After “Wicked,” What Do We Want from the Musical?

0:00I want the note at the end, where it's like, you know, like the air note. Oh, oh, oh. Wow. Boom. I knew it would happen. He's defying gravity already. Oh, so exciting.

0:20This is Critics at Large, a podcast from The New Yorker. I'm Nomi Fry. I'm Vincent Cunningham. And I'm Alex Schwartz. Each week on this show, we make sense of what's happening in the culture right now and how we got here. Hello, critics. Hi. Hi. So you may or may not have heard about a little movie that opened last week. I'm of course talking about Wicked, colon, for good. Wow. Part two.

0:52The Wicked Witch can't elude us forever. Not with Prince Fierro and his squadron hot on her trail. The first installment of Wicked was a gigantic mega hit this time last year. It made hundreds of millions of dollars at the box office. It took home Oscars for costume design and production design. Defying Gravity was on the Billboard Top 100. The colors pink and green were basically ubiquitous for months. And so today we're resharing our conversation that we had last year when Wicked Part 1 was top of mind. We wanted to know what the audience response to this franchise tells us about the state of musicals more broadly.

1:35It does feel to me, and it felt to me then, that the musical as a form is in a bit of an unstable place. We keep seeing movie musicals. In addition to the Wicked franchise, there was Wonka. Do you guys remember Wonka? Of course. It's, you know, for me, it faded immediately. Remember its existence. I did not see it. Exactly. Yes. There was the new Mean Girls movie. Vincent, I know you saw that in theaters. I did. I did as well, randomly. It was not good. It was not good, but shout out to them. It was like inexplicable. Yeah. On Broadway, of course, the original home of the American musical, we seem to be stuck a bit between jukebox musicals, which bank on audiences' nostalgia for old hits, and on the other hand, a kind of blatant IP grab in the form of adaptations of beloved movies or books that everyone reads in high school or an artist's very successful work.

2:20There are new musicals, but it's hard to get them off the ground. It's hard for them to make money, so they're getting squeezed. So that's today on Critics at Large. What do we want from the musical?

2:37All right. Just to set expectations here, where do each of you fall when it comes to musicals? Guess. I'm going to say that Nomi Fry is not a lover of the musical form. I am historically, historically not a lover of musicals, but I may surprise you today by name checking a couple of favorites. Okay. Okay. I mean, yeah. I mean, honestly, I don't like musicals, but there are some exceptions. I'll say that. I harbor kind of a soft place in my heart for musicals. In high school, I was in a couple of them. Would you like to, yeah, tell us about it? Well, okay. I played the voice of the plant in Little Shop of Hearts.

3:26No. So, Audrey, too, that was me. Feed me, Seymour? Up in a high window while my friend, Nick Barash, was the body of the plant doing all the ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-da. Oh, wow. What a career. I am very excited to discuss musicals with you guys because I was quite into musicals as a child. And in my formative years, I was in musicals in high school. I was in an all-female production of the Rocky Horror Picture Show in college. I played Brad. You know, I had some people really, really into Brad. I'll just say that much. I had some admirers. Anyway, the height of this. Just let it go, Nomi. Okay, okay. Maybe off mic.

4:08Off mic. We'll come back. No, no, no, you know. Okay. Let's turn to Wicked Part 1. Okay. We're at Wicked. Wicked is directed by John M. Chu, who has directed a number of movie musicals in the Heights. He did Step Up 3D. And also the Bieber performance movie, Never Say Never. Oh, that's right. One of the great musicals of our time. Which is actually great. Okay. This is an excellent point. So Wicked stars Ariana Grande as Glinda slash Glinda and Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba. I actually never saw Wicked in theaters. I don't know if you guys did. On Broadway, I did not. On Broadway, you did. I did not.

4:47So Vincent did. Nomi and I did not. So what did you guys think? Okay. So I'm going to start. I should say that Nomi is in full Elphaba Green right now. I just want to say that she came ready to do this. What if I'm like wearing like a witch's hat? Like, you know, that pointy hat. Comes in with a big gnarled broom. Sorry. Okay. Go ahead. I'm sorry. Okay. I am in two minds about this movie. I was trying to come to this open and be like, what if I suddenly like it? You know, especially since people, a lot of people I like, you know, people whose opinions I admire were like, this is amazing. You know, and obviously each person has his or her own story, own history with musicals.

5:36But I was open. I didn't love it. I can't emphasize enough how long it is. Like, it was unreal long. Like, there really is, I think, even beyond putting aside my feelings about musicals, I think it's just, like, objectively way too long. Like, 40 minutes could have lopped off, like, and no miss. But I have to say I was pleasantly surprised, first of all, at the performances. You know, I'd never seen, I mean, I know, like, Ariana Grande's music, but I haven't seen her like act in anything. And also Cynthia Erivo, I wasn't familiar with her. And I thought they both delivered pretty sensitive performances, I thought, which I was surprised about.

