tavie.com

What a night. Well, first, some dry-blogging, scribbled in the back of Will Shortz's Favorite Sunday Crossword Puzzles:

I'm sitting in a deli on 52nd and 8th having a coffee and doing a crossword because it's too early to go into the theatre to see "Wicked". Suddenly

N E I L P A T R I C K H A R R I S ,

love of my 12-year-old-life, walks in. My heart stops. I studiously ignore him, sneaking covert glancesas he nods and smiles at a more obvious gawker.

I'm very conscious of my disheveled hair and sweaty face. As Neil, looking both scruffy and handsome as hell, flits around the store picking out snacks and drinks, I whip out my cell phone and text message everyone I can think of. As he walks out the door, "Everlasting Love" starts playing on the radio. It's so right.

Sigh.

Well, how is Wicked supposed to hold up after a moment I'd dreamed about daily in pre-adolescence came to pass? (Yes, I used to fantasize about just bumping into him. Of course, in my fantasies, we would always speak; I wouldn't play cool-New-Yorker-ignoring-the-celebrity in those. Rather, he'd bump into me as I carried an armload of books, stoop to help me pick them up, meet my eyes, etc...)

Anyway, Wicked held up marvelously. I'm not even going to attempt a review*, because it would be a rave that I'd doubtlessly be embarrassed about later. I'll just say it did everything I want musical theatre to do. It thrilled me. It gave me goosebumps and tears at all the right moments. I was sitting in the dead last row, as far back as I could get and still be in the same theatre, but I'd brought along my dad's binoculars and they worked very well. I'm a smart cookie. I felt sorry for everyone around me without binocs, though. They didn't seem to mind; the pretty, butch lesbian and her less pretty, femme girlfriend laughed uproariously at everything Kristen Chenoweth said, and then bitched loudly during intermission about how Idina Menzel was mean to them when they were in college together. (They both gave her a standing ovation, though.)

Kristen Chenoweth could do no wrong, and knew it; she milked every line and gesture. We ate her up. Idina Menzel erased all doubt that she deserved a Tony. Randy "Justin from Queer as Folk" Harrison, a surprise as Boq, was adorable. Norbert Leo Butz was a little creepy. The subsitute (not Joel Grey) wizard was underwhelming. The only real drawback, though, was the horrible ending. You can't tell that the ending is so bad from listening to the soundtrack alone, but it was really quite terrible, completely changing the ending of the book (and the original source material, too.) Stephen Schwartz musicals have not been impressing me lately with their endings. Bad writing. Yuck.

No matter. Magical theatre, baby. I loved it.

*Whoops. Oh, well.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 12:30 AM | shower me with attention