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Written by Elizabeth Lawrence
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I was so excited to see Wicked again--I saw the touring cast last August inj San Francisco and was extremely impressed with the actress playing G(a)linda (Kendra Kassebaum, who's now playing in the Broadway cast, I believe)...I was less impressed by Eden Espinosa but it may just have been an off night. Anyway, I dragged my law school friends who like musical theatre to check it out. Stay tuned for the good, the bad, and the ugly......
At first, we were a bit disappointed that we would be missing the normal Elphaba (Dee Roscioli) for the standby, Carmen Cusack, but that disappointment was completely unfounded. Cusack was absolutely incredible; she has a HUGE belt that effortlessly hits the high chesty notes at the end of "Defying Gravity" and "No Good Deed Goes Unpunished" with a much fuller and richer sound than Eden Espinosa was able to do (from what I remember....). She was certainly the showstopper tonight.
Erin Mackey did a good job as G(a)linda, though I think I liked Kassebaum's a little more. She certainly had the vocal chops for the role and seemed to have plenty of fun in ditzy numbers like "Popular", but she just didn't have the sparkle Kassebaum seemed to have. She still did a very solid performance and did an admirable job matching up to Cusack's volume in "For Good".
Gene Weygant as the Wizard and Heidi Kettenring as Nessarose also turned in strong performances. I was more impressed with Jenna Leigh Green as Nessarose in the touring cast, just because I think she had a fuller belt in "The Wicked Witch of the East", but Kettenring did very well in "Dancing Through Life". I don't really remember the touring company's Wizard and thought Weygant did an excellent job in "Wonderful".
I'm somewhat ambivalent about Derrick Williams as Fiyero; I think I saw him in the touring company in the same role and had the same complaint then as now. He's a bit too pop-singerish for my taste. He clearly can hit the notes and acts like an ideal Fiyero playboy, but in numbers like "As Long as You're Mine", he threw in too many vocal acrobatics for my taste. His high notes in "Dancing Through Life" were also a tad thin, but he sounded great with Cusack in "As Long as You're Mine" when he stopped wiggling around on the notes.
Now for the weaker players: I wasn't fond of Adam Fleming as Boq. His acting was fine, but his voice was very plain and he sounded like he was really pushing for some of his high notes. Not sure if it was stylistic or just an off night, and my tenor friend thought he was fine, but I didn't think he measured up to his costars. Also, while Rondi Reed did fine with her lines and lower notes as Madame Morrible, she obviously shifted into her head register on a few of the higher notes. Not sure if it was stylistic or not, but if it was, I didn't like that at all.
Bottom line, well worth a look, especially if you haven't seen Wicked before. I think overall the touring company was a bit stronger, but if you get a chance to see Carmen Cusack as Elphaba, it is well worth the money. She was absolutely breath-taking.
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