okay
fairplaythings and I went to see Wickedat the NAC.
It was a great show. For starters, the visual design is absolutely beautiful -- the set, in particular, is gorgeous. The music is mostly pretty standard musical-theatre music, with rock/pop elements (
fairplaythings described it as 80s-like, which doesn't strike me as quite accurate, but I can see where he's coming from when he says it). It's the story that really makes it, though. It's basically a love story between two women -- Glinda (the "good" witch) and Elphaba (the "wicked" witch). It's almost entirely focused on their relationship, and the male "hero" is little more than an additional source of conflict between them. It's kind of nice to have two women driving the story, and it's nice, too, that the man isn't the only (or even the primary) reason that they end up in conflict. There's also a major sub-plot having to do with Elphaba's sister, Nessarose, which means there are three women making up almost all of the story.
I could complain that some of the plot seems rather compressed, but that's the nature of musical theatre, and I think they did a reasonably good job of compressing the book -- at the very least,
fairplaythings, who hadn't read the book, seemed to be following everything with no difficulty. My only other complaint would be that they put a little too much effort into working the show's title into the script. Most of the time, it was perfectly natural, and given that part of the point is the contrast between "wickedness" and "goodness", it usually worked; but there were a few spots where it just felt forced and drew attention to itself ("I feel... wicked!") -- and I just felt embarrassed for the actors. All of the actors were very good. The role of Glinda, in particular, looked like a lot of fun to play -- largely because there were lots of opportunities for her to just ham it up (which she did, enthusiastically).
All in all, it was a very enjoyable show, and a great evening out. I recommend it!
