WICKED IN CHICAGO- Page 3

[SorryGrateful]

Posted: 5/12/05 at 4:56pm

God, I'm so glad it's finally here in Chicago. My roommate has my OCR in her room and has been tormenting me with repetitive playings of "The Wizard and I" and "Defying Gravity" night and day until she sees the show. And now both of us are so broke that we can't get tickets for awhile, even if they were available. I loved the show, saw the originals in New York last summer, but Jesus! I truly do like Stephen Schwartz, but I have a Schwartz threshold... Now, if we're talking Sondheim, though...

[ShuQ]

Posted: 5/12/05 at 5:13pm

If you don't have enough money...enter the lottery!

[SorryGrateful]

Posted: 5/12/05 at 5:34pm

How does the lottery work exactly? I've never done one before.

[StephanietheStar]

Posted: 5/12/05 at 6:00pm

Just go to the box office...(or somedays it's borders-right next door..check on Broadwayinchicago.com for that) and you fill out a little piece of paper with your name, how many tickets, addy, etc. Put it in the big witch hat and at 5:30 *for evening shows* they will draw about 10 names *usually 20 seats and everyone wants 2 seats* and the winners show their IDs to the people who draw, they drawers give them a verification thing and then go to the window to get their tickets!

Good Luck if you do it! I won and it was a miracle! 1st name outta like 120 people!

[Ajax]

Posted: 5/12/05 at 8:11pm

The show is a poorly written piece of disconnected incoherent garbage. Nothing will ever convience me that anyone other then a 6 year old girl could enjoy this tripe. I saw the original in NYC and quite agree with the Tony nominations committee. But who am I I think chitty is crap, as is Billy Elliott and Mary Poppins and all of this god awfal stuff propelled by soaring budgets that require no imagination. You folks really need to get a life and learn what real musical theatre is all about.
I am only a veteran of seeing almost every show that has played in London Australia and NYC since 1960. beliveve me there is no accounting for taste.
The terrible score and acting of Women In White, the Spamalot that thinks it is a musical but is only a review at est. pure garbage like We will rock you or Footloose or Saturday Night Fever. Musical theatre has been plagued with this dedris for decades, but too hear you kids freaking out over crap likie rent or Cats or Beauty and the beast is just depressing!

[MLE]

Posted: 5/12/05 at 10:09pm

harsh...

[loudasthehelliwant]

Posted: 5/12/05 at 10:34pm

Great! Now, after that short intermission in which we had our bad taste in musical theatre violently beaten out of us, we can continue to have a civilized discussion.

[StephanietheStar]

Posted: 5/12/05 at 10:47pm

Nice Opinion...I have mine..and it's that Wicked is awesome..I love the music, the story and it's hella entertaining.

[broadwayguy2]

Posted: 5/12/05 at 10:48pm

well, it seems bad taste still lingers! ha!

[DefyGravity23]

Posted: 5/12/05 at 11:43pm

I wish people who don't like wicked would realize that all their bashing is NOT going to change anyone's mind. You'd think if someone didn't like a show, they'd just stay away from threads that have to do with that show, but no, I guess that's too logical. Oh well, everyone has their opinions...

Anyway, back to the topic...I wish I could see Stephanie. Her voice is simply amazing. People at school went to see it last week and they said she was incredible! I'm regretting buying tickets for July now instead of early June. Does anybody know when she stops touring? Is there any chance she will go to NY after she's done with the tour...say by next spring break? Because I'm seeing wicked in NY then and I'd be thrilled if there was a chance she'd be playing Elphaba!

[SorryGrateful]

Posted: 5/13/05 at 9:48am

Wow, that sounds really neat, Stephanie! Thanks for the info!

[Fosse76]

Posted: 5/13/05 at 9:59am

Joe Mantello responded, very nicely, to Hedy Weiss' review of the show. It's in the Letters to the Editor section of the Chicago Sun Times.

