Because of possible Emerald City government complicity in Dorothy's house
landing on the Wicked Witch of the East with such devastating impact, the
Wizard's press secretary is asked to explain just what had happened.

She thinks for a second, and then shrugs: "a regime change?"

Although its pre-Broadway run in San Francisco's Curran Theater opens
officially in a few days, Stephen Schwartz's "Wicked" is still under
construction, newspaper headlines making their way into the lyrics.

An unfunny thing happened on my way to a preview to hear my favorite
self-defrocked operatic soprano, Kristin Chenoweth, as the pre-Internet
WWW. A tiny insert in the program (which you get *after* you pay your way
in) said she is not performing that night as the Wicked Witch of West.

Amazingly, her understudy, Melissa Bell Chait, was so splendid, and the
entire work so entertaining that I'm still glad to have gotten an early
glimpse at this very promising musical, even in a state of becoming.

After "Godspell," "Pippin," and "The Prince of Egypt," Schwartz is not
exactly a favorite of mine, but "Wicked" is a different story. With a fine
book by Winnie Holzman, and Schwartz's sparkling lyrics, this prequel to
"Oz" will enter honorably into the ranks of American musical theater...
with an asterisk.

You will remember the fun, the gripping twists and turns of a story, Joe
Mantello's excellent direction, the entire cast's wonderful diction that
brings every word clearly even to the back of the auditorium, Eugene Lee's
spectacular sets, Susan Hilferty's lovely costumes, but not the music.
Relentlessly pleasant and ABBA-simple, the music is not the Thing here. On
the other hand...

There haven't been musical witches this complex - ugly and lovely, mean
and lovable - since Bernadette Peters' turn in Stephen Sondheim's "Into
the Woods." The all-but-complete neglect of Dorothy and Toto is reminiscent
of Tom Stoppard relegating the Prince of Denmark to a supporting role
in " Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead."

The book turns things upside down. Glinda - a role that will "make"
Chenoweth as nothing she had done before - is a mean witch with a b,
taking a long-long way to her eventually exalted status.

The all-green, but curiously appealing Elphaba (Idina Menzel,
outstanding) is really the good witch-to-be (she ain't no delinquent,
just misunderstood), and finally she assumes the role of WWW in order
to do good. At the end, she even provides the bucket in an apparent
suicide, but I will say no more. (Except that I found a 1969 essay by
Dr. Douglas A.  Rossman "On the Liquidation of Witches," published in
the "Baum Bugle," in which the good doctor suggests that the melting of
the Wicked Witch is a chemical process. Holzman and Schwartz have a
better idea.)

Robert Morse is hilarious and curiously touching as the manipulative
but thoughtful Wizard, with a family history that will astonish you. His
"Wonderful" is a guaranteed show-stopper, even though once again, lyrics
and great theatricality are not supported by music that would stand on
its own.

Morse's Wizard is a benevolent dictator, a philosopher king with a
self-serving logic, and lyrics bringing Sondheim to mind again. Accused
of being a liar and a fraud, he muses: "The truth is not a fact or reason,
/ The truth is just what everyone agrees on... / A man's called a traitor
or a liberator, / The rich man is a thief or a philanthropist, / This
one a crusader or ruthless invader, / It's all in what label is able to
persist."

Janos Gereben/SF
www.sfcv.org
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