Wicked star Cynthia Erivo has joined the debate over whether it’s acceptable to sing along to the blockbusting musical in cinemas – and she’s fine with it.
In an interview with NBC during the traditional Thanksgiving Day parade in New York on Thursday, Erivo was asked about the issue, which appears to have split cinemagoers down the middle and came out as very much in the pro camp, saying: “I’m OK with it. We spent this long singing it ourselves – it’s time for everyone else to join in. It’s wonderful.”
Erivo plays green-skinned witch Elphaba opposite Ariana Grande’s Galinda in the big screen adaptation of the musical by Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman, a Wizard of Oz prequel that itself is an adaptation of the novel by Gregory Maguire. Having been released on the same weekend in North America as Gladiator II, it broke box office records for Broadway musical adaptations and comfortably surpassed figures for the Gladiator sequel – with which it has been yoked, Barbenheimer-style, under the Glicked hashtag.
Whether fans should be able to sing along to the film’s musical numbers has provoked considerable debate. Erivo is echoing the words of Dwayne Johnson, voice star of Moana 2 who, when asked about the issue by the BBC said: “Sing! You’ve paid your hard earned money for a ticket, and you’ve gone into a musical, and you’re into it. Sing!” On the other hand, US cinema chain AMC cited its policy on audience disruption in issuing a warning saying, “No singing. No wailing”, while Australian author Patrick Lenton wrote in the Guardian that it was unfair and disrespectful to “inflict your voice without consent on the public. Who do you think you are to compete with the trained musical prowess of Cynthia Erivo, [and] Ariana Grande?”
However, rows over singing may become a thing of the past in a few weeks’ time – interactive “singalong” screenings of Wicked will be available from Christmas Day in North America.
