Wicked!

Wicked! is supposed to be the most popular musical in the West End but I really can’t see why. There were some things I liked about this performance – mostly to do with the cast – but I just don’t think it’s a very good musical. If you only want to read good stuff about this musical, you might like to skip the next thirteen paragraphs because I’ve got a lot to moan about.

When I go to see a musical, I like to walk out of the auditorium with the songs in my head. I’m pretty good at remembering songs and when I see a good performance, it’s quite surprising if I can’t remember any of the songs. I’ve even been able to remember bits from modern operas and they don’t usually have many tunes at all.

But in Wicked!, none of the songs really grabbed me. They were just notes sung and played very loudly. They weren’t horrible tunes especially, there just wasn’t anything that was melodically or harmonically interesting to me. The lyrics were a bit weak too. I was a bit surprised as Stephen Schwartz also composed and wrote the lyrics for Godspell which is a brilliant musical.

Also I don’t think Winnie Holzman's libretto of Wicked! is particularly good. There were a few very funny lines, which were very well delivered by the cast and I loved how she explained why there just happened to be a Scarecrow, a Tin Man and a Lion wandering around Oz. It was all cleverly done. But maybe Gregory Maguire, who wrote the original novel, should probably take credit for the twists in the story (I say ‘probably’ because it’s possible the librettist might have added some twists).

The story never seemed rushed and it fitted easily into the 2 hours and 25 minutes. The dialogue told you who the characters were and you never got them confused. It was very easy to follow what was going on. So it wasn’t all bad.

But mostly the words seemed rather uninspired. It wasn’t sharp, snappy, illuminating dialogue. Even the jokes were often carried on a bit long. It was funny for Glinda to take up a new hobby called ‘thinking’ but the whole concept of her changing her name from Galinda to Glinda didn’t really seem necessary. Lines like ‘my name is GAHlinda with a GAH’/my name is Glinda, the GAH is silent’ were quite funny but it didn’t really seem relevant or necessary. There’s nothing wrong with changing your name but if you’re writing a musical about it, there needs to be a point to it.

I could see the big twist coming a mile off, which didn’t really matter but I do think there must be a better way for Glinda to solve the mystery. It all seemed a bit far-fetched.

I also have reservations about the whole idea of writing something based on an existing work of fiction. It can be great – I love the new Naughtiest Girl in the School books written by Anne Digby and The Land of Green Ginger, a sequel to Aladdin, is a work of genius. But I feel these works of ‘fanfiction’ are respectful to the original works and other than the odd mistake, they don’t seem to make any major changes to the characters that affect the original stories. I hated Emma Tennant’s sequels to Pride and Prejudice. My opinion was that they weren’t that well-written, that interesting or that Austenian (although setting yourself up as the next Jane Austen isn’t exactly the easiest thing in the world) but the thing that really bothered me about the books was that they changed your whole perception of incidents and characters in Pride and Prejudice. I’m not sure people should do things like that.

Wicked! rewrites the whole story of the Wizard of Oz, telling you pretty much that actually the original story was a load of rubbish and this was what really happened. I’m not a huge Wizard of Oz fan but it’s a musical, film and book that has made a lot of people very happy. So now these people come along and tell you that it’s pretty much all a big lie, that Dorothy was an annoying, snivelling little farm girl, that the Wicked Witch of the West was lovely and Glinda is a stuck-up cow. It just doesn’t seem right somehow. And if the plot of Wicked! is that strong (not that I think it is) it ought to be able to stand on its own without using an existing story.

But I felt the worst thing for me was what seemed to be the central message of the musical. I actually found it very depressing and offensive. I think the intentions of the story are probably good – the girl with the wrong-coloured skin saves the world. But the problem is, no-one ever knows she saves the world. All the citizens go on believing she’s the Wicked Witch of the West and that she’s a horrible, evil person. Just as they go on believing that Glinda, the beautiful, personable one, is a really lovely person.

So the message here seems to be that if you’re different in any way, if you look different or you behave differently, people are going to think you’re evil – but that’s okay if believing that is going to make everyone happy. The first part is true, there are people who think I’m evil just because I’m not very good at social things like chatting and practical things. And a lot of people clearly do think it’s okay to think that about me. But it isn’t okay. I’m sure I’m not that bad, I’m sure I have some good qualities, and I really want to believe there are some people out there who actually like me. Stories like Wicked! just make me feel there’s no hope for me.

