Being born and raised in SF, it annoys me to no end when people whine about “how SF’s changed”, since those complaints are often trivial instead of about wide-reaching policies. Still, I occasionally find myself struck by the “then and now” differences of my hometown and its portrayals in art. I didn’t get to see Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman’s Oz-inspired musical (based on the very explicit book by Greg Maguire, the first in an ongoing series) when it debuted at our beloved Curran Theatre 2003. I did, however, catch it in 2010 when it landed at the Orpheum as part of a “victory tour” of sorts. At the time, I’d only recently joined Facebook, avocado toast was still a niche Bay Area order, Kamau Bell was just a friend of friends, and Gavin Newsom liked complaining about the homeless without actually doing anything to help them—as mayor, I mean.
By the time I attended the opening of the 2024 production of Wicked (through October 13 at the Orpheum Theatre), now-Guv-Gav had ordered the homeless swept off SF streets, Emerald Mine Space Karen avowed that Twitter’s tax-dodging HQ would leave Market Street in two weeks, the average slice of pizza cost nine dollars, and Bell was a world-renowned media star who was in attendance with his wife and kids. (We’ve still never met, despite aforementioned mutual friends.) So, yeah, I’ll admit that this is a different SF than when I had last seen this very show in this very theater.
For one thing, I was one of the few people who showed up in a mask—but I’ll get to that in a moment.
One thing that hasn’t changed is Wicked itself. Mainstream pop hit or not, it’s still a wonderfully pro-feminist and anti-fascist revision of the Oz story with incredibly catchy songs. It takes a sort of “the early years” approach to show just how Elphaba (say her name out loud and remember the initials of the author of the original Oz books) went down the road to wickedness. In this version, she (Lauren Samuels) has an understandable chip on her shoulder resulting from, one, her governor-father (Wayne Schroder) rejecting her due to her her lime-colored disposition and two, said father making her the caretaker of paraplegic sister, the striped-socked Nessarose (Erica Ito). Both daughters have enrolled at Shiz University, where the introverted Elphaba finds herself roomed with the obnoxious, blonde, attention-seeking Glinda (Austen Danielle Baumer).
Despite the two roomies existing on opposite ends of the social spectrum, they begin to recognize a middle ground: Elphaba being preternaturally gifted with magic; Glinda possessed of the social skills that could help one use those powers for good—perhaps, even in service to the Wizard himself (Blake Hammond). But Elphaba’s real power is that she’s cursed with a conscience and a heart for social justice, which puts her at odds with the establishment of both the university and Oz itself.
Romances are forged, power is shown, gravity is defied. It’s quintessential Broadway.
Wicked is a show that demands two leading ladies who can shatter glass with their vocals. It’s to the original Broadway production’s credit that they found the pipes to match in Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel. Samuels, in particular, delivers a spot-on performance that makes Elphaba’s introversion relatable, her compassion sincere, and her power (both in anger and triumph) worth rooting for. Baumer’s performance doesn’t quite hit the right note ‘til the second act. Both ladies go through radical changes by that point, yet Baumer plays the Shiz U scenes as if she’s already been through that evolution, as if her early “ditzy Glinda” scenes were just a façade. Similarly, Xavier McKinnon’s take on pretty rich boy Fiyero works better in the latter-half of the show than it does in the Shiz U. The rest of the cast all give fine performances. (Interesting that both times I’ve seen this show at the Orpheum, more than a decade apart, they cast an Asian actress as Nessarose.)
As mentioned before, only a few of us in the full opening-night house were masked. Sadly, no magical spell has ended the COVID pandemic after four and a half years. Typically, my Aranet4 read CO² levels in the mid-800s, which isn’t bad at all for large venue like that. But there was an odd point in Act 1 where I noticed it reading levels of 4,344ppm! (At home, I’d look at the log and see that it read a peak of 5,348ppm at 7:38pm.) It seemed to go down as I moved the Aranet from beside me to my lap, but there was a moment when the electronic device of someone behind me (all of mine were turned off and my Aranet4’s audio is deactivated) kept beeping—was that someone else’s CO² monitor? I’m inclined to think it was, because Act II saw readings of 7,577ppm at 9:50pm! I didn’t even know this li’l box could go that high! I did diagnostic checks on it when I got home and have continued to do so since. Either it had a major glitch or the interior of the Orpheum briefly had enough CO² to rival a closed garage with the engine running. (Maybe be the dry ice from the onstage fog effects?) In any case, I’m glad I had my Flo Mask on the entire time.
I’ve still never read Maguire’s novel, but he’s been very public in his adoration for Schwartz and Holzman’s musical. That could be because it continues to be a cash cow for all involved, or maybe he’s being sincere. Wicked ranks alongside Rent and Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals as the kind of work at which theater snobs scoff, but secretly know every line by heart. Those are the same snobs that have already made up their minds about this Thanksgiving’s long-in-development film adaptation starring Ariana Grande. (I myself am looking forward to the return of Wicked-ish as part of the return of Drunk Drag Diznee at the Oasis.)
Whether or not you see any upcoming adaptation, you can at least rest easy knowing that the SF-born Broadway smash is still as fun as it was when it debuted two decades ago. That’s not magic so much as knowing not to fix what isn’t already broken.
WICKED runs through October 13. Orpheum Theatre, SF. Tickets and more info here.
