narrative claim. In my opinion, it’s crucial to framing Elphaba’s character arc re: how easy it can be for others to vilify strident empathy. As Galinda flippantly questions her goat history teacher Dr. Dillamond (warmly voiced by Peter Dinklage) before tragedy dramatically opens her heart (and mind): “Why can’t you teach us history instead of harping on the past?”
But just as the expanded run time brings many welcome enhancements, challenges are introduced as well. Notably, signature anthem “Defying Gravity” loses a good bit of its emotional build and thereby payoff, interspersed as it is with a typical Hollywood climax clock tower chase. It still works, in great part due to Erivo’s and Grande’s nuanced delivery, but CGI aerial maneuvers can’t quite compete with the old school theatrical magic of a fab diva belting from a hydraulic lift masked by a football field’s worth of black crepe.
Nonetheless, Wicked, the film … part one, is a marvel, and arguably a movie musical masterpiece, every bit deserving of the success inevitably coming its way. Erivo’s Elphaba wryly observes, “I don’t cause commotions. I am one.” Here’s to that!
Thanks to Jennifer Romano and Talk of the Town! Read here. Quote from yours truly: “As my blog rolls into another year of entertainment, rife with comic book adaptations, sequels, Oscar bait, arena shows, and theatrical productions big and small, sometimes I wonder if I am choking the life right from this hobby of mine. Can you imagine if every time you saw a film that your OCD tendencies forced you to rush home, throw some quippy hoo-ha on the internet, and wait eagerly for 3.5 comments to appear? Ah, well, it’s still too much fun to stop now—anticipate Volume THREE Roy’s Movie Migraine shortly.”
Excerpt: “Regarding BUT HAVE YOU READ THE BOOK jazz, my mother ALWAYS asked that question. Guess what? She very seldom had actually read the books herself; I preferred to write my book reports based on the more enjoyable movie versions!”
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Reel Roy Reviews 2
Reel Roy Reviews is now TWO books! You can purchase your copies by clicking here (print and digital)
Happy New Year! Enjoy the latest from Zach London and Hard Taco (and, yeah, I’m singing on this one along with Matt Cameron and Brent Stansfield and Lauren M. London and Rebecca Biber). Zach writes, “The Hard Taco song for January is called, ‘Attack Ads.’ I hope listeners know me enough to recognize that this is not simply a send-up of our political system. Nor is it a style-parody of songs that mimic political farces. Rather, it is a lyrical pasquinade that deconstructs the recipe for lampooning pastiches that impersonate parodies of political spoofs. In other words, it is a Gobstopper of satire, with so many layers that no one is cultured enough to appreciate it on the level it was intended.” Enjoy!!
Hey, be sure to sign-up for his blog. It comes out the first of every month, is chock-full-of-fun, and is FREE!
You can find all of Zach’s Hard Taco music history at hardtaco.org … and here are shortcuts to all the other songs I’ve been privileged to perform with this talented crew – click title to listen/download (free!):
The first concert I ever attended (at least that I remember) was when my parents took this eighth grader to see Bobby McFerrin at the much-vaunted Holidome in Crown Point, Indiana. Just take a moment and let that sentence settle in … and try to contain your envy. Yes, some kids in the late 80s went to see Madonna or Aerosmith or MC Hammer or New Kids on the Block, but for me it was Bobby McFerrin all the way. And this was before “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” So there.
The show was in the round, with just McFerrin and maybe a piano. I can’t recall. But with his phenomenal, otherworldly musicality, he rattled (largely acapella) through two hours of amazing numbers, not to mention his complete re-creation of the entire film The Wizard of Oz, including that iconic “I’m melting!” bit.
Flash forward, nearly 30 years (sigh), and I find myself yet again riding along in the backseat of my parents’ car, on our way to see another Baby Boomer mainstay Randy Newman, this time in Indianapolis. Nothing takes you back to the feeling of being a child like riding in the backseat of your parents’ car on a long car trip – that intoxicating mix of comfort and powerlessness as you cruise down the road listening to the squabbling and the laughter, to music you don’t recognize and familial history references you do. I wouldn’t trade that feeling for anything.
Palladium
So it is with this context that we took in Newman’s concert at Carmel, Indiana’s palatial music hall, the Palladium at the Center for Performing Arts. Such a musical hall Indiana has never before seen – a concert venue that looks like it was designed by M.C. Escher, if overdosed with Benzedrine by Liberace’s hairdresser, after visiting the Palace of Versailles or Disneyland’s “Hall of Presidents.” It really is beautiful and strange, with a byzantine entrance and egress system that made me feel like I was playing Milton Bradley’s Mousetrap.
However, there isn’t a bad seat in the house (nor a reasonably priced one), with Phantom of the Opera-esque box seats at every turn, polished cherry and marble floors, phenomenal acoustics and lighting, and super-cushy chairs.
As we sat there taking in the opulence, Newman lumbered on stage, after a loving introduction by Michael Feinstein himself. You see, Feinstein, a Columbus, Ohio native, helped get the Center established five or so years ago, alongside his husband Terrence Flannery, as a permanent monument to the Great American Songbook and to our musical theater traditions. The space also houses The Great American Songbook Foundation, which is very much worth visiting if you have some time to spare before a show there. They are great about arranging tours.
