Wicked

John and I went to see the LA showing of Wicked the musical on July 14 th -- Bastille Day -- Pepperdine University arranged to buy tickets for the folks who were interested. Simply put it was awesome. The set was intricate and beautiful and the singing was just immense.

It was an opportunity to dress up for me so I donned on one of the long skirts my Dad got for me. That was a fine idea till we got to the numerous steps to our seat. To give you an idea, our wrappers (skirts) are fitted down the hips and usually flare or have a split at the bottom. This is fine when walking on relatively level planes. Well, to get up the stairs I hiked up the skirt a little to give my hips some room to maneuver and I sort of walked sideways -- I had to laugh at myself because I must have been fun to watch. I was not happy when intermission came because it meant going down two thirds of the stairs I had just painstakingly climbed to make it back up again! I had to do it so I did not appear to be anti-social to John's colleagues.

I recognized Andrea who was one of John's colleagues on our Italy trip and we chatted for a bit. We also said a brief hello to the dean and the admin who set up the outing -- she was just lovely.

Back to Wicked My favorite favorite song was Defying Gravity. I can still hear it in my head and how she belted it out without missing a note.

The wonderful thing about Wicked is it takes the Wizard of Oz and stands it on its head. What if you just changed your perspective on the witches and their situations the story takes on a very different meaning. Glenda the good witch was delightful as a ditsy witch with generally good intentions while the Wicked witch was fun to see painted ogre or envy green. The winged monkeys, the headmistress, the soldiers, the townsfolk were all fun to watch in action. The wizard's singing was not as good, in my humble opinion, but he was a good actor.

The first half was an hour and a half long while the second half was only an hour. Though it may sound long I did not want it to end because it was sooo good! I sat at the edge of my seat for most of the show and it was not because we had bad seats (we had really great seats)!