When I was fourteen, basically the greatest way to spend an afternoon was to turn the volume all the way up on my CD player (so vintage) and dance and sing along to the cast recording of Wicked. I did this for hours. I had that CD memorized. I even had blocking – limited, of course, to directions like “during this line, stand on the chair” and “during this song, spin around on the bed,” but like any great director, I worked with what I had. As a teenager, my love affair with musical theatre was a badge of uniqueness I sewed to my sash with probably too much pride, but as I got older, I turned my back on Wicked in a nasty way.
For anyone who doesn’t only listen to musical theatre, first of all: congrats on never having to experience the agony of Barnes & Noble shelving your beloved cast recordings under the insulting heading “Soundtracks.” Second of all, let me explain: Wicked is a musical based on a book that is a prequel to The Wizard of Oz. It’s about Glinda the “good” witch and her friendship with the “wicked” witch (named Elphaba) back when they were roommates at university. The one you thought was wicked was really just mistreated by society, and the one you thought was good is vain and shallow. Over the course of the evening, the audience sees how Elphaba became the wicked one, learns an important life lesson about labels, and as a fun bonus gets to watch a lady in green make-up belt some ridiculous shiz (inside joke) while being lifted on a rising platform through the roof.
To teen-aged me, Wicked might as well been called “How to Feeling Special Despite Being an Unattractive Nerd.” Like all teenagers, I thought I was socially awkward and ugly and also that I was the only person in the world to posses this combination of traits. If there were a way to distill the essence of an adult telling you “Bill Gates was a geek too, and now he’s a millionaire!” and turn it into a sequence of catchy songs, that would be what Wicked was for me. Singing along to that CD let me indulge in the idea that I was special, in a positive way. “Your specialness will lead to great things,” it said, rather than “you’re a giant turd and everyone is staring at how crooked your glasses are.”
We almost always get over our childhood crushes, and my other passions fizzled out into a rosy memory or a blank indifference. But with Wicked, my pendulum of affection swung hard in the opposite direction. By the time I graduated high school, Wicked was a reviled piece of garbage. Not only did I hate the show, I loved hating it. I had a checklist of problems that I would explain with twisted delight. “It’s too much spectacle,” I would say, as if I was so over looking at things that are cool-looking. If I was feeling really up on my high horse, I’d talk about the show’s allusions to race, war, genocide were too overt for my tastes. I don’t remember quite how I worded this criticism, but I like to imagine it went like this: “I’m eighteen years old, so naturally I have a preference for the elegance of my Holocaust metaphors.”
At almost no point did these criticisms have anything to do with the show itself. Rather, this was how I demonstrated to the world that I was a theatre-goer with “taste.” It was also a very convenient perch for me to look down on women who identified with the show the way I once had. I turned “something that doesn’t speak to me emotionally anymore” to “something that doesn’t deserve to exist.” From there, it was easy to say that people who liked the show didn’t deserve to participate in theatre.
When the show opened, critics seemed to respond the same way – not just that the show had issues with plot, or tone, or with overproduction, but that it literally did not deserve to exist. Ben Brantley of The New York Times concluded that the show did not “speak hopefully for the future of the Broadway musical.” John Simon for New York Magazine deemed the songs “worthless” and a good performance by Idina Menzel as “all in vain.” In The New Yorker review, John Lahr borrows a line from the score to describe the patrons who gave the show a standing ovation as “brainless.”
Show that cater more overtly to the generic “family” audience get a pass that Wicked didn’t for not being the choice of adults. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, for example, where a car flies to the rafters instead of a lady, got a practical rave from John Simon. Of Chitty, Simon writes that the songs “are less than sensational but more than satisfactory” given the family-friendly nature of the show. Ben Brantley admits that Chitty is a design-heavy show, but instead of tearing these elements apart as needless spectacle, says it looks fun, like a place children would want to inhabit. Of course: the songs are enjoyable for its audience. The set is exciting, for its audience.
