Over the years, I’ve reviewed innumerable Broadway musicals at Atlanta’s Fox Theatre, and I frequently say that the talent you see on Peachtree can hold its own with the best of the Great White Way. There just aren’t as many big-name stars.
With a time-tested tale like “Wicked,” now 20 years old and produced the world over, such comparisons are risky.
It’s been a minute since I last saw Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman’s spectacular, gravity-defying backstory to “The Wizard of Oz,” now back in town for its sixth Fox Theatre run. I can’t opine about how this North American tour measures up to the current Broadway production.
What I can say, without equivocation, is that Broadway’s original Elphaba (Idina Menzel) and Glinda (Kristin Chenoweth) are indelible. In that historic cast, Norbert Leo Butz played the rival witches’ love interest, Fiyero. Joel Grey was the fumbling Wizard. Theirs are the voices that will live forever in the cast album of my heart.
Credit: Joan Marcus
Credit: Joan Marcus
Alas, on Thursday night at the Fox, such exalted expectations sometimes fell as flat as a witch on a broom in a tornado. And yet, as a lavishly designed, technologically sophisticated entertainment with a passel of eye-popping song-and-dance numbers, this “Wicked” doesn’t falter.
Time can reshape how some emotional material lands, and I can’t help but notice how “Wicked” ricochets in new and unexpected ways. For instance, when the nasty business about animals being stripped of their dignity and their ability to speak rears its head, you may recognize something akin to the culture wars of the present day. Hate is omnipresent, as are pretenders hiding behind curtains.
Perhaps the most vexing disappointment of this effort is its auditory fuzziness. It’s difficult for me to discern if the music is so loud it obscures the voices, or if the actors need some coaching on diction and enunciation. As Mama Rose once put it: “Sing out, Louise.”
As the very pretty and very self-absorbed Glinda, Celia Hottenstein has a lovely, lilting soprano, but some of her comic material, and some of her singing, don’t meet the moment. Most maddening, her “Popular” doesn’t pop. But when she sings, “There are bridges you cross you didn’t know you crossed until you’ve crossed,” I still feel a familiar pang: Life has a way of pushing us into the future — whether we like it or not.
As Elphaba, Olivia Valli has the sort of voice that would do her pop-star grandpa proud (yes, that would be Frankie Valli), but she has some awkward edges. There are occasions when she doesn’t quite connect with scene partners, doesn’t seem to know what to do with her arms and hands. Nor do we feel a lot of sizzle between Elphaba and Fiyero (the solid Christian Thompson), and when Elphaba tells us that for the first time in her life she feels really wicked, I don’t buy it. Too tepid.
Some of the company’s more seasoned players really slap, though. Kathy Fitzgerald is quite good as the over-the-top Madame Morrible, head mistress of the Hogworts-like school where Elphaba and Glinda are cast together as roommates, and where the tragic Doctor Dillamond (the wonderful Boise Holmes) is ridiculed for being different. (He’s a goat.) Seeing that someone has scrawled “Animals Are Meant to Be Seen and Not Heard” on his chalkboard is devastating.
Whatever quibbles I may have, I can’t deny the visual majesty of “Wicked.” The Emerald City has never shone greener. The steampunk ethos of Oz has never felt more sinister. Glinda’s gossamer gowns and tiaras have never been more iridescent. The moment when she arrives with her prince, as announced by dancers in towering pompadours, is a real jaw-dropper.
Inevitably, people will ask if “Wicked,” Broadway’s fourth longest running show, holds up. I think it does. I’m still surprised and dazzled by it cleverness, the way novelist Gregory Maguire’s prequel cross-references the Frank Baum original.
How did Dorothy and Toto end up in Munchkinland? How were the Lion, the Scarecrow and the Tin Man robbed of courage, brains and heart? Can a bucket of water really melt an evil witch? “Wicked” offers some explanations to the great mysteries of Oz, and, whether the first time or the fifth, it’s a delight to witness this crowd-pleaser work its magic.
THEATER REVIEW
“Wicked”
7:30 p.m. Tuesdays-Thursdays; 8 p.m. Fridays; 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays; 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sundays. Through July 30. $43-$199. Fox Theatre, 660 Peachtree St. NE, Atlanta. 855-285-8499, foxtheatre.org.
Bottom line: The thrill is not gone
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