Sunday, February 08, 2004

By Christopher Rawson, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

NEW YORK -- Musicals are where you really find Broadway's heart, mind -- and wallet. Though this season's new supply hasn't so far included any obvious blockbusters, it hasn't done badly.

Among new shows, "The Boy From Oz" isn't what you'd call art, but led by the multi-charismatic Hugh Jackman, it is certainly attracting audiences and sending them off happy. Perhaps the most widely praised new show is "Avenue Q," an adventuresome little entertainment with a bouncy score and human-puppet sex. But the biggest hit so far is "Wicked," which, pending the arrival of "Bombay Dreams," is the early favorite for the Tony.

Among revivals, "Wonderful Town" is off to a strong start, buoyed by the comic stardom of Donna Murphy. Alfred Molina is about to arrive with "Fiddler on the Roof." If it could have survived the winter doldrums, the recycled "Never Gonna Dance" (which may count as new in some categories) could have been in the thick of it at Tony time.

Today's reviews are of two that have the temerity to challenge icons.

"Wicked"

A pop-culture icon can't get more iconic than "The Wizard of Oz." "Wicked" is nothing less than an alternative version of that beloved story, turning a comic adventure into a tragedy and making a hero of the Wicked Witch of the West.

The book of "Wicked" is adapted by Winnie Holzman from Gregory Maguire's 1995 novel of the same name. Maguire creates a back story for Oz by shifting the center of the tale. Taking as his basic text not just L. Frank Baum's first book, "Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz," but also the many subsequent Oz tales, Maguire imagines a diverse kingdom with layers of tragic history.

What was once an Eden shared by people and animals has become a repressive state, albeit with a sheen of benevolence and plenty of good P.R., in which the Wizard's government suppresses talking animals and drives them into brute servitude.

Baum's tale, it seems, is like Shakespeare's histories -- both spoke for the interest of the government in power.

Into this Oz is born an unusual green-skinned girl, supposed daughter of the governor of Munchkinland but actually fathered by a traveling con man selling a patent medicine elixir of brilliant green. Maguire names her Elphaba, after L. Frank Baum. The novel traces her life story through five phases: unhappy youth with her favored sister, Nessarose; her studies of sorcery at college, where her roommate is the future Glinda the Good; idealistic rebellion, as she fights the Wizard's fascist regime; grieving exile; and final political martyrdom.

Maguire works within the outlines of the story of Baum and MGM, but he turns it on his head. Elphaba still dies at the hand of Dorothy, but how and why? And what is the "true" origin of the Scarecrow, Tin Woodsman, Cowardly Lion and flying monkeys? As a novel, "Wicked" is darkly beautiful, a sad tale of invention and detail in telling parallel to the 20th century and its Big Brother, political doublespeak and racism.

The musical tilts much more toward comedy, though it's still dark, with many characters tragically lost along the way. (It's no children's tale -- I wouldn't take anyone younger than a precocious 8.) Mainly, it makes a co-star of Glinda, so we have the delicious comic contrast of the angry, intelligent misfit and the popular, shrewd sorority queen. It also compresses the novel's story. The political allegory is still clear, as when the Wizard says, "The best way to get people together is to give them a real good enemy," a standard principle of government from Henry V to George W. Bush. But so much of the novel's politics and protest are omitted that what's left can sound preachy. Then the ending is lightened significantly, turning tragedy into romantic (if still melancholy) escape.

The score by Carnegie Mellon grad Stephen Schwartz ("Godspell," "Pippin," "Rags") has a rock flavor, with a few welcome comic numbers but lots of melodramatic anthems -- too much, for my taste. Some songs slow down the story rather than advance it, singing what we already know. "No Good Deed" is one song that goes on too long. I hope they prune the score before the tour -- you could profitably remove 10 or 15 minutes to get the show under 2 1/2 hours.

The monumental set by scenic wizard Eugene Lee uses the Gershwin Theatre's great width to suggest a gnarled and Grimm fairy-tale world. But in some ways, such as the impressive dragon's head soaring above the stage, the set hints at aspects of the novel left unexplained. Susan Hilferty's elaborately inventive costumes are like Dickens mixed with Shockheaded Peter. And there's flying, of course. With expansive direction by Joe Mantello, "Wicked" is a powerful spectacle. It is also witty, with self-conscious parallels to "Evita," "Frankenstein" and more.

But its main appeal is its two central characters, the defiant Elphaba played by Idina Menzel and the giddy Glinda played by Kristin Chenoweth. I suppose Chenoweth is the favorite for the Tony, but it's a shame, because you can't imagine one without the other -- sour and sweet, rebel and conformist, tragic and comic. In the end, however much Glinda sells out, each is affected by the other.

In performance, this yin-yang duality is vividly realized by Menzel's voice of soaring protest, stark and plangent, in acute contrast to Chenoweth's vocal prettiness. Of course, Glinda gets most of the laughs, not all of them directed at her, and Elphaba bears the major burden of anguish: As the title suggests, it's really her story.