It doesn’t seem like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang had any problems being reviewed as a show not written for everyone. So what was so appealing about insulting Wicked or the fans who loved it? Certainly, there’s always something cool and rebellious about picking apart a piece of popular culture, especially one, like Wicked, that the world seems to love. And the show certainly had some issues that critics were right to point out. But saying Wicked is not a legitimate work of art for a particular audience is saying that the particular audience is not legitimate. Teenage women deserve to see stories about characters with whom they identify onstage. They are not “brainless” for enjoying having a language with which to talk about themselves. I’m not saying the show should exist above criticism; just that “too much spectacle” can’t be code for “too much spectacle for a trivial subject like women’s emotions.”
I don’t think it’s too much to ask either that we stop policing the way young women express their joy in things, either. The New York Times re-review of the show in 2005 even brings up how the show has become a “religion” for “teenage girls,” describing one fan who could recite every “word, gasp, and pause” in Idina Menzel’s Tony acceptance speech. While I guess theatre critics are supposed to report on the culture at large, and “the show is a huge hit with teenage girls” is an important part of the story, I doubt Jason Zinoman included that particular anecdote to convey anything beyond “teenage girls are silly!” Meanwhile, Ben Brantley in the New York Times notes the audience giving louder applause to the car than the actors in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, but instead of mocking the audience for this blunder, personifies the fake car with a diva-like sensibility. Yup: teenage women who like Wicked are brainlessly following a religion, but applaud a car onstage and it’s probably because the car has a desperate need for attention.
When the theatre community openly mocks fans of a show like the fans of Wicked were mocked, it’s no wonder I, around the age I decided I wanted to work in the theatre professionally and transferred into my college’s playwriting program, pulled a loud 180 away from Wicked. “Look at me, I’m not like those other women, with their hysteria and their emotions,” I might as well have been shouting. “I’m about serious theatre.”
It’s a vicious cycle, too, because all the plays I wrote at this time were about men. Men and their feelings. Men and their emotions. I didn’t do this consciously: the only stories I felt compelled to put onstage were about men.
As I inch forward in my artistic development, I’ve found some wonderful female mentors and have learned to love telling stories about women. Sometime in the past couple years, too, I realized it was a lot more fun to just sing along to Wicked when it pops up on the Broadway Pandora station, rather than nitpick the absurd rhymes. The other day, just to see what it was like, I closed the blinds, put “What is this Feeling?” on my iPod, turned the volume all the way up and pretended I was on Broadway. It was amazing.
Tags: broadway, feminism, musical theater, that video of raul esparza singing defying gravity in a cabaret bar go google it immediately nicole said so, wicked
Great article! And so on-point (I went through roughly the same storyline of love and “wait, it’s cooler to hate” with Phantom of the Opera). I also noticed that there’s a bit of “oh that’s just for teenaged girls” revolving around the Legally Blonde musical (which is also amazing, musically speaking and also for what it added to the storyline of the film it’s based on). It’s really ridiculous that every single genre that teenaged girls might enjoy gets derided for being appealing to teenaged girls and not for, you know, its actual content.
Legally Blonde was honestly one of the funnest experiences I’ve ever had in a theater. Who gives a shit if it’s not highbrow – if I pay $80 for crappy seats, sometimes I want to have a rollicking good time.
Haha I didn’t see this comment, so downthread I’m foaming about how amazing and under-appreciated Legally Blonde is.
Oh my God.
Oh my God.
You guys.
Legally Blonde for life. My cousins and I went to see it and loved it, loved it so much that we played the soundtrack on our drive from Boston to PA. That’s not the best part, though; the best part is that my cousin’s husband (who was the driver) gruffly asked that we play it on the way back.
FFEEEEELING SO MUCH BET-TER THAAAAN BEEFOOOOOOORE
Plus, writing off Legally Blonde* for being too girly is 100% missing the point since the “moral of the story” is that writing people off for being too girly is a dangerous mistake.
*I’ve not seen the musical yet, I’m guessing it’s the same story?
It is the same story, only BETTER!