Roy and Susie waiting for the big show
For over two hours, it was just Newman, his piano, and a very responsive audience. Newman isn’t quite the showman that McFerrin was/is – likely an unfair comparison since they’re such different artists, and I am judging them across a divide of 30 years. Ah well.
But what Newman lacked in showmanship, he made up in shaggy charm. He would periodically play wrong notes, stop, look up at the audience, shake his head, and say things like, “I never was a very good pianist.” Then, he would dive back into plunking out notes for many of his signature songs like “I Love L.A.,” “Short People,” “You Can Leave Your Hat On,” and “Mama Told Me Not to Come.”
A highlight for me was his performance of “Love Story (You and Me),” a Newman tune covered previously by artists as diverse as Harry Nilsson, Lena Horne, and Harry Belafonte. The song is a poignant charmer and has not aged a bit. Newman delivered it with aplomb, his frogs-and-molasses voice the perfect accent to the song’s lilting, loping melody.
Newman peppered his set-list, which pretty much seemed made up as he went along, with anecdotes about his life as a child of Los Angeles, as a child of the 60s, and as a child of a movie soundtrack dynasty (he is the nephew of acclaimed film composers Alfred and Lionel Newman and the cousin of Thomas Newman). The casual vibe he affected was on the whole delightful, though a bit more preparation and variety would have benefited the slow-going second act.
An artist of Newman’s caliber with such an accomplished history in pop, theater, and movie music is pretty much just going to do whatever the hell he wants, so that’s just fine. It is unlikely he will come this way again, so we are grateful we got the chance to see him.
Newman at piano
I never realized just how many songs the man has written about cities and/or states: Baltimore, Los Angeles, Birmingham, Louisiana. And he performed them all. They follow a similar formula, with snarky verses that alternate with hypnotic repetition of said geography’s name. He worked in a wink and a nod to his Hoosier hosts, noodling through “On the Banks of the Wabash” and “Back Home Again in Indiana,” at one point looking around the beautiful Palladium and cheekily observing, “What a dump.”
His show was riddled with his caustic takes on religion and politics, government and capitalism. That was a breath of fresh air in an otherwise conservative community, so I’m sure a few spiky letters to the editor will arrive at the Indianapolis Star this week.
Yet, if he had really wanted to drive a stake through the heartland, he should have played one of my personal favorites, his theme “That’ll Do” from Babe: Pig in the City. While originally sung by Peter Gabriel, their voices are rather interchangeable at this point, so I think Newman delivering this subtle ode to kindness and to compassion and, well, to pigs would have been the perfect punctuation mark on his performance in factory farming Indiana (sad example here). We thought about shouting the title “That’ll Do” (like some rowdy concert-goers shouted “Free Bird” when I saw Tracy Chapman at the Wabash College Chapel years ago), but then we realized he might misunderstand, think we were telling him he was done for the evening, and then walk off stage.
Newman, ever the iconoclast, also worked in his shots at corporate giant Disney, letting us know in no uncertain terms, that while he has appreciated the opportunity, he hasn’t always been thrilled with the artistic limitations imposed. In a funnier bit, he commented how frustrating it is to score something such as a toy soldier falling into a drawer, adding that there is a good 20 minutes of Toy Story he’s never seen, because that particular section didn’t require any musical scoring. He then launched into a fine rendition of “You’ve Got a Friend in Me,” one of the sharpest musical moments of the evening. Again, I wouldn’t have minded hearing a slightly more obscure tune from the Toy Story saga, the beautiful and heartbreaking “When She Loved Me” (originally sung by Sarah McLachlan and written by Newman).
I guess it is a sign that I am more of a fan than I knew, having left the show enjoying what I heard but wishing for more songs than time had allowed.
Feinstein and Sexton
As a final note, we realized after the show was over, that we had been seated in a box next to Michael Feinstein and his family and some potentially uber-wealthy donors. No doubt we probably would have been a bit better behaved had we known this – not putting our feet on the backs of chairs, nor taking flash photos, nor snapping our chewing gum. We are so classy. Regardless, after he finished schmoozing Daddy Warbucks and Co., Feinstein was kind and gracious enough to take a photo with us and to chat for a bit, though I suspect the cleaning crew was dispatched to our vacated box immediately.
Do take a moment to check out Feinstein’s Foundation and the great work they’re doing there, and if you feel like sending a donation to preserve our musical history and keep art alive, I’m sure it would be appreciated. If you find yourself in Indianapolis, definitely stop by for a visit or show. It’s worth it!
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Reel Roy Reviews is now a book! Thanks to BroadwayWorld for this coverage – click here to view. In addition to online ordering at Amazon or from the publisher Open Books, the book currently is being carried by Bookbound, Common Language Bookstore, and Crazy Wisdom Bookstore and Tea Room in Ann Arbor, Michigan and by Green Brain Comics in Dearborn, Michigan. My mom Susie Duncan Sexton’s Secrets of an Old Typewriter series is also available on Amazon and at Bookbound and Common Language.
