Wicked (Broadway)
Jan. 29th, 2023 09:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kate_nepveuSteelyKid and I were in NYC this weekend to see Wicked on Broadway (SK's Christmas present; Chad already took the Pip down for his, a Bucks-Knicks game). SK was delighted, which was the point. I thought it was well-done—Talia Suskauer as Elphaba was particularly good, which is what you want in the lead role—and mostly interesting to me in its choices as an adaptation.
I thought they were trying to avoid all movie-specific imagery for copyright reasons; they went out of their way to avoid showing Dorothy, for instance, and the shoes are silver rather than ruby. However, Wikipedia tells me that the green skin is originally from the movie, as is the sibling relationship between the Witches; I'd love to know what kind of discussions were had while the musical was in production about how far they could go.
The musical opens with Glinda telling everyone that the Wicked Witch was dead, and then is all in flashback. SteelyKid had only heard a few songs from the first act, and didn't know the full story, so at intermission was texting a pal saying "if this has a sad ending I'm going to be so mad!" I figured that Glinda would help Elphaba fake her death, but since I didn't realize that they were trying to make the whole thing compatible with the movie, no, the sad lingering thing is that Glinda doesn't know that Elphaba survives. (Which apparently she doesn't in the book, holy cow.) I did not like the plotline they created about Elphaba's sister, Nessarose, who uses a wheelchair because their father was so upset about Elphaba's green skin that he forced their mother, during her second pregnancy, to constantly chew some plant, leading to Nessarose's premature birth and disability and the mother's death. Glinda gets a Munchkin, Boq, to ask Nessarose to a dance just to get him off her back, and Nessarose falls in love with him. At the start of the second act, Nessarose is Governor of Munchkin-land and has forbidden all Munchkins from leaving the area, so that she can force Boq to stay by her side; she is also furious that Elphaba has obtained great magical powers but hasn't fixed her disability. Elphaba enchants Nessarose's silver shoes so that she can walk, and Boq says, great, you don't need me any more, let me go tell Glinda that I have always loved her. Nessarose tries to enchant him to stay, but doesn't know how to properly cast spells, and Elphaba is forced to turn him into the Tin Man to keep him from dying. Nessarose blames Elphaba for this, and Elphaba flees. Subsequently, Nessarose is killed off by the Wizard and the Wizard's press secretary (who has weather magic and summons the cyclone) to force Elphaba into the open. ... yeah. So there's that. Also I did not think it was necessary for Elphaba to turn out to be the Wizard's daughter: it comes in too late to have any real emotional impact, and also it gives us the icky "hybrid vigor" stereotype where Elphaba gets her incredible magical ability from having roots in both worlds (ooooooh). I imagine people have some feelings about the initial arguable gestures toward Elphaba/Glinda and the mildly pasted-on love triangle; I did slightly raise my eyebrows at the former, but on the whole liked their friendship. I'll happily accept recommendations for people's favorite fic otherwise, though. And my neck is complaining again about sitting in an odd position in the train on the way down, so I should stop typing and go commune with a heating pad. Plot spoilers now
+1 (thumbs-up, I see you, etc.)?