May 13, 2005

In her dismissive, humorless critique of 'Wicked' in the Chicago Sun-Times [Showcase, May 6] Hedy Weiss mistakenly attributes motivations to the show's creative team that would be offensive if they weren't so laughably and patently untrue. The review contains so many delusional inaccuracies that as 'Wicked's' director and someone with an intimate knowledge of the production's true intent, I feel compelled to set the record straight.

Weiss takes exception with what she considers to be a post-modern deconstruction of 'The Wizard of Oz.' Showing all of the critical acumen of a Brandeis University sophomore, she sets out to prove her not-terribly-salient argument by referencing everything from Harry Potter to George Orwell to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Unfortunately, in doing so, the only deconstructing that occurs is entirely of Weiss' hysterical creation. ('If I only had a brain' -- indeed.)

It's shocking to learn that Weiss sees Susan Hilferty's Tony Award-winning, blue-and-white striped school uniforms on an exuberant, dancing chorus as a reference to 'inmates of a concentration camp.' Or that the black bowl-cut wig on a bumbling Ozian official seems to her an allusion to a 'haircut resembling Hitler's." (I, myself, see Moe Howard from 'The Three Stooges,' but hey, maybe I'm a lightweight.) These provocative interpretations are ludicrous and exist solely in the fever dream of Weiss' paranoid imagination. Blithely invoking the (still) shocking iconography of the Holocaust was never the intent of the creative team, and Weiss offers no textual evidence to the contrary. Her excessive, stop-at-nothing refusal to critique the production on its own terms is irresponsible and insults the millions of people who suffered unspeakable indignities and horrors at the hands of the Nazis. She should be ashamed of herself.

Her most preposterous accusation is that 'the Scarecrow is now revealed to be a lynched black man.' Once again, she provides no evidence to corroborate this statement. In fact, by her own admission, the tour's staging is a 'clone of the Broadway original' (meaning rope is never used as a restraint and there's not a tree in sight). The only fact that seems to support her theory is that the character, which has been played on Broadway by three different Caucasion actors, was now being played by an African American. It's revealing that this change in casting should elicit such apparent significance to Weiss and surely says more about her own unconscious racism than any supposed intentions of the creative team. How ironic that in reviewing a show about the vilification of a green girl she should cite an actor's skin color to make such a baseless, illogical point.

It bears noting that not once in 'Wicked's' history has any other critic ever leveled such inflammatory accusations at the production. That Weiss' editors would allow her to do so without demanding factual accountability for her reckless opinions is irresponsible at best. Weiss may object to the work on aesthetic grounds (indeed, that is her right and responsibility as a critic), but for her subjective opinions to be stated as fact, when they exist entirely in her own head, is unconscionable. Her misconceptions create an impression of the work that is not only inaccurate but deeply offensive and obscene.




Joe Mantello, director,
'Wicked'

[metoog]

Posted: 5/13/05 at 10:19am

Well said!

[OrdinaryJukebox1]

Posted: 5/13/05 at 10:19am

Well, good for Joe. I couldn't have worded that better myself.

-Vincent

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 5/13/05 at 12:36pm

Ajax:

"The show is a poorly written piece of disconnected incoherent garbage."

No, that would be your posts. You not liking it does not mean it is disconnected and incoherent. It's actually quite easy to follow if you pay attention.

"You folks really need to get a life and learn what real musical theatre is all about."

Um, actually, that would be YOU that needs to learn what real musical theatre is all about. Try going back to the roots of musical theatre when shows were a thin book and fun songs as an excuse for overblown escapism entertainment. THAT is what musical theatre is really about. The more intelligent thoughtful works really did not start developing until the late 40s-early 50s (with the expetion of the anomoly known as Show Boat) and if you're looking for a second Golden Age, you might as well ask Santa to give it to you for Christmas. The reason we call it the Golden Age is because it was a very specific and unique period in theatre history that has COME AND GONE. People can be fans of whatever they want, but what is REALLY depressing is the embittered ramblings of one who believes there should only be one type of musical, which is one only they approve of. Believe me, we care about your pretentious opinions about as much as you care about ours. If you don't like the shows, then I encourage you to stop wasting your money. I don't think the musical theatre community will mourn the loss of yet another self-important musical theatre snob who hates everything written after Follies and think musicals should be something more than mere entertainment, which is exactly how they came into creation in the first place. Turn the Victrola off.

