{"id":3208,"date":"2008-10-30T10:49:14","date_gmt":"2008-10-30T14:49:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=3208"},"modified":"2008-10-30T14:02:17","modified_gmt":"2008-10-30T18:02:17","slug":"what-a-wicked-game-to-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=3208","title":{"rendered":"What a wicked game to play"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last night, I went to see Wicked<\/em> on Broadway. It was okay.<\/font><\/p>\n

This was a company-sponsored event. We had a few rows of seats, free hats, and deeply discounted tickets. (Actually, I think<\/em> they were deeply discounted. My ticket was $28 for a pretty decent orchestra seat, but I bought it back in March, and I have no clue what the going price for a Wednesday night show in October actually is.) I knew several of the people who attended, at least enough to nod good morning to them in the hallway, but a handful — like my boss, who’s at a conference in Chicago this week — didn’t show up, and a few others were complete strangers. The two older ladies sitting next to me, for instance, who left shortly after the start of the second act, were, I think, from another office entirely.<\/font><\/p>\n

As for the musical itself…well, it’s fun, if a little loud and unremarkable. It’s basically a revisionist history of The Wizard of Oz<\/em>, painting the Wicked Witch of the West (Elphaba) as a misunderstood hero. It’s an intriguing idea, and treated with a lot of genuine humor. But, like Gregory Maguire’s original novel — which I read years before adapting it to Broadway was even suggested — I found a lot to like but too little to love. As a whole, I found it vaguely unsatisfying. (Maguire’s gone on to write two sequels — post<\/em>-musical, it should be noted — and I haven’t had any inclination to read them.)<\/font><\/p>\n

The musical absolutely belongs to the set design and its two leads, Elphaba and Glinda (“Gah<\/em>-linda.”). Both actresses (whose names I’m afraid I don’t recall) do a terrific job with the material, but after awhile that thing the New York Times<\/em> called “the ‘American Idol’ sensibility<\/a>” — “larynxes stretch[ing] and vibrat[ing] with the pain of being an underdog and the joy of being really loud” — just gets old. I tuned out for a couple of numbers in the second act altogether, and I don’t think I understood much of anything the background players sang. With only one or two possible exceptions, there’s nothing I’d find myself humming afterward. (As a fan of Kristin Chenoweth’s work on Pushing Daises<\/em>, I’m interested to check out the original cast album, on which she plays Glinda.)<\/font><\/p>\n

Still, for that price, it was fun. I wish I’d bought a second ticket, since I think my mother would have enjoyed the show. And then I could have had dinner with her instead of wandering around Manhattan for three hours after work. I didn’t get home until after midnight, and I’m still pretty tired this morning, but overall I’m glad I went.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last night, I went to see Wicked on Broadway. It was okay. This was a company-sponsored event. We had a few rows of seats, free hats, and deeply discounted tickets. (Actually, I think they were deeply discounted. My ticket was $28 for a pretty decent orchestra seat, but I bought it back in March, and … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[238],"class_list":["post-3208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3208"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3208\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}