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The beautiful setting inside the Providence Performance Arts Center. Also, note the giant dragon above the stage.
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The marquee outside the Providence Performance Arts Center.
While in New England celebrating Christmas, we took in a performance of the musical “Wicked” at the Providence Performance Arts Center. The theater was opened in 1928, and everything about it, from the retro marquee out front to the ornate domed ceiling inside, bear proof of its age and history. One word of advice, though: If you go to see a show there in the winter, don’t bundle up too much. They seem to set the heat on full blast, and the seats are so close together that you have little room to put your outer layers of clothes after you shed them. Also, smuggle in your own beverage, unless you feel like paying for a $3.75 bottle of water (and considering the heat and the seeming lack of a water fountain, you’ll probably end up caving in and pony up the cash for it).
As for the show, the performance was outstanding. One amazing set followed another, and an impressive looking dragon hung over the stage the whole time (it wasn’t really part of the show, but was still cool nonetheless). The costumes were equally extravagant. The performers put on a strong display as well. We actually watched two understudies play the role of a couple of the main characters, and nothing about their performance tipped us off to that fact until we got home and read the program.
The musical’s shortcoming, however, lies with its all-too-predictable script. In essence, the story is a prequel and afterword to the “Wizard of Oz” and only touches on Dorothy in a few passing references. Instead, it focuses on the backstory of Elphaba (the Wicked Witch of the West) and Glinda (the Good Witch of the North), roommates at school who become friends and later enemies by the choices they make. However, it flips the roles and makes the traditional villain its heroine — a talented, good-hearted, but misunderstood outcast who takes a stand against an oppressive regime and pays the price. Most of the first half of the musical is a cross between Clueless or Legally Blond (with Glinda playing the Alicia Silverstone/Reese Witherspoon role) and a Kafka novel about state oppression. And as the story progresses, the Land of Oz is increasingly portrayed as a land of corruption, lies, propaganda, and oppression from a government that seems to be part Third Reich and part Bush regime.
While the message of the script — that we should question the actions of our government instead of living in blissful, willful ignorance — is admirable (if not a bit overdone), the way it is delivered leaves something to be desired. The message is hammered home in a blunt fashion that proves to be overly obvious at every turn. The fact that Elphaba is portrayed as just an outcast rather than evil at the outset tips you off right away that something’s not right in Oz, and you keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, and it doesn’t take long to figure out what that not-so-shocking revelation will be — well before it actually happens. The same holds true for most of the other plot twists, and a few minutes after intermission, you can probably figure out how the rest of the story will shake out. A the end, the script undermines the effect of the message it tried so hard to beat into our skulls by forcing a happy ending onto a story that wasn’t headed for one. And this certainly wasn’t done in the absurdist, escapism fashion ala “The Threepenny Opera“. Basically, if the story was portraying the Land of Oz as Nazi Germany, then the ending is telling us that all those who were sent to Auschwitz turned out fine.
Despite the flaws with the script, the performance of the cast and the impressive sets and costumes combined to deliver an entertaining couple of hours. Now, if only they didn’t try so hard to force-feed us a deep message in such a shallow manner …
My rating: 3.5 out of 5