Updated On: 5/13/05 at 12:36 PM

[buskeat]

Posted: 5/13/05 at 3:08pm

I'm seeing the show tonight for the first time, so it's difficult for me to react to Ajax's opinion of the show, but it does alarm me that someone who is old enough to have watched musicals since 1960 believes that words like "awfal," "likie," "convience," and "beliveve" are part of the English language. Perhaps, Mr. Ajax, if you detest the new breed of musical theatre, you should save your well-earned money and pursue some other form of entertainment. Better to spend your leisure time doing things you enjoy rather than resorting to incoherent babble on the internet.

I would, of course, appreciate a definition of "real musical theatre" if you have time.

[Elphaba3]

Posted: 5/13/05 at 3:29pm

Joe Mantello kicks ass!

[Glebb]

Posted: 5/13/05 at 3:40pm

I don't care if the show gets a Pulitzer (or even a Tony Nomination after what I've seen get nominated this year.)
I love what it does to my heart. Can't wait until next Saturday.

[brdlwyr]

Posted: 5/13/05 at 3:46pm

Glebb - I could not agree more. This show is a culteral phenomenon for many reasons. I have seen the show with my wife, daughters, son, mother-in-law, sister, niece and we all love it for many different reasons.

[StephanietheStar]

Posted: 5/13/05 at 9:03pm

I'll admit it may not be the best show--but who is to say what is the best show? everyone likes something different and I LOVE WICKED damnit! I love plenty of other shows too but there is nothing wrong with liking a not-so-perfect show.

There are plenty of people who like shows I don't like, but I don't care, let them. It's LIFE, if everyone got along that would be--weird :)

[buskeat]

Posted: 5/14/05 at 7:15am

I finally saw the show last night in Chicago, and I was impressed. I had been avoiding the show to avoid the screaming throngs of teenage girls (no offense to screaming teenage girls, but I have a delicate constitution), but managed to come away from the show admiring it, mostly. It's certainly a flawed show, with a second act that does seem schizophrenic, and it seems somewhere in the second act Stephen Schwartz ran out of good songs. The only thing I really felt was terrible was Elphaba and Fiyero's love duet where they're practically writhing on the stage....what the hell was with that? It was so far out of tune with the rest of the show I felt I had been accidentally transported into another theatre.

Anyway, I can understand the affection for the show, though. Act One *is* close to brilliant and my God, Stephanie J. Block is wonderful. I loved her as Liza and I loved her in this show.

I will check it out again once the resident cast takes over, mostly to support the whole idea of a resident cast. It does my heart good to see Mayor Daley's theatre district actually occupied by shows!

[StephanietheStar]

Posted: 5/14/05 at 5:06pm

I loved walking down streets in Chicago and seeing stuff for Wicked..it made me feel closer to NY!! which I heart

I think some of the BEST songs are in Act 2...!! I love as long as you're mine, and esp NO GOOD DEED!! ahh it's great! and then of course For good.

Stephanie is AMAZING..that's all there is to it. Derrick is good, but I wasn't super impressed. *I was more impressed by him rubbing my back a couple times at the stage door...yeah he's hot*

I noticed NOT many screaming teenage girls, the only ones I saw that annoyed me were on the way OUT of the theatre *they were getting into a bus and would NOT move they stood in front of the door!* and at the stage door, they thought Derrick was hot too :)

[MLE]

Posted: 5/14/05 at 10:50pm

>>I don't care if the show gets a Pulitzer (or even a Tony Nomination after what I've seen get nominated this year.)
I love what it does to my heart<<

Well said! That's it EXACTLY!
I love what it does to my heart, too!

[Glebb]

Posted: 5/14/05 at 10:51pm

:)

[MLE]

Posted: 5/14/05 at 10:58pm

Oh yes, Stephanie is amazing!!! And she's such a nice person. I met her after the performance, and sent her an email Thursday about the show and I got a reply back early this morning! :)