Wicked's Return Reminds Us of Our Need to Ditch Assumptions and Embrace Different - Hope 103.2

Wicked’s Return Reminds Us of Our Need to Ditch Assumptions and Embrace Different

'Wicked The Musical' won’t be to everyone’s liking, but the show has an undeniable brilliance musical lovers will relish.

By Laura BennettFriday 8 Sep 2023Hope AfternoonsMusicReading Time: 2 minutes

It has been 15 years since it was last in Sydney, but Wicked’s emerald return is a grand theatrical display and enduring invitation to reassess our assumptions about friendship, beauty and who’s good and evil.

Originally premiering on Broadway in 2003 with Kristin Chenoweth (Schmigadoon!) and now with iconic performances from Idina Menzel (Frozen, Enchanted), Wicked revisits the Land of Oz in the years before Dorothy’s arrival, telling the origin story of opposing witches Glinda (Courtney Monsma) and Elphaba (Sheridan Adams).

Glinda exists in a glittery world of energy and popularity, while green-skinned Elphaba has been an outcast from birth wrestling with misunderstood talents and ideas outside her time.

As far as stage productions go, Wicked The Musical is phenomenally well put together. The vocal performances are note-perfect, the choreography enviable, and each comedic beat is timed just-so. If anything, the second half suffers from the show’s biggest numbers Popular and Defying Gravity happening before interval, but it’s in the last third that the heart is driven home with Glinda and Elphaba’s intimate ode For Good.

What really sets Wicked apart is the interplay between our understandings of good and evil, where social power lies and who controls our understanding of the truth.

What really sets Wicked apart is the interplay between our understandings of good and evil, where social power lies and who controls our understanding of the truth.

Over the course of the three-hour show (including intermission) we’re taken into a world where each character is defined in opposition to the other: Elphaba is “bad” because Glinda’s perky traits are the accepted version of “good”. Elphaba is “evil” because the voices she fights to elevate are the ones others seek to silence.

It’s food for thought when Oz (Todd McKinney) says “truth” isn’t fixed but about which label sticks, and admits in Wonderful that his inflated sense of power is product of people’s need to have something to believe in.

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Whether you saw Wicked when it made its first Australian visit or not, watching it again only proves how enduring its message is and why it’s had sustained runs around the world.

Certain scenes and effects place Wicked outside of being an entirely family-friendly show (under 10s need not attend), and themes around witches and wizards won’t be to everyone’s liking, but the show has an undeniable brilliance musical lovers will relish.

Wicked is playing at Sydney Lyric Theatre now.