6:22I felt like it was kind of a gentle movie, which I liked. My favorite character was the talking goat, Dr. Dillamond, and who had like glasses and there's a moment, there's the whole subplot. Oz is kind of turning fascist. You know, there's a kind of like fascist strain that is with like the animal, the talking animals kind of being targeted. And Dr. Dilamond, the talking goat professor at Chiz University. At Chiz. Not Chiz University, but yes, it's called Chiz University where Alphaba and Glinda are students, is the victim, one of the victims of this kind of fascism. And there's a part where like his little like glasses like fall off his like snout.

7:13And I was like – I literally gasped. I was like – it just seemed like – She wasn't expecting that. That just took it too far. Those things were perched. They were really perched precariously on that. Is it a snout for a goat? What is it? A muzzle? A muzzle? I don't know. I don't know. But anyway, I have to say that these touches, like, you know, obviously it's a big movie. It's a big movie with grand gestures. But within that, I felt a beating heart, which I was surprised about. That said, way too long, lots of boring parts. Vincent, I want to hear what you think because I already know me has given us much to think about and discuss.

7:59Especially the glasses. Especially the glasses. I should say that, like, Nomi's focus on Dr. Dillamond is very much on brand. This week you just published a whole piece about the animals of the year, Mudang, et cetera. Yeah, it's true. I do love the animal world. But Dr. Dean didn't make it. Exactly. So Dillamond, he came to late. He was a late-breaking animal. Yeah, I was actually closing the piece as I was watching. I had to text my editor, Namal, and say, like, I'm sorry. I can't look at fact-checking yet. I'm actually LOL at wicked. I'm looking at this goat. So anyway, thank you for that. I really liked it.

8:40I really liked it. I like long movies. I like the epic. And I just thought that it captured what's good about movie musicals, which is taking the logic, the psychological logic of musical theater, which is actually we can tell a story but have no, we can explode the subtext and make all the subtext into song. Like the sort of I want song that like sort of starts to define a character. What Chu does so skillfully, I think is, and I think this accounts for the length as well, sort of turn that into landscape and turn that into image where, so she's singing the song about I want to meet the wizard.

9:26Oh my God, people are finally going to like look at me as something else. Did that really just happen? Have I actually understood this weird quirk I've tried to suppress or hide? Is a talent that could help me meet the wizard? And then, weirdly, she's like in chiz as this is happening. She's in the university setting as this happens. Suddenly she goes outside and starts running around and all of a sudden she's just like on the sheer edge of some cliff.

10:10I'm like, what is the geography here? It's by the white cliffs of Dover. That's basically where it is. But she's out on a cliff edge all of a sudden talking about what she wants. And that like emotional topography is now all of a sudden like written on the landscape. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like imprinted on all of these like big dramatic images. It made me think of like the sound of music. Definitely. Like just like those hillsides and all these things that just like so deeply echo the sort of emotional atmospherics. Well, if I may just insert myself for a second here. I want to get in it. I want to tell you guys what I thought.

10:45But I also just want to set the listeners up. Please. So Wicked takes place, Wicked opens with the death of the Wicked Witch of the West. Fellow Ozians, the Wicked Witch of the West is dead. We see a kind of melting hiss of a candle having just been snuffed out. And shortly thereafter, all of Oz is in great celebration. They're celebrating that a tyrant— Ding dong, the witch is dead. Yeah, a tyrant is gone. So there's a lot of singing about this. Glinda arrives. Glinda is sort of asked, weren't you friends with the Wicked Witch once? Yes. I mean, I did know her. That is, our paths did cross at school.

11:34And here we go into the backstory. Shiz University, a truly insane name choice. Yeah, I don't get it. That has to be said with a straight face by everyone in this film at least 500 times. Yeah. And Glinda, who at that time is called Glinda, is the popular girl who arrives at school. They have to room together. A rivalry breaks out. And through interpretive dance, at a moment of great shame and distress for Elphaba, they are brought together and end up forming an unlikely friendship and going off to Oz. Vincent. Yes. I'm so glad that you love this movie. and I'm not kidding because so many people are loving this movie and I want to like deeply relate to them and I know that you can help me Am I the wicked liker in the room?

