Wicked Sorry for the delay in posting
May. 4th, 2008 08:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
olivia_suttonHi all,
OK, first I must apologise for being so late in posting. I've been swamped at work catching up from the last two weeks. I swear, when I was figuring out tickets to see Wicked, I thought I had a week between PenguiCon and Wicked. Instead I had two days! I drove back from Detroit Sunday night, taught my class Monday night, had lab on Tuesday afternoon, then drove to BoilingBrook, Illinois, on Wednesday morning, went to IKEA (that's a story in and of itself), then Mom drove downtown into the (Chicago) Loop. Now, the traffic IN to Chicago wasn't all that bad, but our directions sure were! (It would have helped if we had known that we had to stay on 90/94, rather than follow the signs for Downtown.) Before we knew it, we had one exit and then we would end up on the Congress Exwy. Well, I couldn't quite remember where the Congress actually went, but I was pretty sure it wasn't the direction we wanted to go. Needless to say, I got Mom to exit. And we were downtown, and it didn't take us all that long to figure out how to actually get to the hotel. Mind you, I'm sitting in the passenger seat, with two maps, neither of which was a map of the Loop. I even got some help from another driver when we were at a light (Did the roll down window and asked for directions thing - and it did work, I mean, I found out we were driving in the wrong direction, what a surprise!) We stayed at the downtown Howard Johnson's, and it was OK. I mean, it was clean. There was a pub less than a block away, where we had dinner, and the hotel had a restaurant where we had breakfast. Now, neither one was particularly great, and I think our waitress gave both Mom and I decaf (and I'm a caffiene girl all the way).
The play was marvelous. I was actually reading the book, when I saw the play, so my mind was like constantly comparing the play to the book (which I finished the next day or the day after). But it was like when you see a movie made from a book or play you're familar with, y'know? I just kept comparing the two in my head. Overall, I liked the play much better than the book. The book is very slow in places, and gets a bit philosophical which kinda' drove me nuts. The play has a straight-forward plot, that's kinda' fun and light (if your not familiar with it Wicked is a musical which takes "The Wizard of Oz" and turns it on it's ear -- re-telling the story from the pov of the Wicked Witch of the West). Some things I liked about the musical -- Glinda was wonderful!!! In the play, she's a bubble-headed blond, full of malapropisms. She's the type that goes to college, not to get an education, but to get a ring on her finger. (And she marries someone different in the play than in the book). Oh, and both the book and the play spend a lot of time with Elpheba (the Witch) and Glinda at Shiz University in the North of Oz. In fact, the Witch to be and Glinda are roommates. (There's a wonderful duet where they are both writing letters home to their fathers, talking about settling in to school, and their only problem being their roommate). Glinda, however, isn't stupid, she's simply a product of her background -- spoiled, rich, innocent, and totally unwilling to even question The System much less buck it. Whereas Elpheba grows up at Shiz, becoming fascinated with chemsitry/biology as well as learning magic (which Glinda also learns). Elpheba also becomes involved in Animal rights (Animal with a capital A is a talking animal; where animal, lower case, is a normal animal). There's a lot more detail about that throughout the book, but the play covers it good enough. What I liked, tho', was the interesting, contrasting friendship between Elpheba and Glinda. And, overall it was a fun musical play. And I saw it at Chicago's Oriental Theatre, which was gorgeous! Drop-dead gorgeous! You wouldn't believe all the gilt work, painting, frescos, sculpture -- it was incredible. Getting a cab after the show was... an experience. We ended-up walking a couple of blocks, then finally haling a cab.
OK, first I must apologise for being so late in posting. I've been swamped at work catching up from the last two weeks. I swear, when I was figuring out tickets to see Wicked, I thought I had a week between PenguiCon and Wicked. Instead I had two days! I drove back from Detroit Sunday night, taught my class Monday night, had lab on Tuesday afternoon, then drove to BoilingBrook, Illinois, on Wednesday morning, went to IKEA (that's a story in and of itself), then Mom drove downtown into the (Chicago) Loop. Now, the traffic IN to Chicago wasn't all that bad, but our directions sure were! (It would have helped if we had known that we had to stay on 90/94, rather than follow the signs for Downtown.) Before we knew it, we had one exit and then we would end up on the Congress Exwy. Well, I couldn't quite remember where the Congress actually went, but I was pretty sure it wasn't the direction we wanted to go. Needless to say, I got Mom to exit. And we were downtown, and it didn't take us all that long to figure out how to actually get to the hotel. Mind you, I'm sitting in the passenger seat, with two maps, neither of which was a map of the Loop. I even got some help from another driver when we were at a light (Did the roll down window and asked for directions thing - and it did work, I mean, I found out we were driving in the wrong direction, what a surprise!) We stayed at the downtown Howard Johnson's, and it was OK. I mean, it was clean. There was a pub less than a block away, where we had dinner, and the hotel had a restaurant where we had breakfast. Now, neither one was particularly great, and I think our waitress gave both Mom and I decaf (and I'm a caffiene girl all the way).
The play was marvelous. I was actually reading the book, when I saw the play, so my mind was like constantly comparing the play to the book (which I finished the next day or the day after). But it was like when you see a movie made from a book or play you're familar with, y'know? I just kept comparing the two in my head. Overall, I liked the play much better than the book. The book is very slow in places, and gets a bit philosophical which kinda' drove me nuts. The play has a straight-forward plot, that's kinda' fun and light (if your not familiar with it Wicked is a musical which takes "The Wizard of Oz" and turns it on it's ear -- re-telling the story from the pov of the Wicked Witch of the West). Some things I liked about the musical -- Glinda was wonderful!!! In the play, she's a bubble-headed blond, full of malapropisms. She's the type that goes to college, not to get an education, but to get a ring on her finger. (And she marries someone different in the play than in the book). Oh, and both the book and the play spend a lot of time with Elpheba (the Witch) and Glinda at Shiz University in the North of Oz. In fact, the Witch to be and Glinda are roommates. (There's a wonderful duet where they are both writing letters home to their fathers, talking about settling in to school, and their only problem being their roommate). Glinda, however, isn't stupid, she's simply a product of her background -- spoiled, rich, innocent, and totally unwilling to even question The System much less buck it. Whereas Elpheba grows up at Shiz, becoming fascinated with chemsitry/biology as well as learning magic (which Glinda also learns). Elpheba also becomes involved in Animal rights (Animal with a capital A is a talking animal; where animal, lower case, is a normal animal). There's a lot more detail about that throughout the book, but the play covers it good enough. What I liked, tho', was the interesting, contrasting friendship between Elpheba and Glinda. And, overall it was a fun musical play. And I saw it at Chicago's Oriental Theatre, which was gorgeous! Drop-dead gorgeous! You wouldn't believe all the gilt work, painting, frescos, sculpture -- it was incredible. Getting a cab after the show was... an experience. We ended-up walking a couple of blocks, then finally haling a cab.
But it was a great birthday present!
--Olivia
PS. Driving distances, FYI
GR to Troy: 130 miles as the crow flies (roughly 2.5 - 3 hours) according to the "How Far Is It?" website
GR to Bolingbrook, ILL: 151 miles (244 km) (132 nautical miles) (Again, about 2.5 - 3 hours) according to the "How Far Is It?" website, Indo.com
PPS -- If you've never played with the How Far Is it? website -- it's great fun!
