Review: Wicked – The Musical

Saturday morning, I arose to my alarm (curses!) as I had decided to get up bright and early to help Matt and Karilee move into their new house.  Matt had spent the past two weeks living with Mike and I and it was a good time, hearkening to the old times of us living at Bayshore.  Heck, he even helped me install Parallels on my Mac so I could play Quest for Glory 2 on Windows!  Beauty.

I went to Duncan’s to pick him and Kristen up and we headed to Tim Horton’s.  I had a hankering for a B(acon) E(gg) L(ettuce) T(omato) sandwich so I asked for the “beee eeee ellll teee please.”  The woman who was in training didn’t know how to punch it in so she sought out another wise soul.  Unfortunately she grabbed another woman in training and I didn’t think there was anything wrong until I received an actual BLT lunch sandwich!  I was wondering why breakfast was costing me $6.  In the end, It’s not that big of a deal although I was craving the sausage on the BELT and my craving was not satisfied.

We headed to Matt’s old house in Kanata for 8:45 and met up with James whom I haven’t seen in awhile.  We were chatting and at one point, Duncan and James started talking about World of Warcraft and I realized that I have lost some of my geekiness over the years as I had no idea what they heck they were talking about.

Matt didn’t end up showing up to the house until 9:45 as there was quite the lineup at the U-Haul due to all the students moving into town the Labour Day weekend.  We managed to load up all his stuff, then head over to a storage facility for Karilee’s stuff and managed to load it all up and be at the new house around noon.

Unfortunately for Karilee and Matt (but very fortunate for myself), Vero called and said that she had won the Wicked musical lottery and that we could go at 2PM!  I looked at my watch.  It was 12:45 and I figured I had time to go shower and come back to the National Arts Center.  I bid the movers adieu, felt bad that I couldn’t help any longer, but realized that there was no way I was missing this opportunity.  Vero and I had gone a few times during the week to put our names into the lottery.  Here’s the scoop: Two hours before the musical, you put your name in for some tickets and they draw 20 tickets.  If you win, you pay $25 in cash for the ticket and it’s fairly close to the stage.  In fact, we were four rows from the stage.  That is incredible!  For $25, you can’t go wrong.

So I rushed home, had a shower, picked up Vero and off we went.  We made it just in time as they were flicking the lights on and off to indicate that we should get our ass in our seats.  We were amazed that we were so close.  The stage set up looked pretty neat…there was a map of Oz and there was giant dragon perched up above the stage.

Stop.  What’s Wicked about?  It’s the tale of the Wicked Witch of the West and the Good Witch of the North – Star Wars prequel style; on how they went to school together.

Begin. The show started, the dragon roared flames and the stage erupted into song and dance.  The Wicked Witch is dead!  Ding, dong, the witch is dead and all of that jazz.  The costumes were pretty cool on the munchkins (sadly, not midgets) and the stage is a pretty neat setup.

I guess I shouldn’t spoil much of anything with this review but let me tell you that the show had me in awe.  I would say it was my second favourite musical I’ve seen (Evil Dead being #1, naturally) and Vero enjoyed it as well.  I really enjoyed the story concept behind it…it begins as a prequel to Wizard of Oz and in the second half it actually intertwines into the plot of the film as more of a behind the scenes look as to what it happening while Dorothy is traipsing around Oz.  I enjoyed the fact that it didn’t feel like a full blown musical where it’s 90% song and dance.  It was more of a 50/50 split which is fine by me.  I could follow the story easily.

The actors were great, the costumes were great, the songs were great.  I really can’t emphasize how much I enjoyed the musical.  I really encourage anyone who has the chance to see it, to go see it.

And now…for my Star Wars related commentary which Vero thought was dumb.  😉

Let’s talk Darth Vader for a moment shall we?  In the original set of films, Vader is set up as a menacing figure and there’s a touch of his tragic figuredom in Return of the Jedi.  Then when the prequels came out, we see an entirely different side to Vader and it turns out that now people really feel sorry for the guy in the end.

I would like to say that the creator of Wicked took George Lucas’ idea and applied it to the Wicked Witch of the West.  She definitely is portrayed as a tragic character in this musical (maybe the novel as well?  I would assume so.) as she tries to battle a corrupt power in Oz.  She tries to do good but in the end the only way she can achieve this is to become ‘wicked’.

Let us also note that the musical had some great winks/nods to the original film like when someone mentions to the Wicked Witch of the West that she shouldn’t stand out in the rain (let us remember she died via some water being splashed on her).  Total Star Wars Prequel-Like!

All in all, I can’t rave about this musical enough and Vero loved it so much that we looked for Wizard of Oz on DVD afterward and we couldn’t find it anywhere in town (unfortunately).  Go see Wicked.