A few Saturdays ago, I was fortunate enough to be able to catch the Manila staging of the hit Broadway musical, Wicked. It was performed by the Australian cast and since I’ve seen it, I haven’t listened to anything else but the original Broadway cast (OBC) soundtrack.

Sorry, no review here, I wouldn’t have anything to compare it against anyway. The play was fantastic and if you can still get tickets, I urge you to book them now.

Rumor has it that the Philippines wasn’t part of the South East Asian countries that the company would perform in but because of an online petition, they decided to come here. I’m not sure if this is true or not but here’s the petition and from what I understand, the play was only supposed to run originally just in Singapore and nowhere else.

Anways. The play is based on Gregory Maguire’s novel of the same name, and that novel’s based on the 1939 film that launched Judy Garland into stardom, The Wizard of Oz. That movie, in turn, was partly based off the 1902 musical of the same name which was originally based on L. Frank Baum’s novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

So in short, the musical’s based on a book that’s based on a movie that’s based on another play that’s based on another book.

I know, I know, it’s Wicked-ception right there.

This being the biggest musical that’s to ever hit Philippine soil (that I was interested to see at least; Cats and Phantom of the Opera were both too gloomy for my tastes) so there was no way I was going to miss it, regadless of the ticket price. Sure, I had to break into my emergency stash but Raydon (my ever game play-buddy) made sure that we got tickets as early as October last year. So big was our fear of having enough money but running out of (fairly) decent seats that we unwittingly booked seats on the first Saturday show in the Philippines.

The day finally came and silly ol’ me decided that since the show doesn’t start until 7:30 in the evening, I still had time enough to squeeze in one movie. I hadn’t seen The Wolf of Wall Street yet at the time and figured that hey, since I’m driving out to the city anyway, why not hit two birds with one stone?

Smart, right? Obviously I very stupidly underestimated the traffic on a Saturday so I ended up being late for both shows. I missed out on a good ten minutes of the movie and I was only allowed to enter the theater after the first song finished. All in all no regrets, but I was still pretty pissed off at the lack of parking spaces. I wasted precious minutes looking for a parking slot on my own with the supposed helpful attendants just chatted away and pretended that the throng of cars lined up weren’t there.

If you’re not yet familiar with the play’s plot, then I seriously don’t know where you’ve been the past ten years, but just in case, it’s the story of the Wizard of Oz as told by the Wicked Witch of the West. I guess it can be considered an origin story since the play goes as far as the witch’s Actual Birth. It’s been Disney-fied, of course, because Gregory Maguire’s novel is dark as shit and full of political issues and racism. I haven’t read it yet but after hearing my friends’ reviews, I have no intention of ever picking it up. I’m happy with the fanfiction-y version that is the musical, thanksverymuch.

Of course I loved the show – there’s just something very special about hearing your favorite songs (The Wizard and I, As Long as You’re Mine, No Good Deed and Popular) live on stage. Sure, I’ve been listening to the OBC soundtrack for years but this is different. The words are actually and quite literally fleshed out.

Although if I were to nitpick, I guess it’s an issue that Steve Danielsen’s Fiyero was a little bit too boyband-y for my tastes. But that’s only because I’ve got it in my head that Adam Lambert is the best Fiyero — there’re clips of him on Youtube, and even though he’s not the best dancer (Aaron Tveit takes the cake on that category), vocally he’s the most powerful. I mean, my toes curl every time he adds those rifts to his As Long as You’re Mine version.

Also, was it me or were the songs played a bit too quickly? It maybe just in my head but I believe that they performed all numbers at least half a beat faster than the soundtrack.

All in all it’s a fantastic show and I don’t regret a centavo I spent for those tickets. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go now and listen to One Short Day again.

*Photos courtesy of Raydon and the official Wicked programme.