Nearly two hours into the extravagantly overstuffed Wicked: Part I, two acquainted faces present up on the streets of the Emerald City. In the center of the Glinda–Elphaba duet “One Short Day,” a theater troupe places on just a little historical past pageant telling the story of the Wizard’s arrival in Oz. When two bedazzling actresses bearing glowing scepters step onto the troupe’s stage, the film provides them the royal therapy—fittingly, as they’re royalty.
I’ve heard experiences from associates of audiences bursting into applause on the look of Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth, the unique Broadway forged’s Elphaba and Glinda. In my suburban D.C. theater, stuffed largely with younger folks, their cameo was greeted with well mannered curiosity however no overt recognition. Director Jon M. Chu actually permits Chenoweth and Menzel to strut their stuff, and their curtain name is, in fact, fan service to longtime lovers of the musical. But the quick, humorous scene is greater than that. It is a tonic amid the bombast of Wicked. These two Broadway professionals, in about two minutes, ship the wit, heat, and old-school theatrical razzmatazz that the film and its younger stars, for all their sparkle and polish, usually wrestle to attain.
Chu informed IndieWire that when he proposed the thought to Wicked composer Stephen Schwartz, Schwartz informed him he’d write the quantity in a single day. “It acquired to permit us, the viewers, the filmmakers, to pay homage to them and provides them their applause,” Chu stated, and it definitely does that. Each actress will get an enormous vocal line and a second together with her successor to symbolically move the baton—and present that they nonetheless have the vary. “Spare a thought for the Broadway fan in your life,” writes IndieWire’s Erin Strecker, “who would possibly simply have handed out when Menzel nods to her iconic ‘ah-ahh-ah’ ‘Defying Gravity’ riff. “
I didn’t move out at that second, partly as a result of, although I’m a theater particular person, I didn’t notably love Wicked even after I first noticed it. (Some Broadway followers nonetheless keep in mind celebrating when Wicked misplaced the large Tony awards to the funnier, extra daring Avenue Q.) But I however liked this second within the film, which appeared like a present to theater individuals who discover that they miss, amid the wonderful vistas and spinning bookshelves and zippy hummingbirds of Chu’s film, a sure sort of intimate human efficiency. Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande can definitely belt, in fact, and Erivo specifically excels at imbuing a lyric or a line with highly effective rage, despair, or willpower. But what makes Wicked, like most beloved musicals, an leisure engine shouldn’t be solely the large emotional numbers or the crowds of dancers popping and locking. It’s the connection between two performers, in the identical area, taking part in off one another in recognizable, enjoyable, human methods.
I’m not solely saying that Erivo and Grande aren’t humorous—however that’s an enormous a part of the issue. Though neither is a very fleet-footed comedienne, it’s not completely the actors’ fault. In Elphaba and Glinda’s dialogue scenes, which within the musical’s first half are wealthy with comedian moments and prickly exchanges, Chu largely avoids two-shots, reducing backwards and forwards from one witch to the opposite, showcasing every of his stars in flip however withholding the reactions and interactions from which an onstage relationship is made. (It’s a stunning alternative, given Chu’s evident, and much-lauded, understanding that, for instance, theatrical dance numbers work finest on movie if you happen to enable the viewers to see a number of our bodies in movement throughout the display, slightly than reducing shortly from one dancer to the following like so many Rob Marshalls earlier than him.) And as soon as they begin singing, Chu’s resolution to stretch every track out just a bit bit doesn’t assist, as, for instance, in “Popular,” Grande finds her punch strains delayed time and again, every time simply lengthy sufficient to dampen the joke.
And into this overbaked, humorless, gorgeous-to-look-at-and-beautifully-sung behemoth prance Menzel and Chenoweth, two absolute masters of musical theater. Not simply singing—performing. Their costumes are outlandish. Their hairdos are ridiculous. And in each second, they’re captured in two-shot, every taking part in off her co-star, participating in goofy prop humor, upstaging and outdoing one another with evident delight. It’s a two-minute grasp class in showmanship, a talent Chu has in spades however which his two main girls haven’t fairly mastered—partly, it should be stated, as a result of Chu’s razzle-dazzle usually out-razzles theirs.
And then, after every will get a line together with her co-star—Chenoweth playfully overlaying Grande’s mouth so Glinda can’t sing—they’re gone. There’s nonetheless, presumably, one other three hours or so of Wicked to go (the sequel shall be launched on Nov. 21, 2025), and although the second half of the musical is a complete lot grimmer than the primary, I hope Chu notices what a ray of sunshine this cameo duet actually gives—and steps again, only a bit, to let his two proficient lead actors actually carry out.