CAN WE TALK ABOUT EMMETT
I HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS ABOUT EMMETT
I LOVE HOW THEY FLESHED HIM OUT IN THE MUSICAL. God, when they’re singing through the door to each other and they both go “You are the best thing about this place,” UGH MY FEELINGS
AAAAALLL MY FEELINGS
“How about love?/Did I ever mention love?/The timing’s bad, I know–”
BIG EMOTIONS SPILL, CLEANUP ON AISLE WATSON
Also, how good is the moment where’s she’s gracious and lovely and forgiving of Warner at the end instead of snide and cutesy like in the movie? Because she’s so much better–yes so much better–than before.
YES. And I love how they added that bit for Vivienne at the end, where she is all “But when I’m wrong, then I say I’m wrong, and I was wrong about you.” It’s so much better than in the movie where they just gloss over her smiling and go “And they made up and now they’re friends!” It’s so refreshing to hear someone painted as a total bitch up and say, “Hey, you know what? I misjudged you.” I loved that they did that with her.
YES VIVIENNE GETS TO BE A REAL PERSON AND THE WHOLE CLIMAX IS ABOUT WOMEN SUPPORTING AND HELPING EACH OTHER!!!
The only thing I prefer about the movie to the musical (besides Reese Witherspoon) is that they cut Maggie Smith’s part – that professor was another woman supporting and helping other women at the end, and I missed her. But I liked what they did with Vivienne.
He gets a personality! He has to learn from Elle about style mattering as well as substance! He changes his clothes onstage! aaaaaaaaaaah
He looks hoooot… IS HE NOT HOOOOT? (HOT HOT HOT HOT!)
(Also there is no part of that whole sequence in the mall that I love more than “That’s the best part! The outside is new, but now it reflects what’s already in you. Couldn’t change that if I wanted to. And I do not.”)
SUBTEXT, BY CALVIN KLEIN
“What’s that smell?” “Subtext.”
CHRISTIAN.
BORLE.
NNGHHH
I really love this article! I am a former musical theater kid and can completely feel your pain. Never was a HUGE fan of Stephen Schwartz’s anything but to refer to that as simply a “good performance” from Idina Menzel is just outrageous. Her belting a G became like, my belting benchmark as a parent-torturing high schooler.
“Bring me…daaaahh-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaAAAaaaaawnnnnn”
This was a wonderful article! And I’d like to add that everyone should follow the instructions in the Raul Esparza tag at the bottom.
I did! I’m so happy now!
Seconded! It’s tremendous.
Thanks, Sarah, this was a lovely piece. While I don’t think Wicked is in competition for Best Musical Ever, it does feature themes about women and friendship and fitting in (or not) that really speak to teenage girls especially. And it’s good that there’s *something* on Broadway that speaks to them, because it ain’t gonna be Mamet or Sam Shepherd.
Hey, what about Tom Stoppard? He speaks to absolutely everyone! We have the misunderstood female genius (Arcadia) and the happy-go-lucky male goofballs (Rosencranz and Guildenstern.) I mean, who else is there?
Is Glinda really vain and shallow? She starts out that way for sure, but gets some major-league character development and winds up one of the most sympathetic characters in the show. She’s important to me in the way that Elphaba was important to a lot of other girls, bc her character arc helped me stop a certain pattern of nasty behavior in my life that I realized was rooted in fear and insecurity more than anything else.
But YES, get on with your ‘Wicked’ loving self, I too know the pain of adoring a somewhat-maligned show and the insufferability of Broadway snobs. (Legally Blonde: The Musical is one of the best new musicals of the last 10 years and I will fight anyone who says otherwise. I could write an essay on how good it is. I HAVE written essays on how good it is.)
Legally Blonde: The Musical is basically perfect in every way and I will be your second if you need to duel anyone who says otherwise. I would also read your essays!
I will also read those essays!
THERE IS A SIXTEEN-COUNT BELTING NOTE IN “SO MUCH BETTER”
IT IS MUSICAL MARATHONNING, DAMNIT
(I have a lot of feels about this show, can you tell?)
