Wicked - Broadway

Wicked - NY1

Described as a dense epic fantasy, 'Wicked," based on a novel, is an intricate work. It tells the story of Elphaba, the bright but neglected young girl born with green skin who is good and kind. How she turns into the wicked witch is a long, winding road filled with bizarre characters and strange plot twists. The problem with the show's book, by Winnie Holzman, is that it has to cover so much ground in a connect-the-dots fashion that we're deprived of the necessary depth and character development to make us really care about Elphaba or her unlikely friend Galinda, who later becomes Glinda the good witch. Director Joe Mantello handles the intimate scenes well, but he's not quite as successful moving the traffic on Eugene Lee's dark, mechanical set. The ensemble numbers are indistinguishable. The special effects were impressive but a show of this caliber needed more. Stephen Schwartz, the composer behind "Godspell" and "Pippin," has written some lovely music, particularly his ballads for the witches, but the score is uneven and the beautiful melodies that marked his earlier works are disappointingly absent here.

There's Trouble in Emerald City - New York Times

As a parable of fascism and freedom, "Wicked" so overplays its hand that it seriously dilutes its power to disturb. Much of the impact of Baum's original novel, like that of so many fantasy stories, came from haunting, symbolic figures that readers interpret on their own terms. Though there have been numerous literary analyses of Baum's "Oz" as a coded case for populism and agrarian reform, the book never feels like a tract. "Wicked," on the other hand, wears its political heart as if it were a slogan button. This is true not only of the dialogue, but also of Mr. Schwartz's generically impassioned songs, which have that to-the-barricades sound of the omninously underscored anthems of "Les Misérables." Though the talk is festooned with cutely mangled word ("swankified," "thrillified," "gratitution") that bring to mind the language of Smurfs, there's a rock-hard lecture beneath the preciousness. Mr. Mantello reconciles the gap between form and content only in Ms. Chenoweth's performance.