After discovering that yes, they are still performing Wicked! At Regent Street, I finally booked myself a ticket. All my friends have seen it and they were busy anyway, so I went along to see what all the fuss has been about.
It was pretty good. I always thought the story of two radical skater dudes who have to grow up and accept adult responsibility seemed like weird subject matter for a musical, but those things can be pretty weird. And they did a really good job with the costuming and makeup to make it seem like these guys started off as teenagers, hanging out at the skate park and laughing at stupid jokes, and eventually transitioned into adults with diverging lives.
There’s a pivotal musical number to finish the first act, where Ethan sings about how he just looked up timber door replacement for his new, three-bedroom property like it was nothing. This simple act of deciding on a door material, that most ‘grown-up’ of activities, is what caused him to look back and reexamine how much he changed in those few short years. Then Glen chimes in, having now gone into business designing street-wear in an attempt to do something with his life but also cling to the past, and the whole cast joins in as the curtain falls on act 1.
Huh. Maybe this affected more than I thought. I was just wondering the other day if some sash window replacement would look really good in the study, and that is a pretty adult thing to decide. Not that there’s anything wrong with growing up, but still. Sash windows. Not something I would’ve even known about ten years ago. I guess it’s not just that my friends are all dull and boring…they just can’t drop families and commitments and appointments to have aluminium door replacements, just to suddenly come to watch a musical. That’s life, isn’t it?
Aw dang, this is taking me to some real places. It was supposed to be a night of relaxed, musical fun.
-Ferris