I once wrote a paper where I briefly compared Elle Woods to Richard III, because they’re both such insane powerhouse parts that give the actor less than 10 minutes of downtime (and that’s being generous). They are working the ENTIRE show. I mean, even Sweeney Todd gets all the Johanna/Anthony stuff. There are no subplots in Legally Blonde–it’s all Elle. I have such mad respect for Laura Belle Bundy and her ilk.
YES! Did you see when MTV aired the musical live, and they had all these little cut-scenes behind the scenes between commercial breaks, and they showed one of her gleefully telling the story of how in “Gay or European?” she likes to mimic Celine Dion’s nasal head voice because no one can hear her alone when it’s a group number? It’s one of the most hilariously adorable things I’ve ever seen. For someone who spends the ENTIRE SHOW singing to take a break mid-show like that to goof around, it just amused the hell out of me.
I used to be very interested in Musical Theatre, and now I like it but am not obsessed with it (change in friend group, mostly- still love shows, just don’t have people to spend a lot of time talking to about it anymore…) but nothing makes me more angry than the embarrassment I feel when I talk about how much I loved seeing Legally Blonde: The Musical live, and how great a soundtrack it is. So many of those songs still make me so happy! I love them, and I love hearing them. pisses me the hell off when I mention that it was great and then have to follow up with “really! I swear!” and sometimes feel the need to add “I mean I know it’s silly…” But it isn’t silly! It’s great and empowering and fun, not trivial, and musical theatre isn’t bad just because women really like it. Neither are romcoms. And I hate that people make me feel like I should apologize for liking a musical because it is, essentially, “too female.”
UGH anyways the point is, you are all my people, thank you for being here and fighting the good fight against legally blonde haters.
A+ piece, A+ bio, A+ recommendation in the tags.
JUST SAW THAT. RAUL ESPARZA FOREVER
(I met him and he’s really short but nice)
oh god how is this not on the femslash friday docket yet
Truth: reading the academic equivalent of Elphaba/Galinda femslash is what turned me on to Wicked in the first place! http://instructors.dwrl.utexas.edu/schneider/site…
(queerness starts around page 5)
I 1000000% came down to the comments to recommend Stacy Wolf’s book – slash – have been considering a pitch to the Toast based largely around said book.
(In case it’s not clear, Stacy Wolf’s superb book is Changed for Good: A Feminist History of the Broadway Musical, and it rocks.)
YES that is a good article, thank you for linking.
Yes please! After being introduced to the show through “Defying Gravity” during the Tonys years ago, I was actually surprised to learn that there was supposed to be a straight love interest/triangle involved, the subtext is so strong.
In some productions, supposedly it is straight-up canon (as well as in the book? Can anyone who’s read it weigh in?)
Haven’t read it in years, but as I remember it, their relationship is HEAVILY implied to have a romantic/sexual component to it, if only for a brief period. I kind of want to go back and check now to see if 13-year-old me missed anything.
In the book, there’s a weird “Having slept with my husband, you have absorbed his powers as the head of the table and man of my household, and my manipulation of you will consequently take on an extremely flirty vibe” thing going on between Elphaba and Fiyero’s wife.
MAKE IT SO, MALLORY.
Oh man, this is really thoughtful and I love it a lot.
I think the pendulum love-to-hate effect is pretty common with musicals that blow up and teens who enjoy them initially, but then catch on that their tastes are supposed to “evolve” (see: Spring Awakening, Les Mis, everyone with Rent after 1999). Good musicals themselves are kind of stupidly earnest, and it’s a little embarrassing when you realize that at 17 and think you have to cut a cooler figure than sobbing to “On My Own” playing on your CD player #anecdotal.
It is really notable, however, that Wicked is the only enduring box-office smash musical I can think of where the story revolves around two WOMEN – Fiyero is the closest to a main male character, and he’s more secondary than anything. Especially considering how into musicals so many teenage girls really are.
