Live performance2_Paul Ahn
For my second live performance it will the opposite of the first performance because this time it was a fairly large production that had been advertising all over TVs and bus stops all around last year. It was the theatrical version of the book Wicked. The premise of the whole play is based on the perspective of the green wicked witch of the east. Despite she being depicted as a pure evil who just wants to stop Dorothy in “Wizard of Oz”, it turns out she was misunderstood bright young magician who, due to odd appearances, was treated unfairly. The size of the theater was a vast difference which is obvious since Wicked is a musical and musicals tend to be a lot of grand than other theaters. There were several floors for the seats and even the preliminary stage setting before the curtain call were very flashy. I’ve also noticed that with large productions like this, some of the actors that performed in the musical were famous actor/actresses in film/TV industry. Their appearance itself seemed to be a very large commercial value for the audiences.
As the musical begin the lightings were so flashy that it irritated me a bit. It was to be expected by I felt that they went aboard. Maybe it was because I saw two such drastically different productions but the amount of members on the stage for wicked was so large that I wasn’t sure where I was suppose to focus. At the same time I knew that I was not being fair because this was a musical and as much it is about acting it is as much about large colorful performance. It also probably did have to do with the fact that I was seated far back so the actors expressions and gestures were hard to be deciphered.
Other than the complaints I had, I haven’t seen a large musical production like this in a long time and entering one I could tell that the whole process is a show it self. Obviously the show it self is what I pay for and what I will enjoy; but entering the large theater and waiting for the show to start, watching the large stage get into preparation for each act, and anticipating what kind of grand prop will be waiting behind the curtain is in itself also part of the show. The props were amazing with hanging wires that descended the white witch in her bubble, the large red dragon that bellowed white smokes all over the stage, and the trap door on the stage that allowed the wicked witch to seem to be melting. Metaphorically if the previous small theater was a shop that had several niche market items that really had few but strong customers, Wicked was Costco that just bedazzled you with size. But again, the acting itself was hard to take it in due to the distance from the stage and the large number of performers.