The movie version of the Broadway musical Wicked has flown into Ottawa and people who spoke with Capital Current were impressed by what they saw and heard.
Wicked is a loose retelling of the 1995 Gregory Maguire novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, which in turn is based on the timeline of the legendary 1939 film classic, The Wizard of Oz , which in turn is based on the 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
The musical basically tells the story of the friendship between Glinda the Good and the troubled Elphaba Thropp, the Witch of the west. Since it began on Broadway in 2003, Wicked the musical has attracted praise from many who feel a deep personal connection.
Asked what he thought about the film, Ottawa movie-goer Cameron Stahlbrand said, “I was really impressed, and I think it’s a movie that even non-musical theatre lovers should go see because there’s so many connections that can be made to our own lives — in terms of feeling like an outcast or feeling like you just don’t fit in.”
In the article “Defying Gravity: Queer Conventions in the Musical Wicked,“ Stacy Wolf, an associate professor in the department of Theatre and Dance at the University of Texas at Austin, writes that Wicked “signals that it will follow the conventions of mid-20th-century musical theatre, but queerly, with two women as the musical’s couple.”
Because the “brave individualist is female, Wicked‘s main characters converse with a contemporary lexicon of ‘girl power’ images such as strong, independent, supernaturally powerful television action heroines like Xena (the Warrior Princess) or Buffy (the Vampire Slayer), or girl friendship films like Heathers, Mean Girls, or even High School Musical.”
Many connect with Elphaba, who is considered an outcast, with her green skin and her future as a wicked witch.
Some fans also see the movie as a big step in racial representation. Ottawa viewer Jayvin Jones said, “the impact it had on a lot of young black girls is there, because of Elphaba, and how she was judged for her skin. Like a lot of black people are judged and mistreated. So this movie did speak to a lot of people of colour, and that’s why I think it had the biggest impact on them.”
He said the underlying tone of racialization is also shown in how other characters interact with Elphaba and Glinda.
“Elphaba and Glinda came from two different worlds. Elphaba was judged for her skin and Glinda was basically loved by everyone, because she is such a popular person based on her social status and upbringing.”
The film musical is also a good entrée for those unfamiliar with the story, says Alex Ghattas, who has never seen any of the movies within the Wizard of Oz world.
“The storyline kept me intrigued and I liked the musical aspect of it. Now I’m going to watch [the rest of] it.”
Between Thursday, Nov. 21 and Sunday Nov. 24, Cineplex Odeon Barrhaven Cinemas sold 3,090 tickets to Wicked. “Our biggest auditorium only sits [approximately] 300 people so the fact that there [were more than] 1,300 in one day is insane. We had to have multiple auditoriums showing Wicked to keep up with demand,” said Darcy Titcombe, a worker at the Barrhaven Cineplex.
The Hollywood Reporter says the film grossed $117.5 million in its first five days after opening to a record-breaking $112 million, and $359.2 million globally.
Fans of the musical, such as Alexa MacKie, a Carleton University student and theatre lover, were nervous abut seeing the show on the big screen.
“It’s Wicked, it’s just everything about it. It’s the perfect musical right? … it has all your classic tropes, and it’s just a perfectly done musical so initially I guess I was a little nervous to see it adapted to the screen just because it’s so dear to my heart and I love it so much,” she said.
“One of my biggest fears with movie adaptations of Broadway musicals specifically is that when they adapt them, like we’ve seen with Mean Girls and Dear Evan Hansen is that … they’ll sort of ‘popify’ the singing. Broadway singing uses a lot of technique like chest voice and that kind of stuff,” MacKie said.
Some critics had been skeptical of Ariana Grande as Glinda the Good Witch and whether she could make the move to Broadway, even though she had already been in the Broadway musical 13.
But people interviewed by Capital Current thought Grande and Cynthia Erivo had proven the skeptics wrong.
“After seeing how amazing they did, I was so blown away and really happy … I find that the Broadway musical is just so quintessentially perfect the way it is. Everything from the staging to the story it tells,” MacKie said.
“I think the greatest thing about Wicked is just the story that it tells about Elpheba and Glinda, and how they were not really nice to each other, but then they became really good friends despite their differences,” she said.
“[One of the best parts of Wicked] is it’s messaging about wickedness, evil and good, and what it means to be good because you see it with Glinda, [because] she’s so obsessed and careful to be perceived as good and she cares what other people think.
“Elpheba does too, but she cares more for doing good and making sure that people aren’t hurt along the way,” she said.
