Musicals have a long history of reworking familiar stories to find new angles, often producing work that is more challenging than its source material.
West Side Story relocated Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet to New York, using the tragedy to explore race and immigration. Hadestown reimagines the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice in a post-apocalyptic city, using folk and jazz to examine power and labour.
Wicked: The Musical, which has its premiere at Dubai Opera on Wednesday, belongs to that lineage, functioning as a complete, stand-alone story while also acting as a prelude to The Wizard of Oz, filling in the moral gaps the original leaves untouched.
Premiering on Broadway in 2003, Wicked: The Musical returns to a time before Dorothy’s arrival, when Oz’s future Wicked Witch, Elphaba, was a green-skinned student whose intelligence, curiosity and natural magical ability marked her as an outsider. That refusal to conform makes her appearance in the musical all the more powerful and timely, according to Rebekah Lowings, who plays Elphaba on stage.
“Her moral standing is very clear,” Lowings says. “She knows what’s right and wrong, and she acts on it. That’s the thing about Elphaba. She doesn’t wait for permission, and she doesn’t soften herself to make other people comfortable. In Act One, she’s young and determined, and in Act Two, she’s carrying the consequences of choices she’s already made.”
That clarity, she notes, gives Elphaba a rebel attitude and defines Wicked: The Musical as less of a fantasy story than one rooted in everyday concerns, for children and adults alike.
“What gives Elphaba her edge is that clarity. Wicked isn’t really a fantasy in that sense and I feel it’s grounded in things people recognise. Moral certainty doesn’t protect her and she isn’t punished for being cruel; she’s punished for refusing to bend, which is something kids understand immediately in the schoolyard, and adults run into all the time at work.”
For Eve Shanu-Wilson, who plays Glinda, and who has a complicated relationship with Elphaba on stage, the story is also a meditation on true friendship.
“I’ve realised that with Glinda, good can’t just be a label,” she says. “She’s told she’s good because she’s pretty and because she pleases people. She’s a people-pleaser, and that’s rewarded. But she doesn’t actually have moral footing of her own. She hasn’t decided what she believes in yet, and that’s what the friendship with Elphaba forces her to confront.”
The recent film adaptation starring Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, which grossed more than $700 million worldwide, reinforced that reading. Shanu-Wilson says it was emotional weight rather than novelty that made it resonate. Children, she argues, are more emotionally attuned than adults often realise, something she has witnessed directly during recent performances in Riyadh.
“It doesn’t matter where you are from, children know exactly what is going on and they can sense injustice. I remember in Riyadh, during Act Two, there is a scene where everyone on stage is calling Elphaba wicked and hunting her,” she says. “The kids don’t buy it. They see someone being treated unfairly and you can see it in their faces. They don’t accept the label, even though the whole world on stage is insisting on it.”
The Dubai show is part of a new staging of the production by Broadway Entertainment Group, which made its premiere in Riyadh in December. The non-replica version, an industry term for a show that does not copy the original production’s sets, costumes or choreography, features more than 350 costumes, giving the show a more vibrant and contemporary look than the original’s industrial, steampunk aesthetic.
The production also incorporates video projection, making the Emerald City feel more expansive. The biggest addition, however, happens above the stage, where aerial rigging allows Elphaba to fly out over the audience.
Lowings describes these more immersive additions as necessary in light of the film’s success. “Many people will have seen the film before the musical,” she says. “So this interpretation feels bigger and bolder, and it gets such a strong reaction from children in particular. Their eyes go wide.”
Shanu-Wilson adds: “The production is huge. While it preserves the magic of the original, it also finds new life in it. It feels like we have a fresh canvas, a chance to bring our own interpretation rather than working in the shadow of other versions.”
That said, what has not changed is the difficulty of performing the beloved soundtrack composed by Stephen Schwartz. Lowings describes Elphaba’s songs, such as Defying Gravity and No Good Deed, as among the most demanding in musical theatre.
“It’s notoriously difficult as a performer. You have to sing it with passion. You can’t sing it at even 70 per cent, you need to go all the way or no one believes it,” she says. “Her acting arc is huge. Act One she’s young, she’s naive, she’s determined, and in Act Two she’s become a woman and she’s carrying so much more baggage. So it’s not just about the notes. You’re carrying all of that emotionally at the same time.”
But the payoff for the rigours is immediate. Shanu-Wilson describes watching Lowings fly across the stage each night as moments that makes all the preparations and rehearsals worth it.
“I get to stand there and watch the audience. When the lights go into the house, you see all these little kids just looking up at her, completely absorbed,” she says. “For a lot of them, this isn’t just their first Wicked. It’s their first experience of a big-budget musical. And that is so special, for us to be part of that experience.”
Wicked The Musical is running at Dubai Opera from Wednesday to February 15. Evening and matinee shows available; tickets from Dh275
