Stephen Schwarz, Winnie Holzman
Marc Platt, Universal Stage Productions, the Araca Group, Jon B Platt and David Stone
Palace Theatre, Manchester
December 3, 2024 to January 12, 2025; 2hrs 45 mins
With the new movie released in November to ecstatic reviews, particularly of the two leading ladies, there’s never been a time where a cast of this show has more to live up to. And in an immediate sense, it can feel like a tough gig.
But however successful the movie has been, the stage show has grossed billions around the globe over the last two decades, so the producers probably aren't too concerned. And as Wicked descends on Manchester for a six week run, its audience is certainly primed to receive all that this Glinda and Elphaba have to offer.
The importance of this show is now firmly cemented in the canon, which means we’re no longer assessing the construction of the piece; that’s a given. We want to hear from the performers. So what do they have to say to us? And what does all this mean for our heroines, and for Wicked?
Laura Pick is a seasoned Elphaba, who continues to do what she does best. Her chemistry with Sarah O’Connor’s Glinda is clear; the latter has the legit soubrette lightness we’ve come to expect from Glinda and a comedic presentation of her calculatedly dizzy, lightly-narcissistic personality. The contrast between the two women makes the relationship work and drives the story. But also for Glinda, the contrast between her surface-level selfishness and vanity, and her true, deep kindness and ultimate love for her friend, is what O’Connor really pins down.
Voices soar, but it’s hard, with the grind of eight shows a week, to compete with Hollywood perfection that’s been years in the making, and no cast has been asked to attempt this before. You can’t help but feel the women are "covering" their resonance a little, protecting their voice in some of the less dramatic moments so they can really let rip in the big numbers. And certainly, Pick’s Defying Gravity has a lot of musical enhancements and ornamentations that really make it hers. At the end of Act One she belts with a power as convincing as any Elphaba I’ve heard. She is pitted against Hollywood at the moment and she knows it, having prepped this version to a tee plus an extra mile or two. Lest we should be in any doubt, this is Laura Pick’s Elphaba, and Laura Pick’s Defying Gravity, and it’s magic.
A word about the other cast members: Carl Man’s Fiyero dances through life with finesse and charm, while Simeon Truby’s Wizard serves up all the Vaudeville-style showmanship we need to cover his sinister motivations. Donna Berlin’s Madam Morrible gives us some morally bankrupt politics, sweetened by the most convincing of performances. While the story was conceived by author Gregory Maguire during the Iraq war, there are certainly moments here that give us cause to question present-day news media, political propaganda and messaging.
So should audiences see the show or the movie? While I’ve heard the film is stunning and I can’t wait to go and see for myself, the sets, costumes and the human truths that underlie Wicked the stage show are tried, tested and just keep on creating meaning and value in live performance. It’s a universal story with the friendship of two women at its centre. That, in any medium, deserves a celebration, and if we’ve learned anything here, maybe it’s that we don’t need to compete.
It’s a wonderful story, and if Glinda and Elphaba are by now embedded in our cultural psyche, it can only be for good.
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