I went to see Jersey Boys with my parents over break (tl;dr we’re from Jersey and anyone singing The Four Seasons anywhere is ALWAYS an awesome time) and was totally struck at how there were actually NO women in that storyline. Like, none. What??
I am MUCH too old to love Spring Awakening in the way and the degree that I do.
Oh whatever, that original cast recording KILLS IT. Hey, undiscovered Lea Michele!
Can I say this is how I felt about Twilight at one time? Because it’s how I felt about Twilight at one time. Loved it when it was just the first couple of books (and when I was like, 14 please note), and once the movie came out and there was all the very prominent criticism, I started to hate it, very loudly. Would correct anybody that thought I still liked it. And it was mosty because I didn’t want to seem vapid and brainless.
Nowadays my reaction to it is a lot less volatile, but I still don’t like it– but for way different reasons than my original about-face.
I have all the books. I fucking love teen vampires, I’m a grown-ass feminist, and IDGAF.
(I think they’re terrible too, I just don’t want you to feel lonely admitting to loving the books at 14.)
I appreciate your kindness Nicole!
Glad to see someone connect the phenomenon to books, because while I never had a musical, I did love, then ABHOR, then grudgingly reunite with (though I made him sign a lengthy prenup), then finally admit I genuinely liked Stephen King. These things are just hard sometimes.
Oh, this is lovely. Wicked wasn’t “my” musical growing up (that would be Les Mis, my fave overblown behemoth), but I still get kind of misty whenever I hear/listen to/think about “For Good” because my college roommates used to sing it to each other, constantly, in such a genuinely affectionate way. it was the sweetest thing. (ha haaa oh no here I go again)
also I am waaay into reclaiming/re-embracing old teenage interests (musical or otherwise) that I had previously turned my back on, for whatever reason. (one of the best things about getting older: the ability to give no fucks and just enjoy what I enjoy.)
If you ever feel like you need a good cleansing cry, look for the video of Idina and Kristen’s last performance of “For Good” together.
oh noooo, I will be a mess.
…when I watch this immediately after coming home tonight.
….WELP, I’m a mess.
Les Mis 25th Anniversary “One Day More” with booming 100+ member choir forever, please and thanks.
sobbing forever oh god
awwww yiss. though my heart will always be with the 10th anniversary concert, since that’s what was available in my teen years. also, Nick Jonas. (…who I actually saw as Gavroche on Broadway, haha.)
ALL THE JEAN VALJEANS! (Including Chairman Kaga from original Iron Chef!)
I’m pretty sure I swooned when I first saw Chairman Kaga come out on stage as Jean Valjean. swoooooned.
I have sung it as part of a 100+ voice choir. Not a dry eye in the house.
I love this! Wow, we women/girls are taught to hate ourselves at every turn. We all need to turn up “Defying Gravity” and tell the haters to go %^&$ themselves. I say this as a woman whose favorite movie and song of all time are “Xanadu.” ONJ 5EVA.
Wicked has been coming up as a topic of conversation a lot since Idina Menzel sings Elsa in Disney’s Frozen. So I wonder if you’ve seen it, and what you thought?
I quite liked it, with one specific exception – I thought the scoring and songwriting kind of sucked in general – they offered little to no connection to the setting, the story, or the emotion of the moment. But Idina was great, and her big song, “Let It Go” worked the best of all of them.
I know little of Wicked itself, but it seems, from your description to address similar themes.
Everyone’s seen this Tumblr post by now, right? Well, just in case you haven’t: “Why I Fucking Love Teenage Girls: A Personal Essay from an Almost Adult” http://fygirlcrush.tumblr.com/post/61909850505
“I’m not saying the show should exist above criticism; just that “too much spectacle” can’t be code for “too much spectacle for a trivial subject like women’s emotions.”
PREACH.
Does anyone want to talk about the book Wicked, though? I really liked it because it was weird and complex and ugly and female characters, but the follow-ups fell very flat to me. I’m not sure if Gregory Maguire got lucky with the first book or just tried to stretch a good idea too far in the sequels, or maybe I’m reading awesomeness into the first book that’s not really there.
