Bear with me now but this will be about a lot of things. The old, the not so new, and everything I love about entertainment! A book that gave birth to a classic movie which inspired a revisionist novel that was translated into a hit Broadway musical which will soon become a full-length film.
This weekend, I got a copy of The Wizard of Oz starring Judy Garland. Yep, the 1939 movie that was based on L. Frank Baum's children's novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. It's been a while since I last saw the movie and I wanted to review the film before I read the book I recently purchased,
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire.
Now, this book reimagines Baum's fictional Oz before Dorothy dropped in and followed the yellow brick road to the Emerald City in order to see the wizard. The main protagonist in this story is The Wicked Witch of the West, here known as Elphaba. While the original story portrays the green witch as simply evil, Maguire's novel presents her as a misunderstood and victimized woman, who actually has a good heart. The story also explores her friendship with the good witch, Galinda or Glinda (who's more of a self-absorbed crowd pleaser than she is a hero).
Then came the Tony award-winning Broadway musical, Wicked, created by Stephen Schwartz after reading Maguire's book. It opened in 2003 and is continuing to be a strong mass favorite among theater goers (I've read this is a $14 million production, so I can only dream of seeing it staged here in the Philippines; but if ever I learned anything from Dorothy…well, among other things, I CAN dream). The original cast includes Kristin Chenoweth (from Pushing Daisies) and my new favorite Idina Menzel (who burst into fame by playing the original Maureen Johnson in Rent, and you may have currently seen as Patrick Dempsey's girlfriend in Enchanted).
There's a wickedly good video of the trailer in the UK website if you want to take a peek.
I think she’s foremost a singer, but yeah her acting chops’ solid as well. I love it how she can both be Maureen in “Rent” and Elphaba in “Wicked”. These are two highly contrasting characters, and the dichotomy in style (character building and singing prowess) is very interesting to see and hear.
[Though she does gasp a lot between lines in some of her recordings]
I can see her as Lady Macbeth; she’s got that air of mischief, he he
wow, I’m surprised how your addiction towards musicals surpassed mine. I mean, I am the performer and friends with legit passionate theater buffs.
i love wicked, specifically the plot. really interesting. i’m impressed with how Winnie Holzman connected his story with The Wizard of Oz. It’s like he opened a different window showing how what we see as evil can also turn out to be good and misunderstood. This makes me realize that everything is relative, depending on what kind of window we look out of. We’re all wicked in different ways. 
correction, Winnie Holzman is a “she.” and she also wrote fot the tv series “The Wonder Years,” which I used to watch when I was a kid. Amazing.
Posted by ven at December 28, 2007, 2:26 pmHe, he ven. Maybe I did forget to mention how much of a musical theater buff I am ever since college. I didn’t just became “addicted” now. I may not be a performer but I call myself an enthusiast. I’ve always preferred musical pieces over pop tunes (though I’m a lover of both). There’s much more energy to them and much more emotions enveloped in the songs. And I also love the fact that there’s mostly no time limit to one song; it makes the freedom of expression so wide open.
And Winnie Holzman is indeed the book writer for the musical (she wrote the nonsinging parts of the play and is responsible for the general flow and structure of the story); but the vision is really from Gregory Maguire, the author of Wicked. Having read half of the novel, though, the musical is an entirely different piece. They just took the main premise and made it more audience friendly.
Haba nito, this could’ve been an entire post haha!
Posted by zarine at December 28, 2007, 2:47 pmAll comments are moderated. Your comments will not appear here unless approved by the blog owner. Thank you.
idina menzel is a great actress, but her angular looks sometimes make her older than she really is (esp. on film). she’ll make a great lady macbeth (stage)
Posted by onyxx at December 18, 2007, 4:54 pm