The retrospective series is my attempt to revisit shows that I have seen in the past. Many of these have been video recorded and are part of the research archives in the New York Public Library. In this initial entry, I begin with the first Broadway show I attended in middle school, The Wiz.
I have a very strong memory of The Wiz, the all black update of The Wizard of Oz. This show won seven Tony Awards including Best Musical. I was sitting in the last row of the balcony in July of 1975 (Playbill verified, with Ben Harney understudying Tiger Haynes’ Tony Award winning Lion). I remember a vibrant technicolor set and a pile of entertaining songs including the breakout hit “Ease on Down the Road.” The show ran about three years and had two brief revivals. This videotaping occurred in April of 1993, the last Broadway outing, with both Stephanie Mills and Andre De Shields reprising their roles as Dorothy and the Wiz. Even if Ms. Mills was in her thirties by this point, her Dorothy was a lot less naïve and edgier than the Judy Garland version. Plus, this actress is tiny framed and was in great voice so it all seemed to work for me.
How does the Wiz look today? First, this production ran less than a month and appeared to be a dressed down version similar to a road tour staging. The tornado dance remains an ingenious piece of choreography. A dancer encircles the stage with an enormously long piece of black cloth emerging from her headdress. She creates a stage sized twister through dance and when it’s all done, Dorothy and her house have landed in Munchkinland.
Obviously, L. Frank Baum’s original story is well known. The Wiz urbanized the characters and their dialogue, quite of bit of which is now dated. Attapearl is the self-proclaimed feel good girl, also known as the Good Witch of the North. How does she know that Dorothy has killed the Wicked Witch of the East? “I’d know those tacky panty hose anywhere.”
We meet the Scarecrow first who wants brains “so I can be President and ride on Air Force One and get my picture on a food stamp.” The lines are that big. At least the Air Force One prediction happened fifteen years after this performance. Our Tin Man describes how he lost all his limbs chopping trees to be asked, “Did it never occur to you to get a new axe?” In “Mean Old Lion,” we meet our coward who is “in therapy with a high priced owl three times a week.”
Up until this point, strong character songs move this piece swiftly as the men playing the Yellow Brick Road dance them from place to place. The highlight of Act One is the duet between Dorothy and the Lion where she encourages him to “Be A Lion.” The song is a big, belty Broadway masterpiece.
When we get to the Emerald City, Andre De Shields gets to strut his stuff in an amazing white cape lined in sparkly green while wearing a white, bell-bottomed pant suit. His big entrance song is “So You Wanted to Meet the Wizard.” Ever observant, he tells Dorothy, “I can understand a girl like you wanting to go to Brazil, Mozambique, Harlem, but Kansas?” This section is a great book scene. It’s very funny and possibly better than the movie. Why does the Wiz think Dorothy is up for her assigned task? “You’re the best wicked witch killer in this country!”
The last song of Act One is the Tin Man’s beautifully introspective “What Would I Do If I Could Feel.” Act Two opens with the monstrous Evillene bellowing to her subjects, “Don’t Nobody Bring Me No Bad News.” Her disturbing punishment for offenders: “hang that sucker.” Dorothy gets hold of a water bucket resulting in “don’t tell me I’ve done it again!” The citizens rejoice with “Can You Feel A Brand New Day,” here a song with pedestrian choreography, a Rockettes kick line and much better in memory.
When our friends return to the Emerald City, they hear the Wiz has moved: “it has something to do with urban renewal.” Throwaway songs like “Who Do You Think You Are?” continue to slow down a second Act which can in no way compete with the tighter first half. And then we get to the Wiz’s sermon which is way too long. Essentially we learn “you don’t only have to know where you’re going, you also have to know where you’re coming from.”
I recently read Isabel Wilkerson’s phenomenal book, “The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration” which covered the period from 1915 up to when this show was originally written. She documented the travels for many who escaped from the Jim Crow South but then encouraged their children to visit their heritage. The Wiz nicely touched on this theme.
As a side note, in its original review, The Wall Street Journal noted that the book was undistinguished and suggested that The Wiz was “performed by blacks for blacks.” I’ll let that quote speak for itself.
In a show filled with enjoyable ballads such as “The Feeling We Once Had” and “If You Believe,” Dorothy manages to get the greatest one for her 11:00 number. I vividly remember seeing “Home” from the back row of the enormous Majestic Theater. I remember the audience sort of disappearing from view and the performance grabbing me directly in a tunnel-like manner. It was, and remains, a magical moment that solidified early on my love of live theater. I don’t get the same level of intensity from the best in movies or television. Perhaps it’s the immediacy of the moment. Perhaps I’m old-fashioned. Or perhaps it’s just a more intensely personal experience.
In retrospect, The Wiz is a bit of a period piece now. The songs, however, are strong enough to encourage a book update and heed these lyrics from Home: “Time be my friend. Let me start again…”