• Food and Travel
• Issue 1

I’ve never tried to hide my indifference to musical theatre.  My iPod is on the blink from overuse and I enjoyed my share of plays as a child, so in theory I should love it.

Then again, I love garlic bread and crème brulee, too — just not in the same ramekin.

Wicked, however, seemed like the sort of performance that I could not only suffer through with a free ticket, but enjoy.  I cracked open my bottle of Evian, stretched my legs out into the aisle and settled back to enjoy the seamy underbelly of Oz.

Strangely, I got the trials and tribulations of the average American high school.  I assume it wasn’t intended to be set in the States, but with the cast’s accents fading in and out I was never quite sure to where I was being transported.  I was significantly more certain about the lack of a Pink Floyd sing-along.

Things began going awry with the arrival of Glinda, an effervescent bottle blonde who finally gave up mispronouncing her name.  Equal parts hypocrite and helper, her biggest mistake is singing about the virtues of popularity.  Helen Dallimore played the role to perfection, but I wonder what L Frank Baum would say about the transformation of his red-haired Valkyrie into a character better suited to American Pie.

Born bright green and with the taint of bastardy, Elphaba (Kerry Ellis), too, was devoid of originality. It’s little wonder she resents her father’s endless doting on her simpering, wheelchair-bound sister Nessarose (Katie Rowley Jones), but where are my loyalties meant to lie?  The story’s premise, presumably, is to elicit sympathy for a kindhearted soul turned bad by a cruel world.  Perhaps the attraction of Oz is its celebration of irresponsibility — after all, unkind colleagues and dysfunctional families don’t give the rest of us an excuse for turning to crime.

Adam Garcia turns in a convincing performance as playboy prince Fiyero.  Granted, his sudden attraction to Elphaba fails to qualify as a plot twist, but he prevents their unlikely romance from becoming mired in sentimentality, against Glinda’s best efforts.  

Wicked’s one concession to originality is how it brings in the more beloved Wizard of Oz characters — notably Dorothy and the Scarecrow — though this still feels contrived.  As the story drew to a close, the only crisis holding my attention through the bland, if tuneful, singing was Fiyero’s fate.

But even that couldn’t convince me to download the soundtrack.

**/*****