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Austin360 blogs > Austin Arts: Seeing Things > Archives > 2012 > January > 31 > Entry
Review: ‘Wicked’
This winter, Austin doesn’t have to wait until spring to see green.
Broadway Across America has brought the smash-hit musical, “Wicked,” back to Bass Concert Hall for an impressive three-week run through Feb. 12.
In the giant auditorium, fantasy looms overhead — a giant animatronic dragon gazes down upon the audience while the city of Oz glitters from the center of an extensive map showing us the world we are about to enter.
Creating a back-story for the beloved figures of “The Wizard of Oz,” “Wicked” explores issues of friendship and popularity, ostracization and rebellion, against a backdrop of magic and munchkins.
The steampunk type settings of Eugene Lee create a visually stunning tableau for the fairy tale atmosphere combined with contemporary teenage angst. Susan Hilferty’s asymmetrical and utterly luscious costumes are consistently delightful, with a pleasing potpourri of textures and patterns. The production elements alone would make “Wicked” worth seeing, but they are only the beginning.
This year’s production brings a legitimate beauty queen to the role of Glinda (Tiffany Haas, former Miss Ohio in the Miss America Pageant), and Haas certainly cultivates the kind of love/hate relationship that the role calls for. Her portrayal of the snotty and spoiled teenage witch shifts between exasperating and endearing in a way that keeps the character both overwhelmingly bubbly yet somehow humanly awkward.
This serves to contrast nicely with Anne Brummel’s Elpheba, who comes off as downright normal despite her green hue. Both women bring strength and personality to their now iconic roles.
As the Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Don Amendolia is pleasingly blustery and bombastic, moving adeptly between his moments as a power-hungry despot and a fatherly gentleman with a twinkling charm about him.
The choreography serves to highlight the pleasures of the costumes, if not necessarily the talent of the dancers. Admittedly, the “Dancing Through Life” number falls a bit flat, but the inimitable Broadway spectacle and stage magic of “Defying Gravity” more than compensates.
It’s hard to shake off the production history of a show so entrenched in popular memory, but this production’s vocal performances depart enough from the original cast recording to make it refreshing to hear.
Some of the staging and storyline rely on familiarity with the original book, but it’s not enough to be distracting. Overall, this is a musical we’re lucky to have back in town, and it’s well worth seeing live.
‘Wicked’ continues through Feb. 12 at the Bass Concert Hall. $38-$107. www.texasperformingarts.org.
Cate Blouke is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
Comments
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By Jody
February 6, 2012 8:35 AM | Link to this
I went to the performance last night (Feb. 5), and I was disappointed that Elphaba did not fly at the end of Act 1. Was this a technical issue or has this aspect of the show been cut from the production? I saw this production a few years back, and she flew at the end of Act 1.