Wicked

Last night we went to see Wicked at the Apollo Victoria Theatre in London. The show was excellent and Idina Menzel’s performance of Elphaba was really spectacular. The other actors were very good, the stage was fantastical, and the lighting was very effective and imaginative. We found the amplification on the actors and the pit orchestra to be a little too loud, but that was a minor complaint in what was a very enjoyable evening.

The musical is about Elphaba, the green girl who becomes the wicked witch of the west in The Wizard of Oz. It is based on the book with the same name by Gregory Maguire. I thought the story, while written in the early 1990’s was particularly germane to the times today. It effectively shows that there are often many sides to the same story. In The Wizard of Oz the witch is demonized. We just think that she is evil, but in this story we realize that she is really trying to do the right thing in most cases, but that her actions don’t always have the outcomes she would like. I think there is a powerful lesson to be learned there in our current political climate.