A whole year after Elphaba belted “Defying Gravity” midair and the credits of “Wicked” rolled, the witch is back in “Wicked: For Good,” an emotional and elongated version of the Broadway musical’s second act.
Theater-lover common wisdom has it that the first half of composer Stephen Schwartz’s “Wizard of Oz” riff based on Gregory Maguire’s novel is infinitely better than what comes after the bathroom break.
Onstage that’s true. All its best ballads (“The Wizard and I”) and company numbers (“Dancing Through Life”) are frontloaded. It’s a bright and poppy YA boarding-school story about a misunderstood cultural icon that ends with power.
Darker and grimmer Act 2, though, by a hair, makes a meatier movie because characters aren’t as silly — the first flick was practically a pageant — and they are actually propelling toward a satisfying conclusion.
Thus ends the longest intermission ever.
A whole year after Elphaba belted “Defying Gravity” midair and the credits of “Wicked” rolled, the witch is back in “Wicked: For Good,” an emotional and elongated version of the Broadway musical’s second act.
Theater-lover common wisdom has it that the first half of composer Stephen Schwartz’s “Wizard of Oz” riff based on Gregory Maguire’s novel is infinitely better than what comes after the bathroom break.
Onstage that’s true. All its best ballads (“The Wizard and I”) and company numbers (“Dancing Through Life”) are front-loaded. It’s a bright and poppy YA boarding-school story about a misunderstood cultural icon that ends with power.
Darker and grimmer Act 2, though, by a hair, makes a meatier movie because characters aren’t as silly — the first flick was practically a pageant — and they are actually propelling toward a satisfying conclusion.
