You'll melt at funny-profound musical 'Wicked'

WHEN WAS the last time you saw a Broadway musical that made you think?

While "Wicked" contains many winning ingredients that should make for a sensational three-week run at Chrysler Hall, the main one is its book (script). Based on the complex political novel by Gregory Maguire, the book by Winnie Holzman (TV's "thirtysomething") cleverly plays with our own connections to the most popular movie musical of all time and to characters that have become part of pop culture. Teasing us playfully with how and why the Tin Man, Scarecrow and Cowardly Lion came into being, "Wicked" makes stars of even its props, the silver slippers, a pointed hat, a bucket of water, a broomstick. We search feverishly for clues as to why, and whether, the Wicked Witch of the West became wicked.

This prequel is a "what if?" interpretation of what happened before Dorothy arrived in Oz and, in the process, delves meaningfully into the nature of friendship, particularly female friendship in a post-feminist world. Elphaba is born different - her skin is green. She is an outsider but not a doormat. She learns to use her intelligence in a defiant way. Glinda, on the other hand, is the legally blond Miss Popular who is universally adored and knows it. Thrown together as college roommates, they learn not only to co-exist but to love each other in a supportive way until ambition, jealousy and political manipulation lead to tragedy.

"Wicked" also is an indictment of a society (obviously our own) that places appearance ahead of substance. The Wizard becomes a tyrannical dictator even though he has no powers or talent of his own. Elphaba becomes a threat primarily because she fights for animal rights in reaction to the Wizard's persecution of them. The comparison to the civil-rights era as well as to the Holocaust is obvious and yet subtly in the background.

But lest you think "Wicked" lacks fun, there is also a host of comedic moments (mostly assigned to Helene Yorke, who displays deft timing as dizzy but evolving Glinda ("It's all about popular."). As she descends in a bubble, she coyly reminds us that "it's good to see me, isn't it?" Yorke doesn't have the highs of Kristin Chenoweth's soprano in the Broadway original, but who does? She serves nicely.

And, yes, there is spectacle. Some New York critics felt things were too aggressively big, but there can never be too much eye candy when supported by the depth present here. There is a huge, red-eyed dragon hovering over the stage. There is rain. There is the terrible mask of the Wizard. There are flying monkeys. There is an Emerald City that is so emerald you may have to take along sunglasses. There are garish costumes that can only be from a make-believe land.

Some forget that "Wicked" received mixed to bad reviews when it opened in New York and, unbelievably, the Tony went to the puppet vulgarity "Avenue Q" instead. It was most likely a backlash to the show's bigness.

In the five years the show has been running, a surprising thing has happened - it has been adopted on a grass-roots level. The core is young girls who see Elphaba as a heroine of individuality. With adults, though, there is also a realization that not everything we're told should be believed. The wholesale selling of the wickedness of the Wicked Witch was a publicity ploy of the Wizard. How often have we seen it work in politics far outside the land of Oz?

"Wicked" arrives with close to $4 million in advance sales. There were Witch groupies in the audience, sporting pointed hats.

Marcie Dodd's Elphaba doesn't quite have the hard edge of Idina Menzel in the original, but you wouldn't want to tangle with her nonetheless. Her search for love is universal, and Dodd brings real power to the show's anthem, "Defying Gravity," as well as poignancy to the ballad "I'm Not That Girl."

Colin Donnell brings just the right self-deprecating flair to the handsome Fiyero, who becomes the lure for both ladies. ("There's no pretense here: I happen to be genuinely self-absorbed and deeply shallow.")

Ted Ely is sympathetic as Boq, the munchkin who pretends to love Nessarose. ("I know I'm just a mere Munchkin. But even a Munchkin has feelings.")

Nessarose, the sister Wicked Witch most famous for having a house fall on her, is played by Kristine Reese. She is saddled with a part that doesn't fully develop how she, too, became Wicked. (In the book, she was armless. Here, her legs don't work and she's stuck in a wheelchair.) Marilyn Caskey is a haughty dowager as Madame Morrible, eager to throw in her lot with the evil Wizard. Tom McGowan handles the tricky assignment of playing the Wizard, a villain who is more mediocre than outright threatening. ("Where I'm from, we believe all sorts of things that aren't true. We call it history.") David De Vries is the scapegoat who is a real goat - representing the repressed animals.

Stephen Schwartz's score is a mishmash of varied styles that relies too much on formula to approach greatness (closing-act bravado, ballad alternated with upbeat number). In a musical theater world in which original scores like this aren't heard very often, however, it is a godsend. "Defying Gravity" is the call to arms. "No One Mourns the Wicked" is his "Ding, Dong the Witch is Dead." "Dancing Through Life" adds much-needed fun. "Popular" is a little bubble-gum diversion with a touch of The Beatles. "Wonderful" has a touch of ragtime and vaudeville. "As Long as You're Mine" is the much-needed love song that gives the audience hope for the seemingly doomed Elphaba, while the very next song turns her to the dark side with the show's most prophetic line, "No Good Deed" (goes unpunished).

The score relentlessly presses the psychological profile forward, topped off by the trickiest accomplishment - "For Good," the song that makes the friendship evident, even amid controversy.

"Wicked's" accomplishment, a rare one, is that it can be seen, and enjoyed, by different ages in different ways.

In "toto," it's quite a show. (And, yes, we miss the little dog, but that's another story.)

In the end, we celebrate Elphaba's defiance: "Nobody in all of Oz, no Wizard that there is or was, is ever gonna bring me down."

You go, girl! Somewhere in heaven we're sure that Margaret Hamilton is cheering you on.

Mal Vincent, (757) 446-2347, mal.vincent@pilotonline.com.