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Wicked – Musical Steampunk Fantasy in Oz

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I’m not dead! I apologise for being absent so, but it’s back to pleasure as usual and I’d first like to mention that when I was in New York (for the Dances of Vice festival, more on that later) I was fortunate enough to get tickets to see the musical Wicked on broadway. Oh, such a beautiful show! Telling the tale of the Wicked Witch of the West, the Good Witch Glinda and many more non-Dorothy characters from Oz, and I honestly hadn’t gone there with the expectation of anything Steampunk. However, I was very pleasantly surprised – from utterly delicious pseudo-Victorian Emerald City costumes (that you can see blurrily in the video above) to the ominous and threatening influx of dangerous science and more cogs than I could shake a magic wand at!

The sets featured sillouetted iron bridges, giant backlit gothic clockfaces, and a wooden clockwork dragon overseeing the whole beautiful affair. The Wizard of Oz’ mechanical giant head is also has to be seen to be disbelieved! I’d heartily recommend seeing it if you can (New York, Chicago, LA, London, Tokyo, Stuttgart, and Melbourne) and if you don’t come away with a hankering for green lensed glasses/goggles, I’ll be somewhat surprised.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 25th, 2008 at 11:26 pm by Tinkergirl and is filed under Audio, Film Reviews, Steampunk Images.

Cthulhu

Damn! I missed a chance to see this a while back. Now I wish I'd gone!

hobbitt

There are _tons_ of gears and the outfit of the Wizard is very steampunk.

Also there is a tour in the US. Hopefully I can catch it at the Birmingham or Memphis stop.

Pseudonym

This is probably blasphemy, but I'm not impressed by this clip. (The show itself is, no doubt, better.)

The L. Frank Baum story was published in 1900. While it's a contemprary of H.G. Wells ("The Time Machine" was published five years earlier), the pseudo-technology has a much more American feel to it. More Menlo Park than London.

The movie is from 1939, and is the height of Art Deco chic. Very classy, but, again, more like Metropolis than Jules Verne.

I'm not sure what to think of this. If you consider the pseudo-history of Oz, I gues it'd make sense that it went through a Victorian phase before it went through an Art Deco phase, but that doesn't explain why the Emerald City looks like it was designed by Van Alen.

Scarecrow

Ewwwww. I love this book, and the production is due out in Australia this year. I HAD planned to make a trip down to Sydney to check it out, but after seeing that clip....
What a pile of excitable Broadway nonsense. There isn't a SINGLE moment in the novel that has this happygolucky vibe. Maybe if Tom Waits had scored it it might have been alright.

Tinkergirl

Alas, as you might imagine from a show that prohibits photography and recording, and that has all rights reserved on the images they use on their website, my options for what to post with this was limited.

The Victorian-ness of Oz in the show at least is there, but blended with other influences. There are top hats, corsets and bustle skirts, but it's all skewed and twisted in unusual ways (and green). The giant clock faces could be said to be Victorian (the clock faces the tower of the Palace of Westminster were completed in 1858) but again, giant clock faces have been elements of many styles. I admit that I saw Steampunk when I looked, but if you looked for Art Deco, you'd no doubt find much to satisfy that too.

Scarecrow - yes, there's bubblyness and cheeriness and people singing happy songs, because I'm not sure people would be as keen to see a whole show of grim depression (even if it were done in a deliciously dark Tom Waits style). But there's also darker parts to it - bullying, silencing minorities, conspiracies, 'witch hunts' (how appropriate) and tragic loss. I had posted the above clip because it shows the Emerald City costumes the best, but I'd recommend doing a bit more checking yourself before deciding it's definitely not for you, especially if you'd been keen before.

Evelyn

Oh good.

Email me as I lost your email address and have photos of us,you and your man and a whole buch of things to send you.It was a great deal of fun having you here and I feel so bad that I got so wrapped up in doing things on Saturday that I almost missed you.You are a good egg.
Some links to photos that I have so far are
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jaborwhalky/226411...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/centralrepository/...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/centralrepository/...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/centralrepository/...
Then there are are photos but I wish to email them to you as they are big and I photo shopped them so we all look like gods.
Take care, keep in touch!

Ryan

Wicked was one of the best shows I've ever seen. I really enjoyed it from both a production standpoint and from a theatrical standpoint. And yes, I too noticed the steampunky stuff...way cool. :-)

Toji

I saw it in Stuttgart on Sunday and did not know about the steamyness beforehand so I was totally surprised and in addition to the great costumes, the gears and the overall neo-victorianess of the show, this is the best musical show I have ever seen...and I have seen a few!

BaB

Kewl :) I really should read the book, shouldn't I...

Kate

I read the book and Scarecrow was right, that was way too happy - but that's broadway for ya. However, I still want to see the show. I wish it were coming to more Canadian cities than just Ottowa!

Skusting Dagger

I've not seen the play, but the book is marvelously faithful to Baum's original.
And we're still waiting to hear your take on the Dances of Vice Festival.
I know I had a spiffing good time!

Mark

I only discovered what steampunk was a few days a go and have fallen head over heels in love with the whole concept, history and customisation. I have already ordered some books and comic and have started planning my first custom made accesory.

However... I have been in love with the wicked musical for about a year now and I guess Ive just found the reason... cogs, goggles and steampunk galore!!!

LouiseBacks

As many of Musicals lovers I LOVE the Wicked! It is my favourite ever... Last year I’ve been in NY & I tried to get my ticket …guess what everything was sold out that show how great the show is. Anyhow I end up getting it from a site through Horizontickets.com. Next week I’m going to visit my sister and I just got some pretty good tix from the same place
http://www.horizontickets.com/theater/tickets-w...
So I'll be analyzing as well as enjoying the show.