Ten Great Musicals

Introducing Zita's top 10 favorite musicals!
Some of them I have seen live or on video countless times. I have only heard the sound track for the other half of them. But I've read the synopsis or the script for most of those. They have made my favorites list for a combination of great story and great music. There is also this list of musicals that I am going to see someday. I suppose this list will be out dated rather quickly. :P I'm going to start at #10 and work my way to my all time favorite musical. (I actually have a definite favorite! Do you believe that?) Enjoy.

Musical #10
Wicked

This one I have never seen. I haven't even read the book it was based on. I hear the book was not very good at all. They slaughtered it by all accounts but since it was not all that great to begin with, that's no loss really.

The story is a fractured fairy tale, fan-fiction type of prequel to the classic novel (and musical) The Wizard of Oz. It's a fractured fairy tale in that it tries to look at the characters of Glinda the good Witch and the Wicked Witch of the West in a sort of back ward way. It's a very well crafted musical story. I don't really like The Wizard of Oz as a musical but apparently you don't have to to appreciate Wicked.

Wicked explores the hitherto unknown relationship between Galinda and Elphaba in high-school. (or is it college? I'm not really sure) It is primarily a story about friendship. The plot is rather complicated so I will just concentrate on the friendship theme because, for me, that is what makes it a great musical.

The music consistently has a sharp dissonance in it. It opened on Broadway only a few years ago. Songs are written for a big expressive voice capable of filling a large theater and expressing the desired emotion to the person in the back row. The songs range from ironic and satirical, to reflective, to passionate. All in all, the music helps to tell the story very well.

Galinda bubbles with self confidence in "Popular" and the whole "Dancing Through Life" really does sweep you along like a ballroom dance. Elphaba would like everyone to think that she's a very sensible and logical person. But when she sings we can see that she's a hopeless dreamer at heart. Her songs are all emotional roller coasters. Excitement and anticipation build on her longings in "The Wizard and I" until they give way to wonder. She gets so deep in her dream that she looses reality altogether. Then there is "I'm not that girl" which is so unspeakably sad that it never builds to any climax or resolution at all but remains a quiet, gently flowing song about hopeless longing from start to finish. When Elphaba reaches a breaking point she stops singing in even (if barely controlled) pulses, the rhythms burst and trip over themselves until the last build and climax of the song "No Good Deed". Galinda is considerably less confident in the second half of the show. In her solo during the song 'Thank Goodness' we hear her trying to convince herself that she is fulfilled and happy with herself. Everything about the song tells us she's not of course: the lyrics, obviously, but more subtly the rhythm; they way it flows along for a measure or two and then checks itself in uncertainty. The overly loud climax and the little notes of regret that keep coming in despite Galinda's best efforts.

There are three or four wonderful duets. I love duets.
At the beginning the two girls can't see past their differences. Two more opposite personalities could not be found. And they have to share a room! "What is this feeling?" despite it's misleadingly romantic title, is a duet about the college student's nightmare: rooming with a person you loath. And the feeling is mutual. Loathing! It's delightful and funny and singable.

About three songs later they have become friends. They've gone through a lot together. Now they are celebrating their differences. It's more of a chorus number than a duet. Elphaba takes Galinda for 'One Short Day' to the Emerald City to see the Wizard. They both dream of being someone and working with the Wizard. They both feel, as soon as they come into the Emerald City, that they belong here. They see all the wonderful possibilities of their future and they see themselves doing great things together.

"We're just two friends,
two good friends.
Two Best friends sharing one wonderful
one short day."

The next duet is a big shift once again. Galinda is angry at Elphaba for blowing her chance at greatness. Elphaba won't compromise and Galinda has no higher values than her own ambition. They start out yelling at each other

"I hope your happy right now."

This is a turning point for Elphaba. She has decided to break away from the rules of 'goodness'. She's 'Defying Gravity'. She chooses one way and leaves Galinda to go the other. But by the end of the song they repeat the earlier phrase. "I hope you're happy in the end." and this time they mean it in friendship and not in anger.

Then, near the very end of the show, is my favorite song. The two meet for the last time. They are not longer Galinda and Elphaba. Now they are Glinda the Good and the Wicked Witch of the West. If you had a chance to talk to your best friend and you knew it would be the last time you would talk to that person, what would you say? The song writer asked this questions and the answer was a really beautiful duet called "For Good."

That just scratches the surface. This is too long already so I won't go on about Fiero and The Wizard.

Wicked is dark and dissonant but filled with little gems of music and story.
It weighs the idea of Goodness. What is it that makes a person good? It's the whole battle between motives and actions. Ends justifying means and all that. Are you a good person cause you do nice things for people, regardless of why you do them? Or do motives count too? Is a person who does bad things a bad person even if she does them for good reasons? Ah, moral relativism. Well, nothing is perfect. I don't really know what conclusion, if any, they come to about that.
But they do come to a nice resolution about friendship. Galinda and Elphaba come full circle in the story. They start out as opposite personalities that hate each other, they become best friends, drift, (or rift) apart and end up opposites again but at the end they don't hate each other even though they have more reason than ever for enmity. They have become Glinda the Good and The Wicked Witch of the West but they recognize that they could never have become who they are without the relationship that existed between them. They sincerely wish each other well; which is what love is, after all: to wish the very best happiness for the person you love.