You don't have to defend yourself. This is really just a discussion. I think most of the things that people keep saying are so cool about the girls breaking character really just support my argument that the book of Wicked is not very good. There is nothing but nothing in Holzman's adaptation that would lead us to believe there are Ricola's in Oz and there is no sense in the dramaturgy that it would be cool for Glinda to giggle about having a day off.
Compared to The Producers, which is actually post-modern enough to have Ulla ask Leo "Why have you moved so far downstage?," "Wicked" is a much more traditional musical with such a tenuous grasp of its own time and place that, in my opinion, it simply can't withstand references to real world products, or people yelling "Cut!" or saying "Say your line." It just can't. (By the way, nothing in the source material would lead us to believe there are Ricolas in Oz either.)
But the show has its army of cheerleaders and every character break and wildly inappropriate line makes that army feel even more like insiders and somehow part of the whole thing and it really doesn't seem to matter to them about the integrity of the piece at all. Ugh, I can't believe I just wrote that. As if Wicked had much integrity in the first place.
The two and half good songs are good, tho, I'll grant you that.
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