On Saturday afternoon, I went to see Wicked with my parents.

The show is highly entertaining, and the audience (as might be expected with a show that’s been hyped as much as this one). The cast was excellent, with only a couple of weak links. Shoshana Bean made an excellent Elphaba, and Megan Hilty as Glinda managed to exorcize the ghost of the originator of that role: Kristin Chennoweth, making the role her own. Shoshana herself was so confident in the role that I never once compared her to Idina Menzel (no small feat).

The play itself…lacks a strong ending. The end of Act I kicks some serious ass, but Act II just…ends. There’s no strong climax, and it just…ends. With the kind of ending that’s given in Act I, you might really hope for something just as strong to finish off the show. But, sadly that doesn’t happen. Yes, there’s some decent character resolution, and the play ends on a happier note than the book (purportedly, since I haven’t read it), but there’s just no stirring ending with the kind of eye candy the show gives us in all its other moments.

The show is a hit, because of two things a) the music and b) the lead roles. These are the things that hold the show together. At least one of the witches (Glinda or Elphaba) is on stage in every scene. And its through them that the story is told. So, its their story that the audience is being told, and its them whom the audience relates to.

Its the ending that really gives me the problem. With a better ending, you would have heard me raving endlessly about this show. Instead, I can only say that it was a “good” show. I can’t tell you that it was “amazing” or any other word descriptive of its awesomeness.

And that, in its way, is sad. Yes, I enjoyed it. But I didn’t think it was amazing.

One thing that was interesting to me was the merchendise. There were two merchandise tables on the main floor, and one on the balcony level. Basically, there was one beside every entrance or exit from the theatre. And the merch tables were booming from the time the house was open to the time the last people left the theatre (I know, because I happened to be one of those last people…standing around was easier than trying to elbow my way out). And watching the money change hands the way it did, I could only think: I have to come up with a show that lends itself to merch. Of course, you have to have a show that’s a hit for the merch to make a difference (especially in the Toronto theatre scene), but really…its a form of revenue that can subsidize the production as a whole. Merch can’t work with every produciton though. Because there is a significant cash layout at the beginning (to pay for the merchandise). You need to have a show that your audience wants to keep a piece of. From the way that audience behaviour seems to work, you have to give them a spectacle: a visual spectacle that they want to remember. Allowing them to take away a piece of the show lets them connect with the show, in a way that a simple programme cannot. The merch also allows them to display the fact that they saw the show, and gives them ‘bragging rights’.

I gotta tap into the merch somehow.