The past is a foreign country; They do things differently there.

Wicked explains so much.

Ms Pat bought Alan and I some pretty good tickets to catch Wicked, for Christmas and we were really really excited to finally be able to watch it. The show was spectacular (even though there were a few things that could be said about the theatre itself) and like I said, it explains so much.

Gregory Maguire, the author of Wicked, is a genius, I will give him that. I would, however, like to know how it was possible for him to publish Wicked in the first place. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was first published in 1900 and Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West wasn’t published until 1995. To write a whole book based on another and publish + have it get so popular, how did Maguire manage to stay out of getting sued for copyright infringement. Yes, Baum is long dead but I am sure his estate or someone else would own the copyrights to the source material. But I guess they manage to sort that out. 95 years on however, I still don’t think Baum would have liked to have his work and characters seen from a whole different perspective. Not that he’d be around to object, really.

Back to the story; Wicked is the story of the circumstances behind Elphaba, Nessarose and Galinda becoming the Wicked Witch of the West, the Wicked With of the East and Glinda the good, the origins of the ruby slippers and the twister that brought Dorothy (and her house) to Oz and the back story behind all of Dorothy’s companions; the Cowardly Lion, Tin Man and Scarecrow. Also, the origins behind the flying monkeys and the real reason why the Wizard of Oz ran away in his balloon.

Having never read the book, I experienced plenty of “OH! SO THAT’S WHY!”, light bulb popping above head moments. And also, lots of sympathy for the Elphaba. The play held plenty of lessons, the obvious one being not judging anyone by the colour of their skin and always looking at both sides of the story before judging. Elphaba, she wasn’t born Wicked, but the the circumstances of the establishment pushed her to be. Idk if this makes any sense heh. But how many people have been misunderstood because of the way that they try to cope and handle certain situations?

After all these years of reading and watching the many movies based on Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, we’ve always just taken for a fact that the witches are well, wicked and everyone else are victims fighting against the wicked witch of the west’s evil plans. But having watched Wicked and hopefully, read it one day, it makes one wonder; what if everyone else is evil and Elphaba is good. Really, the line between good and evil is up to your own perspective. She is what she is because she goes against the so called evil plans of the Wizard and in response to that, false announcements of her succumbing to wickedness was made and all of Oz turned against her.  Everyone else is evil by association to the wizard since everyone worships him so is it really everyone else following the Wizard’s evil plans = evil vs Elphaba’s rebelling the system in the name of good? I’ll leave that up to you to decide.

Overall, I did enjoy my evening and I would LOVE to watch it on Broadway. The Australian cast is lovely and Jemma Rix (Elphaba) is just phenomenal. She’s beautiful with a slightly wicked quality and her voice is amazing. Every single time I hear her hit the high notes, I get goosebumps. Defying Gravity brought tears to my eyes, legit. In any which case, watching it on Broadway would be a dream but if I never get the opportunity to do so, I’d be happy with this. Who’s to say, maybe the absence of Jemma Rix on Broadway makes it not as good. For me anyway :p

If you have the chance to catch Wicked, please please please do so. Wicked will be playing at the Marina Bay Sands Theatre till the 26th of February. Tickets range from $55 – $250. We got B Reserve tickets we still got a pretty good view, even though we were right at the back of the first floor. I’m sure even the E Reserve seats would be great.

Eva ♥