HERMAPHRODITISM SUBPLOT OR BUST
(I liked Wicked-the-book A Lot, which meant that I disliked Wicked-the-musical To An Equal Degree)
Haha, yeah, this is me too. I was too old to identify strongly with the musical (my big embarrassing early-teens love was Phantom of the Opera), but I was annoyed by how simple it was compared to the failed-terrorist mystical dragon-clock complicated-sexuality weirdness of the book.
I made the mistake that I imagine many girls my age made, which was to read it when I was 14. I was a pretty mature fourteen-year-old, and I just did not understand a lot of what was happening in that book, sex-wise. I don’t think I’d recommend it to someone in mid-puberty – your own sexuality is complicated enough to be figuring out. (Then again, I haven’t read it since then so maybe it actually would be good, to offer alternative models of sex and sexuality?) I just remember being SUPER freaked. I should go back and read it again sometime.
I think it just depends on each persons comfort levels. I also read it at 14 and really enjoyed it (and have since re-read it and don’t feel like I missed much) but I have cousins who are 16 who I absolutely wouldn’t recommend it to because it would probably not be the right book for them because of that. I highly recommend reading it again, it’s a fantastic book!
I read it at about 14 and haven’t read it since and all I remember is being so freaked out by the orgy scene with the tiger. D:
I read it at about 35 and haven’t read it since, and all I remember is being freaked out by the orgy scene with the tiger. D: D:
I loved the book and yeah, couldn’t quite get into the follow-ups in the same way though I desperately wanted them to be as good as the original because it is so.damn.good. with so.damn.much. going on it that I would pick up something new on every re-read. Maybe it isn’t as good as I remember, but 22-year-old me (12 years ago) adored Wicked the book.
I stopped picking up the follow-ups after the one with the Lion, i think? Or maybe that was the last one Because I bought the book and there were about 20 pages in the middle missing, and i said “oh well” because I just wasn’t that into it. But I still wanted to have a final overview of the world/mythology/Mother Yabba Yakka something? Does that ever happen?
I wouldn’t know because I quit after (or possibly during) the Lion, too! I started to feel like maybe Maguire didn’t even have a cohesive vision at that point, but who can say.
Last year, at the age of 25 so definitely not a teenager anymore, I found myself SOBBING in the theater during For Good. I was going through a very rough patch with my best friend and it seemed like our friendship might be over. That song hit me right in the gut.
Wicked didn’t come out until I was already in college, so I kind of missed that one. It was Les Mis for me.
Fell in love with it when I was twelve, never fell OUT of love with it, but I did become embarrassed by my fangirling, and looked down on the “Eppie-boppers” (the young girls that loved “On My Own,” and compared their own unrequited crushes to the feelings Eponine had for Marius. They just didn’t get it, I thought, as I secretly filled notebooks with (absolutely terrible) Valjean/Javert slash. That’s just a silly, girly feeling. I want to talk about MEN and their ANGST.
…what was WRONG with me?
(I do still enjoy good Valjean/Javert, though.)
Ahahhah I was def one of those Eppie-boppers. What made it worse was that I was actually in a student production of it at the time, with my “beloved.” Can you imagine, one of the lovely ladies pining desperately after Thénardier? Thank god I can laugh at myself about this stuff now.
it still makes me laugh that the portmanteau name for Valjean/Javert is Valvert. it sounds like a spreadable processed cheese, not angsty old man slash. D:
Oh man, Les Mis, that was my first music that I ever bought for myself (in double cassette form, it was the 90s, I had a mullet). I was definitely an Eppie girl. I used to put a scarf on my head and waft around waifishly lip-syncing to “On My Own”. But I had to quickly jump for the volume knob and turn it right down for the bit in “Dog Eat Dog” when Thenardier sings “And God in his heaven/he don’t interfere, cause he’s dead/as the stiffs at my feet”, because GOD COULD SEE ME LISTENING TO IT.
