Did New York Critics Fall Under Wicked's Spell?

All eyes have been on Wicked since it began previews at the Gershwin Theatre on October 8. A new musical take on the land of Oz, starring Broadway favorites Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel, the show came to Gotham with mixed out-of-town reviews and quickly developed a cult-like following. But it was not until Thursday, October 31 that the tough New York-area critics had their shot at the Stephen Schwartz/Winnie Holzman tuner. Did they think the show should be here for good?

Here is a sampling of what they had to say:

Ken Mandelbaum in his Broadway.com Review: "From the moment Chenoweth floats down from on high, resplendent in a mechanical bubble at the beginning of Wicked, it's clear that in snobbish, self-centered Glinda, a young woman who will become the Good Witch of Oz, the star has found a role that fits her like a ruby slipper. But then Wicked has not one but two extremely confident, reliable leading ladies… It's understandable that a musical would want to brighten up a sometimes grim source. But if Wicked is provocative, it's also seriously muddled. An uneven, unwieldy show, Wicked has the feel of something wildly imaginative, even subversive, tempered to appeal to the family trade, transformed into a Disney-style product complete with a crowd-pleasing happy ending… Wicked should transport us to a magical universe. While its leading ladies exert all of their considerable powers to bewitch, Wicked remains earthbound."

Ben Brantley of The New York Times: "Even lying down, Ms. Chenoweth--who performed similar magic in You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown four years ago and won a Tony--remains airborne, proving that in the perilous skies of Broadway, nothing can top undiluted star power as aviation fuel. I was so blissed out whenever Glinda was onstage that I never felt I was wasting time at Wicked. I just kept smiling in anticipation of her return when she wasn't around. The talented Ms. Menzel will no doubt dazzle audience members whose musical tastes run to soft-rock stations. But for aficionados of the American musical, it's Ms. Chenoweth who's the real thing, melding decades of performing traditions into something shiny and new. Wicked does not, alas, speak hopefully for the future of the Broadway musical. Ms. Chenoweth, on the other hand, definitely does."

Clive Barnes of The New York Post: "What is spectacular about the show is the spectacle. That old Emerald City has never had it so good, with flying monkeys and giant Munchkins with extendable necks. Kids will love it, even if they don't quite understand it. But this yellow brick road is also paved with Steven Schwartz's oppressive music and banal, if sometimes pretentiously amusing, lyrics and the complex, if foolish, book by Winnie Holzman, based on a nuttily original novel by Gregory Maguire… The strength of Wicked--apart from the musical's cozy insistence on the political correctness of Munchkin and Animal Rights, even apart from the show's fantastic bells and whistles--is the acting… This is basically a kid's show with aspirations - but, as the circus folk say, children of all ages should warm at least somewhat to the technological fun and games."

Howard Kissel of The New York Daily News: "Wicked, the 'prequel' to The Wizard of Oz, is an interminable show with no dramatic logic or emotional center. Constantly lurching in different directions, the show seems to believe that whenever you reach an artistic impasse, throw money at it--in this case, $14 million."

Charles Isherwood of Variety: "It's not easy being green. Or blonde, for that matter. Those are just two of the many lessons to be learned from this big, murky new Broadway musical. But maybe the most salient pointer is that it ain't easy being a Broadway musical. A strenuous effort to be all things to all people tends to weigh down this lumbering, overstuffed $14 million production. Wicked is stridently earnest one minute, self-mocking the next; a fantastical allegory about the perils of fascism in one scene, a Nickelodeon special about the importance of inner beauty in another. There are flying monkeys, flying witches and flying scenery, but the musical itself truly soars only on rare occasions, usually when one of its two marvelously talented leading ladies, Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel, unleashes the kind of vocal magic that needs no supernatural or even technical assistance."

Michael Kuchwara of The Associated Press: "Wicked is a big musical. Big in its overstuffed plot. Big in its marvelous lead performances by Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel, two of the brightest stars in a new generation of musical-theater talent. And big in its setting, a fantasy environment by designer Eugene Lee that effectively fills the cavernous stage of the Gershwin Theater like no other show since Sweeney Todd -- which also was designed by Lee. The musical has a reported price tag of $14 million, and you can see every penny in Lee's eye-popping designs… Holzman crams a lot into the evening, and the show gets bogged down in Act 2 in some murky moralizing about hypocrisy, although director Joe Mantello always seems to have matters under control. Yet the plot, for all its excesses, is not the real problem. Where Wicked shrinks and stalls for time is in its score…"

Elysa Gardner of USA Today: "It's safe to say that this is the most complete, and completely satisfying, new musical I've come across in a long time. The triumph is not Schwartz's alone. Adapted from a Gregory Maguire novel, Wicked offers a post-feminist, socially conscious reinterpretation of the story of Oz's Wicked Witch of the West. Though that may sound like a recipe for pretentious pedantry, writer Winnie Holzman, whose TV credits include thirtysomething and My So-Called Life, provides a libretto that juggles winning irreverence with thoughtfulness and heart… Kristin Chenoweth is ideally cast as Glinda, a dizzy blonde whose peppy facade belies a fragile heart, while Idina Menzel's Elphaba is a powerfully human sorceress, particularly when delivering haunting new songs such as "No Good Deed" and "I'm Not That Girl." Norbert Leo Butz is compelling as a suitor who threatens to come between the witches, and Joel Grey and Carole Shelley shine as a somewhat ethically challenged Wizard and his press secretary. A fine ensemble helps ensure that even the most flagrantly cute and sentimental moments are hard to resist. Add in tunes that you can actually leave the theater humming, and you have a thoroughly enchanting experience."

Linda Winer of Newsday: "Somewhere--over the rainbow, under the rainbow, or rainbow not included with purchase--there lurks the heart of a smart, lovable, bitter and sweet musical called Wicked. In fact, if you click your ruby slippers together, or at least concentrate harder than should be required at a $14-million Broadway family confection, you should be able to locate the soul of this much-anticipated Oz prequel in the overproduced, overblown, confusingly dark and laboriously ambitious jumble that opened last night in the impossibly cavernous Gershwin Theatre. Hint: keep your eye on the witches. These wonderful girls from Oz--Idina Menzel as the Wicked Witch and Kristin Chenoweth as Glinda the Good--are the delight in the long evening and the best reason for the show. Somewhere along the road from a reportedly promising tryout in San Francisco last spring, however, the creative team appears to have lost sight of the primacy of the witches' story over the spectacle."