Carolyn and I went to see Wicked last evening at the Pantages up in Hollywood. We liked it tremendously. For those of you who don't know, it's a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and a book by Winnie Holzman that tells an alternate version (kind of a prequel) to The Wizard of Oz — the movie, not the book. The premise is that Glinda the Good Witch and The Wicked Witch of the West are actually good friends — former roomies, in fact — and that all the main players of Oz are not what you thought. The Wicked Witch isn't all that wicked — and to the extent she is wicked, she has some good reasons for it…and beyond that, the less I tell you about it, the better. I didn't know much of the story going in and I enjoyed it more because of that.
Wicked has been in Los Angeles before and a lady I chatted with at intermission said this production was smaller but better. She's seen the show four times, twice on Broadway, and as of the end of Act One, she was liking this version as much as any. Katie Rose Clarke is playing Glinda the Good Witch and Mamie Parris is Elphaba the Bad Witch. They were both sensational and my Intermission buddy said she'd seen others as good but none better. I also liked Mark Jacoby as the Wizard. If Ron Paul ever does enough to warrant a movie where somebody has to play him, Jacoby's the guy. Looks like Paul, sounds like Paul…and even managed to sound flustered and sincere while promising things that were never going to happen.
But maybe the biggest star is Eugene Lee, who did the art direction. This production is stunning, with imaginary lands designed to be one with the non-universe. I didn't know what Oz looked like going in…but coming out, I sure did. It looked like that, absolutely. One of the many things I don't like about the movie is that the whole thing, including the scenes in Kansas, feel to me like it's all taking place in a soundstage. Last night, Wicked did not feel like it was taking place on a stage. It felt like that proscenium was somewhere over the rainbow. It is well worth a visit and you don't need a house to fall on you to know that.
While I'm at it, I would like to review the Pantages Theater. I love everything about it except for the fact that it's sometimes a lousy place to see a show. It has great history and the feel of a great, classic theater…but it's easy to get a terrible seat there and I've had several. The place seats 2,703. To give you some sense of how "too big" that is: In New York, Wicked plays at the Gershwin which is the second-largest theater in the Broadway area and it seats 1,809. (The largest is the Foxwoods, which is where Spider-Man is playing. It seats 1,903.) The theater where The Book of Mormon is playing and the theater where the new revival of Follies is playing collectively have fewer seats than the Pantages out here.
Be real careful when you book tickets to anything at the Pantages. Row AA is not way up in front as it is in some theaters. A friend of mine made that mistake and sadly discovered that AA is behind Z — in other words, 27 rows from the stage. What they call Orchestra seats there actually go back to row ZZ. The mezzanine is set way, way back and even the front rows up there put you in a different zip code from the actors. [Update]
Wicked is a great show and there are some other good ones coming to the Pantages. If you order tix, stay out of the mezzanine and don't accept any row with double letters. Theater is all about breathing the same air as the performers and you can't do that when you're sitting On Beyond Zebra.