Norbert Leo Butz brings a contrastingly contemporary flavor to Fiyero, the Winkie prince both girls love. Joel Grey plays the Wizard as though he were still sweet Frank Morgan -- that makes his tyranny even creepier, but I'd like to see a touch of iron in Grey's performance, which seems self-indulgent. Carole Shelley is grandly manipulative as Madame Morrible, whose power over weather has something to do with that famous twister.

I don't think "Wicked" undermines the familiar Oz at all, but it sure presents a compelling alternative.

At Gershwin Theatre, 22 W. 51st St.; call 1-800-755-4000.

"Never Gonna Dance"

Here, the iconic original is the archetypal Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musical -- like Oz, also a product mainly of golden age Hollywood, although less sacrosanct, since it isn't so emotionally intertwined with childhood. "Never Gonna Dance" doesn't ask us to revise our affection for the Astaire-Rogers films, which are perfection of their kind. It is an imitative homage.

Inevitably, though, "Never Gonna Dance" has suffered from comparison to its source, because there's no way it can bring Astaire back to life or recreate the social environment in which Astaire's style and grace flourished. But it stands firmly on its own many feet, an appealing dance-based musical with a pleasant book, lively supporting players and two leads who provide fit vehicles for our return to the vanished world of giddy, graceful musical froth.

As iconic as Astaire and Rogers is the score, all by Jerome Kern. "Never Gonna Dance" is based on the movie "Swing Time," where Kern's songs have lyrics by Dorothy Fields, but it uses other Kern songs with lyrics by seven others, from Oscar Hammerstein II to Ira Gershwin, from P.G. Wodehouse to Johnny Mercer.

The book has been completely revised and rewritten by Jeffrey Hatcher, many of whose plays we've seen in Pittsburgh, including two world premieres at City Theatre, which gave him its Frankel Award (duly noted in his program bio, though City Theatre is rather ungratefully omitted). Hatcher is from Steubenville, Ohio, which explains why that is the heroine's hometown and why the first scene is set in Punxsutawney.

The story is about a hoofer, Lucky (Noah Racey), who promises his non-dancing fiancee that he will give up dancing, earn $25,000 in one month and return to marry her. Once in Manhattan, he falls in love with a dancer, Penny (Nancy Lemenager), can't stop dancing himself and finds it all too easy to earn money, which he doesn't want, since he doesn't want to have to make good on his promise.

Paper-thin though it is, the story is substantial enough to support some good jokes by Hatcher, especially through the second couple, Mabel (witty, rueful Karen Ziemba) and Alfred J. Morganthal (rumpled Peter Gerety). Indeed, there's plenty of snappy traditional comedy, as with Lucky's backup trio, The Charms -- including Pittsburgh's own Roxane Barlow, who looks good in any period but seems especially at home in 1936. That's partly because of the very lovely period gowns and other costumes by William Ivey Long.

The sets by Robin Wagner suggest Manhattan in neat ways, their simplicity having a knowing art deco flourish. The sets aren't big, but they suggest a lot, such as the mist-shrouded rooftop girders of the still incomplete Radio City (here called the Vanderdander Center), and they have plenty of polish.

But "Never Gonna Dance" is really all about dancing, taking off at full speed with a fabulous long keynote number when Lucky is impelled to dance by the rhythms all around him at Grand Central Station. There are a half-dozen production numbers, as well as charming smaller numbers, such as the two women dancing together in Central Park to Mabel's "I Got Love."

But the focus is definitely on Lucky and Penny, as in their tentative then daring dance on those girders -- an eloquent emblem of the whole course of courtship, from early diffidence to giddy delight. This happens again, when, after the inevitable misunderstanding, they reunite to the enchantment of "The Way You Look Tonight," dancing a tentative seduction that gradually builds to final ecstatic spins that are the dance equivalent of sexual union.

And what a score! Along with those already mentioned, there are "A Fine Romance" (cleverly rewritten for three voices, one of them comic), "I Won't Dance," "Pick Yourself Up" and a dozen more.

Lacey is young, bright and charming, with that lithe, debonair quality we associate with Astaire, in contrast to the more virile style of Gene Kelly. Lemenager is feistier (well, she's red-haired), with a smile that challenges Paul Gallo's lights.

Gerety is a particular joy, a scruffy, unlikely second lead, and Ziemba is Ziemba, as winsome as she is funny. David Pittu's Latin crooner (complete with his own perpetual backup trio) and Peter Bartlett's dance studio owner handle the more cartoonish humor.

Just as you'd expect, "Never Gonna Dance" does just what its title says it won't and keeps it going right through a long curtain call encore you don't want to end. But end it will: The closing notice has just been posted for Feb. 15.

At Broadhurst Theatre, 235 W. 44th St.; call 1-800-432-7250.

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