Once again, we have “Wicked”-ness thrust upon us

Cynthia Erivo (left) is Elphaba and Ariana Grande is Galinda in the movie adaptation of Wicked. Universal Pictures - © Universal Studios. All Rights Reserved

What this troubled, chaotic, terrifying world needs right now is…more opinions about the movie version of Wicked! And we are here to serve.

Way back in 2003, Universal Pictures wanted in on all that Disney Broadway money being stirred up by their movie-to-stage adaptations of Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King. So they optioned Gregory Maguire’s Wizard of Oz prequel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West and turned it into a lush musical that had its pre-Broadway tryout at the San Francisco’s Curran Theatre.

As a theater critic for the Oakland Tribune at the time, I was thrilled to get to write about a buzzy new musical based on a book I really liked. I couldn’t wait for opening night, so I bought a ticket for a preview performance. There was a near-disaster at the show I saw (which is just the kind of thing you want from a preview) when, in Act 2, Elphaba magically appears to her sister, Nessarose, through a wardrobe. On this particular night, the wardrobe was extremely wobbly, and Idina Menzel, playing Elphaba (the eventual Wicked Witch), was visibly nervous that the large set piece was going to fall on the actor playing her sister, who is in a wheelchair, so she ever so gracefully maneuvered the chair out of fall range. But that wasn’t quite enough. Stagehands soon emerged and did what they could to fix the situation. The scene resumed, and both actors got the giggles, which the audience loved and applauded heartily. Then the scene began in earnest, and we were back in the groove.

By the time I attended the official opening night, all the withces’ glitches were fixed, and Menzel and co-star Kristin Chenoweth playing Glinda the Good Witch, emerged as true Broadway stars and as the saving grace of a rather lumpy musical adaptation with a book by Winnie Holzman (favorite works: thirtysomething, My So-Called Life) and a score by Stephen Schwartz (favorite works: Pippin, Godspell). The show opened on Broadway later that year and is still running 21 years later, with an estimated 65 million people having seen the show in one production or another worldwide, contributing to an estimated gross of more than $6 billion.

So with a money machine like that, there was no rush to turn it into a movie. But apparently the time turned right when director John M. Chu (a Palo Alto native) became attached to the property and decided to turn one musical into two movies, with Part One now in theaters and projected to have a record opening weekend of $120 million – the biggest ever for a Broadway adaptation.

Cynthia Erivo is an extraordinary Elphaba in the Wicked movie. Universal Pictures - © Universal Studios. All Rights Reserved

I’ve seen Wicked on stage a number of times (including the most recent tour, which you can read about here), and I’ve grown more fond of it over the years, and I love how much it means to its fans. My biggest surprise with the movie is how much more I liked it compared to the stage version.

Much of that has to do with the two leads: Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba and Ariana Grande as Glinda. They both have marvelous faces for the screen and eyes of great expressive depth. Grande is a wonderfully hammy comic, and Erivo imbues Elphaba with soul and dignity and deep wells of pain. She and Grande have a sparkling chemistry, and in the end – despite all its politics and subplots – the whole Wicked enterprise centers on the relationship between these two women.

Part One hews to Act 1 of the show, and though it’s long (2 hours and 40 minutes), it doesn’t really drag. Director Chu has a real feel for musical spectacle (although the choreography is mostly awful), and his physical design is stunning and overwhelming in its garish Oziness.

With his two leads, and a sturdy supporting cast that includes a regal Michelle Yeoh and an ultra-charming Jonathan Bailey, he never lets us lose sight of the human scale of the story, even when that story is about the persecution of Oz’s talking animals.

I’m not usually a fan of excessive CGI in movies, but the animated animal characters here – especially a governess bear and a goat professor (voiced by Peter Dinklage) – are actually quite moving.

There is, in my opinion, unnecessarily excessive fan service in the “One Short Day” number, but it’s nice to see that Chu and his team chose to honor their Broadway predecessors (composer Schwartz also pops up as an Emerald City guard).

There’s more I could carp about, but the truth is, Wicked: Part One is the most entertaining of the mammoth stage musical movie adaptations. Better by far than Les Misérables and Phantom of the Opera movies (let’s not even mention Cats) and with much better vocals than Chicago or Mamma Mia!.

After all these years, Wicked, has found a way to cast its biggest, most beguiling spell yet.