Growing up, my mother used to tell us the story of how she and her siblings excitedly crowded around their TV set to watch The Wizard of Oz – in Technicolor. Only, not realising that the film starts off monochrome, they impatiently adjusted the settings and ended up watching the whole thing in black and white. So when we were little, she took much joy in watching the movie with us – green witches, ruby-coloured slippers, shiny tin men and all.
And I mostly liked it (aside from the utterly terrifying scenes in the haunted forest or when the Munchkins creepily appear from hedges and drains – seriously, wtf?). But it was never my go-to. Perhaps because we had watched it so many times and there was an ever-hopeful expectation that we would enjoy it.
I was even less enthused by the spin-off, Wicked – which, despite hitting New York’s Broadway in 2003, somehow managed to work its way over here and send my school pals into a frenzy. It was everywhere.
Successfully dodging the craze, it wasn’t until my early twenties that I actually saw the musical live – at London’s Apollo Theatre. Had I not been given free tickets by my sister, I doubt I ever would have gone. I certainly wouldn’t ever go back. So bored was I that I was tempted to make a run for it during the intermission. The only thing that kept me there was the half-drunk, overpriced bottle of wine we had by our feet – no way was I wasting twenty quid’s worth of vino!
The first thing that struck me about the musical was, well, the music. More specifically, how terrible it is (sorry Stephen Schwartz). Beyond the two most notable – and incredibly annoying – songs (“Defying Gravity” and “Popular”), much of the score feels like filler. Rather than being solid, memorable tunes in their own right, they are an unexciting means to tell a story: a dirge.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m not against the genre. At all.The Sound of Music? Les Mis? Chicago? West Side Story? Miss Saigon? Yes, please! Even Moulin Rouge – which barely has an original song in it – and Mamma Mia! – the plot of which is absurdly shaped around Abba songs – both grasp that without great music, a musical is nothing. I couldn’t even hum you a single bar from the other twenty-odd songs in Wicked.
That’s not to say that plot is redundant in musicals. In fact, it is equally as important. Which brings me nicely to my next point about Wicked... Based on the 1995 novel by Gregory Maguire, the story feels a little off to me – and has always been hugely overhyped. You see, far from what its fan club will tell you, the narrative is anything but revolutionary.
Come on, people. Are we really shocked that Glinda ain’t so nice? Even in the original Wizard of Oz, she never gave off wholly “good” vibes. She’s always been an insufferable people-pleaser with a clear personal agenda. And as for Elphaba, the so-called “Wicked Witch of the West” – are we supposed to deduce that she is simply “misunderstood”? Never mind that she later sets fire to the Scarecrow or takes Dorothy’s dog Toto or enslaves the Winkies – she was picked on as a teenager and screwed over by her bestie, so that excuses everything.
On the one hand, it attempts to dismantle the rigid binary of “good” versus “evil” that is so abundant in fairytales and the like. On the other, it serves to uphold the worn-out narrative that women are deceptive – that we allow men to come between us and we are disloyal to one another. Why must we always be pitted against each other? It’s a boring trope and one I sincerely wish we’d move away from.
To be clear: this is in no way a reflection of the talent of the cast – both in the stage productions and in the new movie (which, shocker, I will not be going to see). From what I can tell, they are all marvellous actors and singers.
I just can’t help but feel as though their talents would be better served in a different musical – and that the world would be better off without yet another Wicked revival. Unpopular opinion, I know – but I really wish it would stop defying gravity and be done with. It’s time for something new.
