Wicked's Glinda the Good Kendra Kassebaum a bubbly ball of laughs and everlasting popularity

Wicked/Kendra Kassebaum/Glind/Bubbles

Kendra Kassebaum as Glinda sounds as bubbly as she looks; Kendra's giddy sense of blond humor alone is worth the price of admission to San Francisco’s production of Wicked. Catch her act as Glinda the good who becomes a woman of the people almost like Evita. Before she does the status conscious debutante Glinda performs one of the most memorable scenes in all of theaterdom as she tries to teach bookworm misfit Elphaba, her roommate, how to be popular. Here's Kendra with Teal Wicks as Elphaba. Note Eden Espinosa has returned as Elphaba: Espinosa returns.

It’s not just a story about girlpower between two opposites but also reminds one of the separate ways young women go as they find mates, graduate and marry. I have to admit Nicolas Dromard as rich boy and cavalier Fiyero, the mutual love interest, puts on a fine one-man show. He looks young, handsome and virile, singing and dancing and strutting about with bravado. While it turns out Fiyero has a heart and some dignity, his entry would almost make the prince from Beauty and the Beast swoon. Bravo!

The book in contrast, has no comic relief, said my companion Holly. She still remembers her encounter with the original Wizard of Oz too, growing up in New Jersey. The grandmother of a classmate related to the woman who played the Wicked Witch in the Wizard of Oz dressed up in costume and came to her school. However my earliest memory is being given nightmares by the flying monkeys in the film. Happily, the musical Wicked kept the monkeys but they had not become terrifying yet in the pre-Dorothinian era. Wicked redefines wickedry in general.

So, the house looked sold out that cold Thursday night in San Francisco on Market Street, with a mixed audience at the Orpheum. Mostly white, plenty of males, all ages. I was ever so excited to finally see this wildly popular musical with it’s cult following. My first encounter with the cast had been at the one-year anniversary celebration where Kendra appeared and sang with Teal Wicks, along with Patty Duke who just finished her run as Madame Morrible. Click here: Anniversary with women of Wicked.

Wicked/Patty Duke/Madame Morrible

The women of Wicked seemed down to earth and regarded each other so warmly and honestly I could see the appeal to the mostly female audience who came to honor them. When Teal sang The Wizard and I, it was other-worldly mesmerizing rock-star great, so much so I could hardly believe that voice was really coming out of the woman not ten feet from me. What could the stage production at the Orpheum be like? Astounding, is what I found out. I wanted to know why the fans keep coming back, multiple times.

Victorian and Steam Punk?

Each costume stands alone as a work of art. The costumes alone make me want to wear them and become part of the show. They capture the imagination with their patterns and colors and textures, from the tip of their hats to the tip of their toes. While being Tony Award winners they seem to have some influence from the Steam Punk ethic, a turn of the century Victorian goth style that usually comes with aviator glasses or little round John Lennon glasses. Berkeley Opera did Tales of Hoffman in this same Victorian mad inventor style. The librettist actually owns a science fiction bookstore in Berkeley, The Other Change of Hobbit. He’s working on The Glass Slipper, his adaptation of La Cenerentola. David Scott Marley.

Defying Gravity, an anthem turning misfits into heroes or overachievers?

One of the show stoppers remains the song “Defying Gravity”, about how working in tandem, one will defy gravity. It’s a high energy song and it’s uplifting. So much so Kelly Porter co-founded a charity which gives such music to children facing long stays in the hospital. For more information and a video clip of Defying Gravity, click here: Music therapy for children in the hospital: AIDAAN gives iPods

That is one thing behind girl power. It’s not feminism, it’s just the bond between friends who feel emphathy. Friends join together to overcome adversaries and just plain social handicaps. That could mean anything from emerging from a dysfunctional family to having a physical handicap. For example, Elphaba’s skin came out green so she always had emphathy for misfits or those scapegoated to be socially inferior. Specifically she not only makes the Darwinian choice of freeing the flying monkeys and insisting they learn to speak, but she also befriends the old goat, literally an old goat, of a professor at her school.

If you like Harry Potter underdogs who perform magic against evil

Yes it's the old good versus evil, nevertheless. So sometimes I wonder about this obsession over what is good and what is bad, what is black and what is white . . . it's a colorful world if not green or something in between. Moreover. Didn't the Beatles have the screaming green meanies? Underachiever Andy just corrected me, it's blue meanies . . . thanks for that.

What about this theatrical or dramatic poetic license, where misfits are just misunderstood and then the underdogs overcome. It’s so American and so Harry Potter. Misfits with human foibles work magic and fight evil. In real life, sometimes I feel that my kindness just gets treated as a weakness, that the object of my tolerance or withholding of judgment just asks for more rather than returning my affections.

Sometimes I think those with handicaps can get spoiled because they have learned to be babies; and you just create a monster socially even if you get an overachiever for all your kindness. I got burned recently by such an overachiever and it still stings. It was like nobody could ever be good enough for him. He just seemed to have this sense of entitlement . . . That’s why I prefer my female friends where the relationships remain free of romantic complications and compromises. That’s why I loved Wicked, it was a celebration of that uncompromised and innocent friendship you find when you are young and in school, exposed to diversity.

Who was your roommate in college? Holly Would

Interestingly enough, my favorite roommate at UC Berkeley was an architecture student from La Jolla named Holly and I took a local friend Holly with me to Wicked last month. Almost thirty years apart. Back in the summer of 1979 when Holly and I shared a room in a fraternity over the summer, a young man I had a crush on would call her, Holly Would. Yes, he wanted to be a writer as evinced by such cleverness. He turned out to be a stockbroker, unpublished. In contrast. My new friend Holly in San Francisco is a strong believer in girl power, so that’s why I enjoyed her company.

For more info:

WICKED is the untold story of the witches of Oz. Long before Dorothy drops in, two other girls meet in the land of Oz. One, born with emerald-green skin, is smart, fiery and misunderstood. The other is beautiful, ambitious and very popular. WICKED tells the story of their remarkable odyssey, how these two unlikely friends grow to become the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good Witch.

Tickets for WICKED are on sale for this open-ended engagement and range in price from $30 to $99. Tickets can be purchased online at shnsf.com and ticketmaster.com/wicked, through Ticketmaster Charge-By-Phone 415- 512-7770 and 800-982-2787, at all Ticketmaster Ticket Centers and at the Orpheum Theatre Box Office (1192 Market at 8^th St., Mon-Sat 10 AM - 6PM). Premium packages are also available for all performances. Groups of 20 or more may order by calling Group Sales at (415) 551-2020.

WICKED PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE:
Tuesday - Saturday evenings at 8 PM
Saturday and Sunday matinees at 2 PM
Select Wednesday matinees at 2pm and select Sunday evenings at 7:30pm

For more information about WICKED at the Orpheum Theatre, please visit wickedthemusical.com/sf or shnsf.com. For information about WICKED world-wide, please visit wickedthemusical.com.

For more stories by this writer check out the San Francisco opera blog at http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-2366-SF-Opera-Examiner

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