12:21Oh, I love it when this happens. I really didn't like Wicked. Okay. I didn't like Wicked and Wow. How not? Anyway, continue. Okay, I liked that scene. Vincent is of course singing the final beautiful notes with his gorgeous voice of defying gravity and yes, I am. Well, one reason is one reason is That scene takes 14 minutes. And as Nomi says, this movie is too long. And I just want to say something about musicals in general, which is the show has got to work. We have to have a crest, a peak, a fall, another crest. Now we have two shows, basically. Two different movies, two different shows. And what this means is that we are all absolutely stranded at the least interesting place on earth, Hogwarts Light, Shiz University.

13:05I'm sitting in Shiz, desperate to drop out. So much Shiz. Desperate. Just when are they going to let me out of this horrible place? We're supposed to be in Oz, the miraculous, wonderful place that most of us know from the 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz. You might know it from L. Frank Baum's books. Why are we stuck at shiz? This has to be the stupidest place in all of Oz.

13:38Those feelings notwithstanding, people are loving Wicked. They're on Team Vincent, or Vincent is on Team Them. Yes. Why? America, I am on your team. Oh, what a hero. That's right after the break on Critics at Large from The New Yorker.

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14:41so i will just say i i'm not coming out here proudly waving my hate flag and i didn't hate it i just found it dull you're a bit of a bad girl i'm a bit of a bad girl i mean i agree with you nomi i totally agree i thought the performances were very very good very strong the singing was super strong. Ariana Grande was funny, which I appreciated. She was really funny. She's really funny. She's really funny. But, such a great performance. Yeah. Her Galinda is self-absorbed, kind of a mean girl, but also just kind of a Tracy Flick. All of these internal contradictions, which are really, like, it's a really well-written character, and she does it really well.

15:19Erivo is just so good at singing. She's great at singing. Yeah. I just was totally into that. So, just the two of them, what they did together was not really explored in the production that I saw, which is the totally homoerotic nature of the relationship between these two women is so apparent in every beat of their relationship. In the musical? No, in the movie that we all watched. Oh, you think so? When they're like, I'm getting this feeling when I see you, I don't know what it is. And then they go into the low thing. What is this feeling so sudden and new? I felt the moment I laid eyes on you.

16:00My pulse is rushing. My head is reeling. Well, my face is flushing. What is this feeling? Fervid as a flame. Does it have a name? Yes.

16:19Loathing. Unadulterated loathing. It's just a love song. These girls are hot for each other and they don't understand. Oh, interesting. That's what it seems. I don't know. That was my reading of this movie so strongly that I was like, they have incredible chemistry. Together, they are a great comedy team, I thought. Okay, this is very interesting. I have to make a confession. It's a weird confession to make. Yes. Last night, when I was looking around for reviews of Wicked, for some reason, I ended up watching Ben Shapiro's 24-minute long review of Wicked. Yes, I'm talking about conservative culture commentator Ben Shapiro, with whom I agree on absolutely nothing.

17:02But I was like, oh, wow, he's just giving a straight review. Was it direct-to-camera? Oh, of course. Of course. So, I know the question you're asking. Am I going to burn Barbies? Am I going to set Wicked dolls on fire? Am I going to take some sort of bulldozer and run it directly through a model of Oz? Who knows? Actually, here's the thing. The movie's good. The movie's actually quite good. So. I just thought it fascinating. I was like, oh, my God. Am I going to end up red-pilled and loving Wicked? Is that what's going to happen to me if I watch Ben Trafiro talk about his own love for Wicked? Well, it's one or the other.

17:34You come in here and you're just fucking like Laura Loomer. Wait, wait, wait. He loved it? He really, really liked it. What? Yes. He really liked it. But I bring it up because this point that Vincent is making about the homoerotic energy. The most irritating and stupid thing about the press rollout for this film was Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo suggesting that there was a sexual undertone to the friendship between Glinda and Elphaba. Which, by the way, defeats the entire purpose of the musical in about eight different ways. They're fighting over a boy in the musical. They're literally fighting over a boy in the musical.

18:00And the whole point is that they're friends. If there's something sexual, none of it works. I don't know when it became a thing in Hollywood that people aren't allowed to be friends. If two dudes are friends, they must be gay. Ben Schwerer is like, isn't it possible for people just to go to school together anymore and just be friends? So, yeah, I just I don't even know what to make of the fact that I dabbled in that, but I found it absolutely fascinating. I love it. Yeah. I mean, I think, Vincent, this is definitely getting into why people are liking Wicked. I mean, it's it's why do you guys think it's such a hit?

