Over the weekend I went to a local production of The Wizard of Oz, and it was pretty entertaining.
If it's not a good game or catholic, who do you call, why pokematic "hi."
Up by my parents there's a local theater troop that puts on real stage productions at a small theater in one of the neighboring cities, and my mom likes to go when there's a good show. It was something she really liked doing with my grandma, but now it's just kind of something she does for birthdays, and since mskate's birthday was recent and they were putting on a stage play adaption of The Wizard of Oz, she got tickets and invited us. So what did I think? Well, it was great.
If you've been living under a rock, The Wizard of Oz is a major movie in American culture, in part because it was one of the first color movies and it did all it could to show it off, and because it's just great. Because it's so popular, there are live theater adaptations of it, and I remember going to see a version with my grandparents back when I was either 5 or 6 at a "real off broadway" theater. (There's also a large rabbit hole of Oz related media that is largely trying to capitalize on the popularity, but that's a thing for you to handle yourself). This one wasn't quite as impressive as that one, but what do you expect from a local community theater troop. Anyway, this isn't going to be a review of the story itself and what the iconic songs are since I'm going to assume that you're familiar with it (because as I said, this is a cultural icon).
First, I was REALLY impressed with what they did with Kansas. In the movie, Kansas is shot in sepia black and white, and everything becomes color when Dorothy goes to Oz. I was kind of wondering if they would do anything to address that. Low and behold, they did. When the setting is Kansas, everyone's clothes are black and white and all the sets are black and white. That was pretty cool set designs considering that the whole "real world is boring black and white, fantastical world is exciting color" in the movie.
Second, something that I thought was really cool was the actors. In the movie, the scarecrow, the tin man, the cowardly lion, the wicked witch of the west, and the wizard are all played by the same people that Dorothy comes across in Kansas (the companions are the farm hands, the witch is the neighbor that hates Toto, and the wizard is the traveling fortuneteller), and there's like symbolism in that or something. Maybe this is just a me thing, but when I watch the movie I have to remind myself that the people Dorothy meets in Oz are the same people she knows in Kansas, in part because we don't spend a lot of time with them all things considered, and in other part because the costuming and makeup are "just that good." This being live theater though, and with some changes made to the script for the stage show, it was more obvious in a good way.
Third, there's the sets. Something that I latched onto for some reason was "the elevated set piece." Throughout the story there are things where "people are elevated," where in the play those were when Glenda came in on a bubble when Dorothy first lands, when the Wicked Witch is on top of a house and shoots some fire at the Scarecrow, when the guard to Oz is keeping the crew out, and when Dorothy is in her dungeon cell. The interesting thing with the build is there was this rolling set piece that on one side was the bubble, another was the house, 3rd side was the guard tower, and last side was the cell window, and they kind of rotated it depending on the need. There was also the house, where during the tornado there were stage hands that rotated it across the stage as other stage hands had things spin around the house in the tornado. One thing that really spoke to me was there was one time when the stage hands had to bring something out while in the emerald city when it wasn't a scene change (all the actors were still on stage), and instead of "stage hand full black" they were wearing green safety vests (because everyone wears green in the emerald city).
While on this technical topic, there's also the makeup and effects. With the companions and wicked witch, the transition between "normal human stage makeup" and "magical creature makeup" was pretty impressive. There was something about the witch when she was the neighbor that felt a little off, so I suspect she had like some kind of "quick transition fake face" since her last time as "white human" and "green witch" was pretty short. Then with the scarecrow, tin man, and lion, the jump back to normal human was pretty quick, but since it was "just take the makeup off," they might not have fully done their human makeup. There were also a lot of smoke-fog effects, so much that there was a cloud over the audience, which made me make a joke of "for the announcement of no smoking or vaping, they sure did that a lot for the show." The wizard before the reveal was also kind of neat. At the show when I was little they had a big mechanical face, but here they had the actor just talking into a camera with it being on a large video screen. Actually pretty cool. Then there was the pyrotechnic effect, where the witch shot some fire out of her broom. That was cool. Also, when Dorothy dumps a bucket of water on the witch, just like when I was little it was a bucket of large confetti.
Fourth, there were some new songs. Like, there was a song about the jitter bug making them dance until they die, and I want to say there was another in the emerald city. They weren't exactly the most memorable, but they gave more reason for the chorus to dance which is good for musical theater. They also added some things to the existing songs, like there was some stuff with "if I only had a brain" that wasn't in the original movie version. Again, nothing super memorable, but for musical theater it gave some other people things to do.
Now it's time for the real star of the show. Forget Dorothy, the witch, the scarecrow, tin man, and lion. No, the real star of this production was Toto. Toto was played by a real black toy poodle type dog. This dog was so well behaved, able to just walk with Dorothy, get carried around without any fussing, and just standing there when he needed. If this was a "broadway production" type of show I wouldn't be too impressed with a "working animal," but since this is a local troop chances are Toto was just someone in the production's pet. There were a couple of times when I think the cast had to improvise around the dog (like when the fortune teller has to shoo him away from "the fire" and then act like he was burnt), but for the most part it seemed like he hit his marks all the time.
Overall, it was a fun time. Well this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.
PS, I also found this in the parking structure, and I couldn't help but make the joke "it's the new Sony console name." Mskate was like "I don't get it, why are you doing that" and I'm like "it's a gaming joke."
