The Wiz

I had a great load of fun this past weekend, trekking down to San Diego on Saturday to see the new production of The Wiz at the La Jolla Playhouse. The show was originally created in the 1970s as a twist on the Wizard of Oz story. The twist? An all black cast, with a script infused with slang and 70s pop songs. The show was made into an awful movie starring Michael Jackson and Dianna Ross, but memories of the stage version have lived on.

The interest in this particular production is that it's strongly rumored to be headeing for Broadway. With the talent and money involved, it seems a strong possibility: Des McAnuff directed this production, he of last seasn's Braodway megahit Jersey Boys, and choreographer Sergio Trujillo also worked on Jersey Boys as well as a few other New York projects. That creative team doesn't fly out to San Diego for nothing. Then there's the set: huge, technically complex, and extremely expensive looking. A small regional theatre like the La Jolla Playhouse - no matter how prestigious - doesn't just drop millions on a flashy production like this. It's clear they're trying this thing out for New York. No one's saying anything about it officially yet, but being the Broadway theatre queen that I am, I had to go see it.

It was a lot of fun! Admittedly, it was a lot more fun because we was sitting ON the stage. Yes, on it (that was our view, in the picture to the left). My lovely cousin, who I saw the show with, bought the tickets for us and unwittingly got us seats in the special gallery section that they had built into the stage. This turned out to be an excellent surprise, since we got to be so close to all of the actors and all of the show's amazing technical elements unfolded two feet from our faces. It was also a hugely fun perspective to watch the show - we got to see much of the audience's reactions, and in this production, the actors venture out into the audience via a yellow-brick road that really spills into the audience, and monkeys fly around above the auditorium, too.

I haven't decided, though, whether I had so much fun because I was up there with all of the action. I shrieked with delight when Dorothy's house started spinning and sank into the stage as the storm hits her rural Kansas home. And when the storm creatures danced around the stage, then literally shot huge confetti canons at those of us sitting on the stage, we were having a blast!

The show itself was amusing enough - a few great songs and a fabulously talented cast who blew the roof off the house with the songs and entertained us with quirky characterizations in the book scenes. (See the full cast list here). The book though, needs some major work: stuff just happens, and the production fails to generate much of a heart through the whole thing. Before we get a chance to care about Dorothy - she seems pretty bratty during the first scene - the storm suddenly whisks us away and we're left wondering why the hell she wants to get back to Kansas so badly. Only a great song at the end of Act 1, where she sings sweetly about the joys of home, does that job, and by that time its almost too late.

I suppose the best way to describe the show: it's like a theme park show. Lot's of fun, with flashy sets, fun dance numbers, and a bunch of random action. Hopefully they'll fix a few of the book problems, but still the show was a bunch of fun to watch this time around.

Oh yeah, and the trip to San Diego was also a blast! Really enjoyed hanging out with my cousin and meeting her friends. :-)


Photos by Kevin Berne. Top Right: Nikki M. James as Dorothy with Tituss Burgess as the Lion, Rashad Naylor as the Scarecrow, and Michael Benjamin Washington as the Tinman with the company. Above: (1) David Allen Greer as The Wiz; (2) the company; (3) Nikki M James as Dorothy with E. Faye Butler as Evillene and Albert Blaise Cattafi as Toto.