18:32I just think it is, it's big emotion. It's, it's like, it's about friendship and being misunderstood. It is definitely, I think it gives, it gives a lot. I don't know, there are people crying to Defying Gravity in my theater. I just think it's like a very, I don't think any of the songs are true bangers. Defying Gravity is very memorable, but it's not a banger banger. But there are great emotional moments in almost every one of the songs. It is there to cause feelings, big feelings. You know what it reminded me of in this sense, I think, and in the kind of like story of a relationship between two women?

19:23It kind of reminded me of Frozen. Frozen, my daughter who's now 13, was like, you know, a toddler, I guess, you know, and Frozen came out about a decade ago. And I so I watched it with her and I watched it a million times as as as one does when you have a child who likes something. and I think similarly to what you were saying, Vincent, about the sort of emotionality, you know, the songs, the relationship, the strength of emotion and the kind of like ability to follow the course of a relationship between two very different women. Well, I mean, it's interesting that you mentioned Disney because I feel like the height of sort of recent love of musicals is the Disney run that coincided with at least my childhood, you know, Aladdin and The Lion King, these things that were so well in every one of those, you know, I just can't wait to be king, et cetera, et cetera.

20:33These strong early songs of like, I want, I want, I want. This thing that I think Americans today struggle with so much, which is like identity formation. How do you deal with desire and how do you express it in a way that like makes, I don't know, society come into accord with your wishes? It's so strong in those Disney things. And I think that's totally right. Like that not only the sound, but the structure of feeling as we keep on talking about this emotion thing. I think that's totally, totally right. Yeah, absolutely. The classic obstacle to the real desire and the quest of the film or of the musical being to kind of overcome the obstacle and overcome the foe to get to that desire.

21:14And of course, Wicked does make it a bit more interesting by having these two protagonists who are at cross purposes.

21:24In a minute, what do we actually want from our musicals? Critics at large from The New Yorker will be right back.

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22:15So, critics. Yes? If you were at Chiz and you had a magic wand. Were you at Chiz? Were you to have the honor for enrolling at Chiz and to have a magic wand? Our noble alma mater, yeah. Yes, and you could magically make appear before you the perfect musical. What would that perfect musical be? I think when I wave my wand or just when I close my eyes and think platonically, capital M musical, what comes into my mind is the sound of music. The hills are alive with the sound of music. With songs they have sung for a thousand years It's got everything, and part of the remit of the musical is to have everything.

23:07It's got to be what the Germans call a Gesamtkunstwerk, something that contains many of the arts within itself. You know, the dancing, the singing, the acting, all of it working together in like this unbelievable harmony. It's got great songs. It's got great dances. It's amazing. What would you say if I told you that Pauline Kael, one time, long time, movie reviewer, The New Yorker, called The Sound of Music the single most repressive influence on artistic freedom in movies? Wow. I would argue with my esteemed colleague. That's it. What was the argument? Well, it's just— Repressive. Do you know how big and open and beautiful and fluid that musical is?

23:53I think it just – I think the argument was schmaltz on schmaltz, basically. That this is – you know, if the singing nuns don't get you, the stomping Nazis will. That's basically the thought. I mean – but Vincent, you're talking about bigness, grandness, lushness. Yes. That to me is the point of it, to make every scene, frame, moment charged with what you feel inside. That to me requires a kind of maximalism. For me, I feel like heightened realism is kind of like a good formula. Like I'm thinking if I, you know, just to sort of like reverse engineer, like thinking about musicals that I do actually like.

24:41For instance, the musical Hair, which I actually have never seen on stage, but I've watched the movie a million times. The 1979 Milos Forman movie. Yes, the 1979 Milos Forman movie starring the, you know, recently departed Treat Williams as Berger. So this is a movie about a particular moment in time, you know, the kind of like the hippie, you know, the anti-Vietnam hippie movement. Any person who alters, forges, knowingly destroys, knowingly mutilates, or in any manner changes this certificate may be fined not to exceed$10 ,000 or imprisoned for not more than five years. Or both. But of course, it's fantastical as well, right?

25:34It's like heightened to such an extent that them breaking out in songs and dancing on the table and like swinging from the chandelier and, you know, whipping their hair back and forth reads as completely in tune. And, you know, thinking about all the musicals that I do like, it strikes me that all of them have some kind of subcultural element to them, weirdly. And I wonder if that's something that could be more generally said about the musical form. I have a theory about your theory, Nomi. Okay. I have a theory to build on top of your theory. Yes, please. And here's what it is. maybe the way the reason why you feel that way about the particular musicals you do is because think of what the musical actually allows us to do the songs put you directly inside a character and so the musicals you're describing are all worlds that you're interested in living in yeah and so when you walk around and you can sing the songs from hair those feelings come out through you and that is the technology of the musical that i think is so still exciting yeah and it is exciting when people use it in different ways.