Ohhh man, my eighth grade notebooks were exclusively Valjean/Javert related… Though I think for me it was less about man angst and more about PHILIP QUAST <3 <3
Oh man, I got the Wicked songbook for piano and the number of times I played basically all the songs in the musical…I’m amazed my mom didn’t throw it in the trash. I absolutely identified with so many elements of it so hard. Great piece, thank you for writing it!
Since I haven’t seen it mentioned yet, I must also stand up for all the Rent-heads of the world. That shit was my jam, and I just could not wait to live a glamorous life of squatting in alphabet city. Though I now want to shake EVERYONE for encouraging Roger, the recovering addict, to date Mimi the ACTIVE USER, I still love it. Angel 🙁
omg remember when Tom Collins sings “I’ll Cover You (Reprise)” and I cried forever and ever and ever and will never stop now.
nooooooooooo why would you do thaaaaaaaaaaaat
“You OK, honey?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“They get any money?”
“No. Had none to get. But they purloined my coat. Well, you missed a sleeve!”
“Hell…it’s Christmas Eve. I’m Angel.”
“Angel…an angel in the first degree…”
*sob*
Are you kidding? I cry every time it comes up on my iPod! For the record, I’m over 40.
Ahhh, yes!!! I am pretty sure I can still sing through the first act at least.
Real conversation between me and my best friend, who loves Rent:
Me: I never saw it. La Boheme ripoff, basically, right?
Friend: *eyeroll*
Ten minutes later:
Friend: Rent Rent Angel Rent gay male couple Rent Rent lesbian couple…
Me: LESBIAN COUPLE?! NO ONE TOLD ME THERE WERE LESBIANS IN RENT! WHY HAVE I NOT SEEN THIS YEARS AGO?!?
Friend: …I forgot?
Your Teen Life = My Teen Life – Wicked + Grease – ~25 years
It was ALW shows for me (except Aspects of Love, which I’d talk about at length to anyone who didn’t share my sophisticated taste.) Phantom lovers got an eye roll and an explanation of why the concept cast recording of Jekyll and Hyde was the only gothic musical worth thinking about. But seriously, the man had roller-skating trains, Donny Osmond in a rainbow coat, and choruses that stuck in your head for weeks. Any self-respecting theatre kid secretly ate that shit up whether he or she admitted it or not.
…I am at least thankful I was too old for Spring Awakening hysteria, though.
I was just thinking about Andrew Lloyd Webber! At some point, I picked up that his work was worthy of only disdain, although I never really could have articulated why, even though I still loved Sunset Boulevard. This persisted in some form over the years until last month, when I saw Evita for the first time, and was totally blown away.
I only know Love Changes Everything from Aspects of Love, but I could listen to Michael Ball sing pretty much anything all day long.
Why is it that whenever anyone tries to do a production of J & H, it’s the Broadway version and not the concept recording? UGH.
I knew I was old when my husband and I chaperoned a group of high school drama kids to the touring production of Spring Awakening that came to Boston several years ago. The musical didn’t touch me much at all, but afterward I felt very motherly toward all the kids, who were totally flipping out, gushing and dying to meet the actors.
As a former musical theater geek, I strongly relate to this. I LOVED Wicked in middle school…and then I got older and discovered Sondheim and that was that. I’m slowly warming back up to Wicked now that I’m a little calmer re: my musical tastes. Despite not singing along with it for years, I still know almost every word.
Note: It probably didn’t help that when my friends and I “assigned” parts to sing along with, they snatched up Elphaba, G(a)linda, and Nessa, and left me with Madam Morrible and the chorus parts. I was a bitter tween.
Only way to be as a tween.
Yessss I am so into this, having a very similar trajectory from adolescent to adult love of musicals. As I’ve gotten older and tried to distance myself from my teenage years, it’s been a struggle for me to not draw lines between musicals like Wicked, that I loved deeply at 14, and musicals like Sunday in the Park with George, which I love deeply now. I don’t connect with Wicked now like I did then, but I also never could have connected with Sunday in the Park then like I do now. Neither is inherently good or bad because of my reactions to them that are based largely on where I am at this time of my life.
