Wicked

My roommate in Santa Barbara loves musicals. She loves to listen to the music while we do homework, while we cook, and makes it a weekly ritual to get together with friends to watch 'Glee', eat cereal and then come home and watch it again. Have you ever seen that episode of ‘How I Met your Mother’? Actually, it’s a running joke that only one song ever plays in Ted’s car because the cassette tape player is broken. That’s like Bridget’s car, except with the ‘Wicked’ soundtrack.  Needless to say, after hearing the soundtrack over, and over, and over again, ‘Wicked’ was the number one play that I felt the need to pay homage to while I was in London.

My friend was in town from Israel and so when she texted me and asked if I wanted to see ‘Wicked’, I didn’t hesitate. The tickets were a bit expensive at 50 pounds, and to be honest I feel like we could have gotten them much cheaper had she known where to buy them. We got some shifty mushroom risotto at a small Italian restaurant and a French man volunteered to take pictures of us outside of the theatre.

Our seats were pretty good; we sat in the orchestra and could see the whole stage. I was surprised that the stage setup was essentially the same as when I saw it at the Pantages Theater in Los Angeles a couple years prior.  One thing that I was a little disappointed in was the sound quality. Something was not working with the microphones because it sounded like their voices were muted, and these songs are meant to be belted. The actors, nonetheless, held their own and gave a magnificent performance.  As always, my favorite song in the first act was ‘Popular’, when Glenda is giving Elfaba a make over. It reminds me of high school when my friend would sing it in English class. The most amazing performance of the night, of course, was ‘Defying Gravity’, at which point the mic’s were fixed and the beautifully balanced vocals boomed within the auditorium.

The funniest thing happened at intermission; my British friend popped up and started towards the concession stand: “I have to get an ice cream!” and I thought hey, I learned about that in class. She told me it was a tradition, but I really didn’t want to pay so much for such a little tub of ice cream. Obviously a Yank’s gotta go all out with a tub.

The acting was wonderful, I thought that Glenda was much better portrayed with a British accent. I thought that the boyfriend could have been a hotter character, but he had a great voice and I’m sure he ‘really deserved it’. All of the characters, I felt, were picked out perfectly. Between the set design, the vocals and the acting the performance left me smiling, excited to tell my best friend in Ghana to make her extremely jealous, leaving me feeling just a little bit more ‘Wicked’. 

Kimmy Helling

UCSB