I can see why Elphaba (the Wicked Witch of the West) doesn’t want Glinda to tell people the truth about her. But Glinda should have told them the truth anyway. It’s not fair for everyone to think Elphaba is evil, that she was born to be evil and that she was destined to turn out bad. It’s not fair on Elphaba and it’s definitely not fair on any other babies who happen to be born with green skin.

It’s probably also not very fair on Glinda. I think she really learned a lot from Elphaba, for example that beautiful people can be bad and unconventional-looking people good, that sometimes it’s good not to have your own way, that there are more important things in life than being popular, that just because she’s adored it doesn’t mean she deserves to be. But at the end, people just go on adoring Glinda and I’m not sure that’s very good for her. In a way, nothing has changed. Everyone thinks they’ve been proved right in their belief that people who are different are horrible. The two ‘Wicked Witches’ in this musical are the green-skinned girl and the girl in the wheelchair, while the ‘Good Witch’ is the beautiful blonde girl. And I find that pretty disgusting really.

This musical does have some brilliant performers though. The main reason why I wanted to see Wicked! was because Louise Dearman and Emma Green are in it. They definitely didn’t disappoint me, except possibly by their taste in musicals. Louise played Glinda (or Galinda before she changed her name). Glinda isn’t really a likeable character. She’s very shallow and stupid and annoying.

But Louise is such an amazing performer, I did kind of like Glinda anyway. I wanted her to have a happy ending. Her comic timing was always brilliant – even when the dialogue wasn’t funny, Louise could bring some humour to it. She has a big stage presence and she also sings and dances wonderfully. Her singing is seriously good. No matter what rubbishy music she’s singing, her voice always sounds beautiful. She sings in a classical, almost operatic voice at times and a big, belty rock voice at other times. Glinda has a big vocal range but Louise never seemed even slightly tested.

Emma only had a very small role although she did appear in the ensemble scenes too. She played Elphaba’s mother. She didn’t do much – although she did have to go into labour onstage, which must have been a big acting challenge – and when she was onstage, the lighting was very dark so I never really got a good view of her. But it was great to see her doing some more dancing and to hear her sing a little bit. One of the few reasons I’m glad I saw Wicked! is because I got to see just how versatile Emma is. I thought she did well to do so much with the characters of Marty and Patty in Grease but Elphaba’s mother is a completely different character again, an older, much more seductive character and Emma played that role really well too.

Elphaba’s father was played by Gareth Chart. He wasn’t always a very nice character. He didn’t want to touch Elphaba when she was born and his attempts to ensure his second daughter Nessarose wasn’t born green resulted in the death of his wife and the confinement of Nessarose to a wheelchair. But I’m not sure he meant to be horrible. He wanted a child who could be Governor of the Munchkins after him and he didn’t think Elphaba would be accepted, which was a fair point – although who knows what would have happened if he’d accepted her himself? And I wonder if maybe he knew that his wife had a wizard from another dimension hidden in her cupboard - that would piss anyone off. Gareth made him seem more unhappy than horrible. It would have been interesting to see a bit more of him but he died too.

Elphaba was played by Rachel Tucker. She, like a number of the cast, was a finalist in a reality TV show – and there’s nothing wrong with that. There’s no reason why a good performer shouldn’t enter a reality TV show. In many ways, it makes sense because it brings you to producers’ attention more quickly than would have happened otherwise – and hopefully stops the less talented performers from getting the best roles. It sort of fast-tracks you into the West End.

I thought Rachel was pretty good. She wasn’t exceptional as a singer although maybe I’d have been more impressed if she hadn’t been sharing star billing with an outstanding Glinda. Her voice was very powerful but it’s not a particularly beautiful voice and she seemed challenged by the tessitura (althogh it's hard to judge when I've only seen one performance, I bet even Louise Dearman ha bad days). Rachel's acting however was brilliant. I was deeply annoyed and offended by the story but I still really felt for Elphaba, and Rachel gave a really good portrayal of what it was like to be different. You could see why people thought her behaviour was evil but at the same time, you knew it wasn’t.

