Blog: Wicked, Round Two

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Wicked, Round Two - Monday, September 21, 2009
I saw Wicked the Musical for the second time, this time with Priscilla, Chi and Victor (they were up here for a wedding). Since Priscilla and I loved the show so much last time, we decided to get $100 orchestra seats this time around. Unfortunately, this time Wicked turned out to be not so wicked.

Maybe it was the high expectations we went in with. But what killed the show for us was that Kendra Kassebaum, the person playing Glinda (one of the two principal characters), was nowhere near as good as Natalie Daradich, the person who played the role the first time we saw it. Ironically, Kendra is the principal actress for the role and Natalie is the standby.

No disrespect to Kendra, but she just didn't seem to have the energy or the personality to play a perky, head-above-the-clouds character like Glinda. She sort of tossed her jokes to the wayside, and wasn't completely into her character. She did just so-so with Popular, which is perhaps Glinda's most defining song. However, she doesn't have a bad voice, so she did better in the second act, where Glinda's focus is more on singing than on acting.

Natalie, on the other hand, consistently played her part superbly and really stole the show.

Other than being disappointed at Kendra's performance, I thought Teal Wick's (Elphaba's) singing was a little weaker this time around, though I still thought she was great in both shows. And Lee Wilkof, who played the wizard, was really animated in Wonderful - probably more animated than anybody else in the show.

So it wasn't a bad show and I don't mean to bash anybody, but it left much to be desired, especially given the price we paid for better seats.