Wicked-ly Wonderful

Getting excited about seeing Wicked--again--this weekend. We have the "good" tickets from our group purchase for the Saturday matinee, with some truly excellent seats. Last night we whet our appetite as we had picked up some not-so-great tickets for a song and saw it--OMG, how good can a show be?

Very entertaining production--just watch it and the time flies by. I won't say Marcie Dodd as Elphaba stole the show, as this was a production incapable of one person "stealing," but her voice is truly incredible. Her "Defying Gravity" as the first Act closed was spine-tingling good.

I thought Helene York, playing Galinda, was up to the task acting the part of the self-absorbed rich beotch, but wasn't sure that her voice was as good as Dodd's. By Act II, she had more than held her own, however, and her comedic sense of timing was outstanding. I also thought Colin Donnell as the initially self-absorbed to match Galinda Fiero was wonderful, and had a voice to match.

The production itself was, well, quite a production. From the bubble Galinda comes down on in the opening scene, to the Wizard's mask, to the flying monkeys--who I thought did a terrific job of what a flying monkey would look like, act like, and move like, if they them--the whole thing was well worth the 5-stars awarded to it by Alec Harvey, and well worth the standing ovation that began before the curtain call for the entire cast.

And all of that was from the Netherlands, aka, Balcony, Row X. I felt like we were "defying gravity" ourselves from that far up, but we quickly forgot the distance and the angle when the wonderful actors and the production started. Will have great orchestra seats for Saturday's performance, dead center, or better Saturday. I can't wait.