The WICKED reviews were tepid, and the Times quite poor. Not even close to a money review (which MAMA MIA certainly managed to earn from the Times). Only Chenoweth escaped Brantley's indifference. And no one liked the score. No one. Listen to the Wontorek interview with Schwartz.
Brantley (10/31/03):
"Be grateful, very grateful, that Ms. Chenoweth, who spent a brief exile in the land of sitcoms, has returned to the stage with none of the routinized glibness associated with weekly television. She provides the essential helium in a bloated production that might otherwise spend close to three hours flapping its oversized wings without taking off.... Lightness of touch is not the salient characteristic of this politically indignant deconstruction of L. Frank Baum's "Oz" tales...It's hard to avoid the impression that whenever Ms. Chenoweth leaves the stage, "Wicked" loses its wit, while its swirling pop-eretta score sheds any glimmer of originality."
"As a parable of fascism and freedom, "Wicked" so overplays its hand that it seriously dilutes its power to disturb. "Wicked" ... wears its political heart as if it were a slogan button. This is true not only of the dialogue, but also of Mr. Schwartz's generically impassioned songs, which have that to-the-barricades sound of the omninously underscored anthems of "Les Misérables." ...There's a rock-hard lecture beneath the preciousness. Mr. Mantello reconciles the gap between form and content only in Ms. Chenoweth's performance..."
"Wicked" does not, alas, speak hopefully for the future of the Broadway musical. Ms. Chenoweth, on the other hand, definitely does."
Not a money review.
"I'm a comedian, but in my spare time, things bother me." Garry Shandling
Updated On: 9/11/12 at 05:16 PM