High-toned Culcha Post
We usually leave the high-toned culcha posting to the Crack Young Staff of The Hatemonger's Quarterly and the Wooly Denizens of The Llamabutchers. The Llamabutchers tend to cover chamber music, Bach, and ice capades while "Chip" and the rest of the staff lean toward the more academic activities. Now I can reasonably join the snooty cabal as, this weekend Prince Charming and I schlepped down to Chi-town to take in a bit of Theater (pronounced thee-utter).In fact, we saw the Chicago production of the much-acclaimed Wicked. It was, I can now report, delightful!
One might even say wickedly delightful.
The plot was intriguing and kept you guessing (if you aren't familiar with it already) and the puns were terrific. For those not in the know, this story sort of predates "The Wizard of Oz" and then completes after that story is over. It is almost as though it gives you the Paul Harvey "Rest of the Story." Things are explained, like the origins of the Tin Man, the Scarecrow, and the Cowardly Lion. The Flying Monkeys are explained, as are the ruby slippers. It is quite ingenious. There are a few timeline-issues for complete meshing, but you can forgive that easily because the rest of it is so cute.
The musical score sucked though. I mean it. I don't know who wrote the music or the lyrics, but it was a real let down. The tunes weren't catchy and the lyrics weren't particularly clever. It was only so-so. I honestly felt that it could have been a blockbuster it they'd simply rescore the music. The plot deserves better! Besides which, it competes with The Wizard of Oz - which has some very catchy music. This music falls flat, at least for me. In fact, the only song that I even came close to enjoying was Galinda's 'Popular', and even it wasn't as cute and clever as it might have been.
Now, the stage sets were fabulous, as you would expect them to be. And, the actress who portrayed Elphaba (The Wicked Witch) was very talented and could really sing. I don't envy her that green makeup, though. But, in my opinion, the actress who played Glinda/Galinda stole the show. She was fabulous and I loved every minute that she was on stage. Her protrayal was pure joy. Even now I can see the bubbly Galinda doing her "toss-toss."
So there you have it, the very first Villains Vanquished theater review.
