JIM Reviews play "THE WIZARD OF OZ"

On May 1st, I attended the 5-1 performance of “THE WIZARD OF OZ” live musical at the CHICAGO Theater. There were like 1200 or so people in the audience to see the play performed by 25 or so entertainers + a very good live orchestra.

… As expected, it was a nearly word-for-word stage version of the great 1939 MGM MOVIE, with a small number of added scenes & words (including a funny comment by the Cowardly Lion referring to the “LION KING” movie)… As the story unfolds, you can enjoy the Munchkins, the Emerald City-ites, the Winkies, etc. About the only well-known scene NOT done in the stage version was “The Horse of a Different Color” (tho that’s a very minor & unimportant one)…

… CASSIE OKENKA as Dorothy had a good voice. Even better were the 3 main COMPANIONS: best was NOAH ABERLIN as the Scarecrow (with a powerful & clear singing voice, & a fine limberness to his dancing), JASON SIMON as the Cowardly Lion (probably the favorite of the numerous KIDS there because of his comedic words & delivery), & CHRIS KIND as the Tin Woodman… The main “weak link” to me was the Wizard, ROBERT JOHN BIEDERMAN, in that I felt his understated delivery of numerous key lines sort of “THREW them AWAY” rather than delivering them for maximum effectiveness as most of the others did…

… Interestingly, they put “back” the “JITTERBUG” dance number that had been filmed for the original movie but REMOVED from the final original release of it; & they had the Wicked Witch of the West (PAT SIBLEY) claim to the Flying Monkeys that she would “wear-down” Dorothy & her companions in their traveling towards her castle thru the Haunted Forest by causing them to DO the Jitterbug dance over & over again. (While I’d seen the originally-filmed dance number as an “EXTRA” feature on DVD’s, I’d never heard an explanation of the “WHY” of its relationship to the story, & don’t know if what the play claimed is historically “accurate”— tho it might be!)…

… I was surprised at how effectively they’d approximated the film’s SPECIAL EFFECTS (by images projected on screens & scrims, by “flying” characters, etc.) of things like the TORNADO, Glinda the Good Witch of the North, the Wicked Witch of the West, the Flying Monkeys, etc… Overall, a cheerful, unusually well-done family-oriented show (which would seem to be wise to keep around longer than thru May 3rd as scheduled!)…