It’s hard to think of anything more “Midwestern” than “The
Wizard of Oz.” Chicagoans have an affinity for the work and rightfully so. L.
Frank Baum wrote The Wonderful Wizard of
Oz while living here. The original 1902 stage production made its debut on
a Chicago stage. We even have a park named Oz which features sculptures from
the book series.
So, what to say about the latest revamp of the
film-turned-stage musical “The Wizard of Oz” –a production in which the lone
American in the cast is the dog playing Toto and Canadian accents are as thick
as the air in a Kansas during the dust bowl? A show that features five mostly forgettable
new songs written by a pair of Englishmen (music by Andrew Lloyd Weber and
lyrics by Tim Rice) that fails to emulate the music stylings of the great Harold
Arlen who wrote the film’s iconic score or the tone of E.Y. Harburg’s inspiring
lyrics to the extent the new material sticks out like a pair of ruby red
slippers on a sepia-toned Kansas farm?
Dorothy, you’re right. You’re not in Kansas. You’re in
Toronto after a layover in London’s West End.
That’s not to say they don’t have farms in Canada (or, for
that matter, England). And yes, there is something universal that many journeys
end with the realization that everything you are looking for can be found at
home. I’m certainly not a flag waving American. My dad’s family hails from the
Great White North.
The production which opened on Thursday at the Cadillac
Palace Theater felt to me more like a traditional English Panto than it did
with live theater. There was far too much slapstick, buffoonery and sexual innuendo.
The show’s Dorothy, Danielle Wade, is likeable enough. Her
portrayal is unique enough that you don’t feel she is every impersonating the
film’s original star, Judy Garland. She belts the heck out of “Somewhere Over
the Rainbow” and her longing for something beyond the world she knows feels
earnest.
It’s perhaps no surprise that
she feels very at home in the role, seeing as she won the lead after appearing
on the CBC reality show “Over the Rainbow” that had Canadian gals competing for
the role in an “American Idol” style show.
The witches (Robin Evan Willis as Glinda and Jacqueleyn Piro
Donovan as the Wicked Witch of the West) are painted with too broad a comedic
stroke. Gone are the nuturing, motherly Glinda and the frightening Wicked Witch
from the film.
Gone too is the noble Scarecrow. Poor Jamie McKnight has to
play the strawman as an imbecile who can’t even remember why he has embarked on
a quest to see the Wizard.
Worst of the night is
Lee MacDougall’s swishy lion that would make the likes of Paul Lynde look butch. A joke
about the lion being “a friend of Dorothy” –a dated euphemism for “gay” that
references either Judy Garland’s character or, as some scholars have argued,the
late humorist Dorothy Parker—fell flat on Thursday night. The portrayal is neither witty nor camp. What were they thinking?
Simply put, the brains, heart and courage seem to be missing from this tale
from America’s heartland and not even the Wonderful Wizard of Oz (a regal Jay Brazeau
as both the all-powerful Wizard and sideshow huckster Professor Marvel) can
seem to fix it.
“The Wizard of Oz” runs through May 11 at the Cadillac
Palace Theater, 151 W. Randolph. Tickets $18-$105. 800.775-2000 or
www.broadwayinchicago.com.
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