Robert Small, The blog thereof.

While I was in Chicago I went to the musical Wicked with my girlfriend. For those of you who don’t know what it is I’ll give a brief explanation. Wicked is the story of what happened before the story ‘The Wizard of Oz’ and a little more around it. It shows how the witches started off being who they were and why this was the case. What I really liked about it was it’s ability to make me rethink what I thought about all the characters within the story. It’s a severe reminder to those of us prone to judge on what we see not to do so. The whole story is too complex to explain in one go like this, and it’s also too good a story for me to want to spoil it for you.

I’m reminded so often that what we’re forced to act on is so so often a torn scarp of an involved and colourful picture, one side of a dodecahedron. You’d hardly want your case to be heard in court if they refused to let you have more than ten lines of your defence speech. It’s strange then that so often we jump to conclusions, often with less information than that.

Looking at a homeless person you might presume that they put themselves there, that it was entirely their fault that they’re now forced to roam the streets. What you don’t see is what they may have gone through on the way down. On the streets of Chicago there are many homeless who are (or so I’m told) often those with severe mental problems, society - it would seem - has no coping mechanism to provide these people with adequate and viable treatment.

Just as you may be forced to re-look at how people got where they are today on the streets Wicked! makes you look again at how the witches became good or bad, in fact it will certainly shake your view of who was good and who was bad.

The acting was terrific, really, terrific. The costumes were no less impressive, if I tell you that involves people dressed as flying monkeys then you may have some idea. I was certainly impressed by it. One of the things I loved was a mechanical dragon mounted over the stage, this roared and emitted smoke whenever it was appropriate (the exercising of magic, etc). All in all the musical really involved me and drew me into it, I’m generally a pretty harsh critic as I don’t entirely see the point of telling a story using exaggerated acting and singing. This was so well produced and directed that I only had a few little criticisms: one of the solo’s felt a little laboured as it was quite long and; there was a severe pun which I won’t reveal, it just annoyed me.

Over all, if I have the opportunity again I’ll have a second viewing. The acting was incredible, the special effects were wonderful; if you have a chance, watch it! I’m not telling you much because I don’t want to spoil the show.

Do tell me what you think; kind regards, Robert.