Wicked – Musical Steampunk Fantasy in Oz

Posted by on February 25th,2008

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I’m not dead!  I apologise for being absent so, but it’s back to pleasure as usual and I’d first like to mention that when I was in New York (for the Dances of Vice festival, more on that later) I was fortunate enough to get tickets to see the musical Wicked on broadway.  Oh, such a beautiful show!  Telling the tale of the Wicked Witch of the West, the Good Witch Glinda and many more non-Dorothy characters from Oz, and I honestly hadn’t gone there with the expectation of anything Steampunk.  However, I was very pleasantly surprised – from utterly delicious pseudo-Victorian Emerald City costumes (that you can see blurrily in the video above) to the ominous and threatening influx of dangerous science and more cogs than I could shake a magic wand at!

The sets featured sillouetted iron bridges, giant backlit gothic clockfaces, and a wooden clockwork dragon overseeing the whole beautiful affair.  The Wizard of Oz’ mechanical giant head is also has to be seen to be disbelieved!  I’d heartily recommend seeing it if you can (New York, Chicago, LA, London, Tokyo, Stuttgart, and Melbourne) and if you don’t come away with a hankering for green lensed glasses/goggles, I’ll be somewhat surprised.