Wicked

I usually plan our vacations and other outings, so I decided to give my wife a turn. She chose the musical Wicked, showing at the Oriental Theatre in downtown Chicago. Our seats were in the balcony, eight rows up right in the middle.

I didn’t know the story beforehand. I knew it had something to do with the Wicked Witch from The Wizard of Oz, but that’s all. My wife thoroughly enjoyed herself. I thought it was pretty good. I enjoyed “Popular” and a couple other songs. I came very close to falling asleep a few times, but that’s probably due more to the fact that the theater was crowded and warm than to the quality of the show. The sets weren’t all that impressive.

When the lights came up for intermission, I thought it was over. I pulled out my camera and took a couple shots of the interior of the theater. An usher came rushing down and yelled at me. (Of course, the pictures didn’t come out anyway.) My wife was still sitting in her seat, so I called her to come. She asked me where I was going and explained that there was a whole other half to go. It took me a couple minutes to adjust to this fact, but then I settled in. The second half didn’t do a lot for me other than appreciating how they cleverly tied in the characters from the original story.

I wasn’t the only one who thought it was over at halftime. The people next to me left and never came back. For Act II, the only two empty seats in the theater were next to me, which made things a bit cooler, which kept me awake. I liked it better than Les Miserables, the only other Broadway production I’ve seen.