Cassandra Compton played Elphaba’s sister Nessarose, the disabled girl who ends up being known as the Wicked Witch of the East. I actually don’t think Nessarose is that bad. It seemed like she’d been cosseted and cared for all her life and then suddenly her father dies and she has to become the Governor. Even though she’d apparently been groomed for it since before she was born, she never really seemed like the leader type. I think it was all too much for her when she did become the Governor so I had some sympathy for her although I did still find her very difficult to like. It would have been better if she had been remembered as someone who had tried really hard but been unable to manage in really challenging circumstances, rather than as the Wicked Witch of the East.

Cassandra played the role really well, convincing as the sweet, shy Nessarose and the horrible one as well. Cassandra was in The X Factor and I saw her as Mary in The Secret Garden when I was about 11, Cassandra was probably about the same age as me, maybe a year or two older. I was really impressed with Cassandra then because she already seemed like a complete performer. Her voice then was quite sweet like a child’s voice but it was a big sound and the challenging role of Mary was no trouble for her. Nessarose wasn’t a difficult role for her either although I think Cassandra’s vocal talents were wasted a bit in this role. She had so little to sing (although she sounded great when she did) and when she finally got her big scene, she had to spend a lot of it screaming rather than singing.

Lee Mead, who won Any Dream Will Do, was supposed to be singing the role of Fiyero (the hero, loved by Glinda and Elphaba), but he was replaced by his first understudy Lewis Bradley who was also in Any Dream Will Do. I like Lewis a lot. His character is fun and likeable, he has a really beautiful singing voice and a lovely bottom. What more could you ask for? I love how there was so much dancing in his role. Even when he was just walking, he was so graceful, it was almost like he was dancing. But he never seemed weird or camp.

George Ure was Boq, who loves Glinda but marries Nessarose. He was very sweet and geeky to start with and also did well once he’d had the spell put on him (I won’t say any more about that in case anyone doesn’t know the story and wants to see the musical). His character was quite small and insignificant in some ways but he still had a big stage presence. Later on, he wasn’t such a likeable character but Nessarose had probably driven him mad, poor man.

I wasn’t quite so keen on Julie Legrand as Madame Morrible, but I think that was more because of how the role was written than the way Julie played it. The character was a bit like a pantomime villain and Julie was a really good pantomime villain but I find multi-faceted villains more interesting really. Clive Carter’s Wizard of Oz was also quite disappointing but I think that was the whole point.

Shirley Jameson was great as the midwife though. It was only a tiny role but there was a moment where she had to try to give the green baby to Elphaba’s father and he won’t take it. She tries again but he shouts for her to take it away, so she walks away, cradling it in her arms. That was a great moment, in a horrible sort of way.

One part of the musical I really loved were the talking animals. Julian Forsyth was Doctor Dillamond, one of Elphaba and Glinda’s lecturers at university. He was a goat and he seemed like a good teacher but there was a movement to get rid of all the talking animals from their jobs and try to stop them from talking. His scenes were really sad, he seemed like a really nice and also an intelligent goat (not that the horrible stupid goats should be stopped from talking) and I found it an interesting and touching, rather than insulting, way of showing how people who are different can be pushed out of society. But maybe that’s because I’m not a goat.

Sam Wilmott was Chistery, one of the Wizard’s flying monkeys. He was sweet. I really liked the monkeys. They did lots of acrobatic dancing. I really liked the choreography all the way through. It was really varied and the dancing actually demonstrated the emotions in the piece a lot more strongly than the music did. There’s no choreographer credited but James Lynn Abbott did the dance arrangements so it was probably him. It was also clever when the monkeys’ wings grew.

Wicked! is full of special effects and clever lighting effects by lighting designer Kenneth Posner. The stage, the rest of the auditorium and even the foyer looked really beautiful and atmospheric. The ushers were dressed up quite witchily and they looked great.

Maybe that’s what people like about Wicked!, a really atmospheric set can often make the story and the music seem better but it didn’t seem to work with me this time. If other people really do love it, I don’t mind. Why shouldn’t they love it? I’m not sure it sets a great example of how to treat people who are different but even though most people are horrible to me, I don’t usually get treated as badly as Elphaba and I think most people know they can’t behave like that and this musical is unlikely to change their minds.

For me, Wicked! is a bit like Glinda really. It looks beautiful and sparkly and fun but there’s little but nastiness and cruelty under the surface.