Also, I have mental plans to write a lot of essays and articles about the perception of “spectacle” being inferior to “art” as it relates to audio-visual mediums because I think that relationship is so fascinating and weird. I think a lot of the time, people who deride spectacle actually intend to criticize the culture of commerce that surrounds spectacular things, but while spectacle and commerce have a relationship, it’s not necessarily an interdependent one.
ANYWAY MORE MUSICALS ON THE TOAST PLEASE.
I saw “Wicked” on my first trip to New York in high school and have loved it ever since and never even knew about a backlash because I was not a musical theater nerd.
The book, tho. My dad bought it for me for Christmas after my sister and I listened to the soundtrack incessantly and umm, the same 17 year old who loved the show was so. not. ready. for that book.
THE BOOK IS REALLY SO NOT GREAT.
THANKS FOR SAYING IT FOR ME.
My sister-in-law gave my daughter the book for her 10th birthday last year, on the premise that it was just like the musical. I quietly exchanged it on Amazon for The School for Good & Evil, by Chainani.
I’m so glad I’m studying Theatre Design and don’t have to pretend I dislike elaborate musicals. I am basically getting a degree in stage spectacle.
I am so into this post right now, I cannot even. I remember when the Chicago production opened in 2005, the Tribune wrote an article in which they said Wicked contained “Shameless Emotional Appeal to Teenage Girls of All Ages and Either Gender.”
I also remember watching the Tonys with my group of theater friends in high school (we got dressed all fancy and it was awesome). All the guys wanted Avenue Q to win Best New Musical and the girls wanted Wicked to win.
Speaking of getting really into feminist musicals, can we please talk about Cinderella? Because it is my current jam.
I am fascinated with seeing how this same cycle played out with all sorts of different musicals. (My 14-year-old, I-am-maybe-ok-for-being-different musical was Rent, for the record.) I think, though, you’ve hit an interesting nail on the head with the dismissiveness of women’s emotions with Wicked, re both the characters and the audience. There’s definitely a pervasive sense that if you don’t bring a ground-breaking, brilliant musical to the table but it’s about women anyway, that’s your own fault.
Also, Wicked is one of the best cast recordings ever for singing along with in the car. With or without other passengers.
Thanks for this essay. I admittedly did a squint-faced, why am I reading this? But you know, I like help understanding things. And frankly, I wanna love musicals (I like the old, really really shitty politics ones!), but being a teenage accompanist will sure as shit ruin Rent, Les Mis and, sadly, Wicked for you. If I never, ever play those fucking sets of chords from I Dreamed A Dream ever again, it will be too soon. Ah, adolescent hustles.
But I think I was always just a little jealous of those kids and maybe I will finally see this musical and Get It, one day. Someone save other musicals for me, pls!
(PS: I didn’t like the book and it was just too much and I wanted that to make it better but just me?)
Ohhh man, my eighth grade notebooks were exclusively Valjean/Javert related… Though I think for me it was less about man angst and more about PHILIP QUAST <3 <3
I don’t know much about theater, but it sounds like there are a lot of parallels to the art/museum communities, with which I am more familiar. It absolutely drives me up the wall when I hear this kind of reaction to something deemed popular versus something deemed serious. “Why should this Monet show get so many visitors, and this exhibition of cutting edge contemporary art get next to none?” The implication is that the visitors are too lazy or uneducated to appreciate the “serious” exhibition, and it’s just a panacea to the masses to put on an exhibition that appeals more broadly. What a fucking lack of respect. Maybe it is “popular,” but something is clearly speaking to the visitors who go to the popular exhibitions (or popular musicals). Why the need for derision for broad appeal? Maybe try understanding their point of view instead of your own?
Anyway, rant over. Sigh. Cultural gatekeepers!! BAH!
This is all true, but my appreciation of Wicked has been somewhat spoiled by seeing Gregory Maguire (author of the book Wicked) speak on a panel a few years ago (with Kate Beaton and Karen Russell, who were both fantastic). My God. I have never witnessed someone so self-obsessed.