Not a huge fan of musicals ... "Grease" and the "Mamma Mia" flicks are some rare exceptions ... but this is something special. I'd heard songs like "Popular" and "Defying Gravity" but never in the context of the charming, always timely, story they're mined from. Ariana Grande as Glinda and Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba both deserve Oscar nominations for their outstanding performances. Erivo is so convincing as this maligned child turned young woman, born green, in a world desperate for scapegoats, a world where the authority has no real power and therefore makes enemies out of minorities. Sound painfully familiar? (It's a horrible human custom we need to desperately outgrow.) The dance numbers are charming, the sets magical and colorful and the extras hilarious. Some of my dislikes would be the director choosing to wash everything in this bright sunny haze/refraction. It's unnecessary and has this tendancy to wash away color versus adding to it. Also, some of the early numbers are too low in sound quality. I couldn't hear the words the performers were singing ... but all is forgiven as the story ramps up and the stakes of what's to come for Elphaba, Glinda and Oz are made so dramatically present and real. Well-done!
🍿🍿🍿🍿1/2
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