Pepperdine University's "Wicked" review

>> Are people just running out of ideas or are they merely looking for some entertainment that can well, simply entertain?

Her punctuation errors aside, I think I love this reviwer.

---

ha! I love it. a nearly perfect review. I would have, however, chose some shows with a little more integrity to compare to the drab Wicked. Phantom and Aida are not entirely honorable pieces of musical theatre, although, certainly better then Wicked.

Or that The Phantom of the Opera is based on a book and to an extent other versions of the story as well?

One of the reasons I like Wicked so much is the fact that it isn't deep, and is just a fun harmless show. I love shows like Les Mis and Phantom, too. But sometimes I just want to sit back and enjoy a show that requires little effort for my brain and just gives me happy feelings. I don't completely see what is wrong with that.

Then again, I thoroughly enjoyed "Snakes on a Plane"...

>> For those who think it's anything more, get out of our town.

I trust you've told the librettist this? There *are* serious issues underneath all the eye candy: the price of conformity, the marginalization of those who are superficially "different", the ways career politicians will use whatever they can to get and maintain control.

If you consider such things "fluff", then maybe *you* should "get out of our town".

---

Ironically, thanks, ThankstoPhantom. That's what I would say in response.

Wicked definitely has the potential to delve into these issues, but I can only assume that it sacrificed such possibility for making it more family-oriented. Taking out one vulgar word from a movie can shave a movie from PG-13 to PG. I see Wicked as being a possible PG-13 movie that should have stayed that way, or could have been written that way, but instead was written to not dive so deep into issues.

There's a difference between learning about oppression and racism, and learning that "everyone is special in their own way!" It's all in how you look at it.

If the novel was so well received as a complex and witty tale, why settle for a simple crowd-pleasing adaptation of it?

Because generally people are dumb and there is only so much story you can tell and have them "get" in what 2+ hours?

---

It's amazing how much time has passed since Wicked first opened and nearly 3 years later, this board still has the same arguments over it

I like Wicked and I have seen other shows. You can't compare Wicked to Phantom- its like comparing apples and oranges. Just because they are both Broadway shows doesn't mean anything.

good review, excepting the fact that Aida is just as drippy and awful as Wicked is

---

> It barely touches on those subjects and doesn't even try to really delve deeply into them.

agree somewhat, though, really -- what musical can dive *deeply* into such complex issues (plural)? Les Miz resonnates globally precisely because it is so exceptional in its thought-provoking treatment of universal themes.

what the reviewer misses -- in addition to the play's actual gloss of these issues themselves -- is that the two main characters had to resolve where they stood on the aforementioned weighty matters in order for the plot to resolve. there could be no finale to wicked if glinda hadnt taken her stand, as it were ... true, some exposition would have been nice, but -- hey! a stand's a stand. and for god's sake ... it's a MUSICAL!

ah, to be young and in college again, where the luxury of time allows one to feign depth of thought.

as for the Phantom comparison: c'mon, that show was bubble gum for the brain. not even ALW's most thoughtful work, and he's not exactly stephen hawking ... it's not the right comparitor at all, IMHO. how about a contrast to evita or even -- shudder -- whistle down the wind? both touched deeper themes, and did a much better job of it, frankly.

---

Well, see, here's the thing. If you read the script to WICKED, it actually *does* deal with these issues in some limited depth (as someone else pointed out, it *is* a musical, after all), but that treatment gets smothered by a thick layer of eye candy. In some respects, I think that's pretty sly of the director, taking some serious topics and making them palatable enough that you dont even notice them -- and yet you wind up having the emotional response anyway.

I'll admit, I'm not a big fan of the show. I think it's way too out of scale for the material; all of the intimate scenes are lost because they're basically cut adrift in that huge (and somewhat irrelevant) set. Maybe a decade from now, someone will hire Mr. Doyle to come in and do one of his a-m miniaturized versions, and we can see something that might give the material a little more presence.

But to dismiss it as just fluff? I dont think that's warranted, sorry. It's far from the best thing on Broadway, but it handles its issues with style.

---