A Wicked look at Wicked! Spoiler Alert

Spoiler Alert!

Of course, when I say Wicked!, I refer to the stage production I saw in London, not your long-ago ex-girlfriend who still floats deliciously through your daydreams as the dewy-eyed star of all your fantasies.

I’d read rave reviews…yes, I tell you, RAVE REVIEWS of Wicked!.  Spectacular!  Not to be missed!  Defies gravity!... so said the posters and the pundits.  See, that’s the problem with being well read.  You see these word-bytes here and there, and gauging the status of the publications that printed them, you swallow the bait like a starving striped bass on the first day of the season.

I should have listened to my mother, who said…well, I don’t remember exactly what she said, but it was something like “Reading will make you go blind.”  Maybe it was something else that would make me go blind.  Hmmmm, In any case, reading can make you blind when it comes to other opinions.  You find something you desperately want to believe (when swinging over the dark abyss of a theater production you were forced to attend) and you cling to it as the rope of last resort.

But, now let’s get Wicked!  What’s the story line?  Supposedly, it’s the story of the wicked witch from the Wizard of Oz.  I say supposedly because for a while it was about professors who were animals who could talk and there was a plot afoot to deprive them of speech.  At this point they had me hook line and sinker because I had some professors who were animals and should have been deprived of speech.

Who hatched this plot?  You remember from the original Wizard of Oz that the wizard had no super hero powers.  This appeared to be only a slight inconvenience to the flow of the play.  Soon, or maybe later (I dozed into the blessed realm of slumber from time to time) a magic book of spells appeared on stage, somewhat abruptly, as if a stagehand suddenly realized this play was moving like a bullet train running out of track.

But, before the magic spells happened, lots of dancing in colorful costumes took place, with dancers whirling around feverishly, while some of the major characters bobbed up and down defying gravity with the help of ropes and pulleys.  This brought great and wondrous reactions from the spellbound audience whose cheers made my eyes snap open in time to hear songs of no purpose sung for no particular reason.  I’ll tell you this, nobody walked out of the theater whistling any of those gems.

Romance, of course, got thrown in, just for comic relief.  At which point, I pondered the possibility that the good witch was bad and the bad witch was good.  Which was witch?  Well, the good witch, who might now be bad, appeared in the opening scene to be overjoyed that the bad witch, who might now be good, was dead.   But, of course, she wasn’t dead because she disappeared in a trap door and ran off with the good witch’s boyfriend.  Wow, never saw that coming!  The trap door, I mean.

I'm left with a myriad of questions.  So, in the original movie, the bad witch flung a lot of odiferous poo-poo around and died in a splash of water, which at the time call for Hoop Hoop Hoorays and a theater full of glowing smiles.  Am I now to believe that was a ghastly mistake, a severe misunderstanding?  How about Dorothy?  She liked the good witch, yes?  And how about the Munchkins?  They seemed pretty happy when the bad witch went up in a puff of water. 

I came to the theater to be enlightened, but now all I have are questions and a strong resolve to fain sickness if asked to sit through it again. Also, I'm never reading reviews again.  I'm blind to them.  So, don't even try to tempt me with sequels, such as:  More Wicked.  Dorothy's Big Secret. The Gay Wizard. Munchkins in Hell.  Accompanied by the usual word-bytes:  Immortal!  A show the family will love!  I'd see it again!

How about the truth?  Defies Logic!  A Show Your Demented Family Will Love!  I’d See It Again, only if the alternative is death!

That’s about it for Wicked!, except, in the middle there was an intermission where I downed two double gin and tonics in quick succession, and my son and I plotted an escape to the nearest pub.  Before we could make our getaway, the bell sounded for act two and we were once again trapped in the tedium of songs without meaning, centrifugal dancing, and a plot shiftier than a villain’s beady eyes.

But, in fairness, my wife loved it, and so did my son’s girlfriend, neither of whom could coherently explain why they loved it.  Why was that?  Do you cry at commercials featuring loveable puppies that are as soft as your towels if you use a certain laundry contaminant?  If you answer NO, then you already know the answer.

Wicked!  Is really an algebraic problem, solving for X and Y.  In this case I’m talking chromosomes.  I’ll give you a hint:  Y =0.  I still haven’t figured out X.