This text incorporates spoilers for “Depraved.”
When Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman’s stage musical adaptation of Gregory Maguire’s novel “Depraved: The Life and Instances of the Depraved Witch of the West” made its Broadway debut in 2003, few might have anticipated what a world sensation “Depraved” would turn into. The story is advised from the angle of two witches, Elphaba and Galinda, who will later turn into The Depraved Witch of the West and Glinda The Good, respectively.
It takes place earlier than and after Dorothy Gale’s arrival within the magical land of Oz, explaining how each girls would find yourself down their inevitable paths. With beautiful spectacle evoking the technicolor brilliance of Victor Fleming’s traditional 1939 movie “The Wizard of Oz,” and a few of the most memorable songs in your entire Broadway canon, “Depraved” took the world by storm. The present went on to win three Tony Awards, seven Drama Desk Awards, and even a Grammy Award.
The present broke field workplace data across the globe and joined “The Phantom of the Opera” and “The Lion King” within the $1 billion Broadway income membership in 2016. The next yr, it might surpass “The Phantom of the Opera” to turn into the second highest-grossing Broadway manufacturing of all time. The success of the present additionally helped skyrocket the careers of musical theatre mainstays Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth, who originated the roles of Elphaba and G(a)linda and went on to turn into huge crossover stars (Menzel is Elsa in “Frozen” for crying out loud). There have been loads of Broadway stars who’ve made the leap from stage to display (and one isn’t higher than the opposite), however Menzel and Chenoweth’s ascent set the usual for all who would observe them down the yellow brick highway to Hollywood.
Because of this it is such a delight to see them make cameo appearances in the “Depraved” movie adaptation, full with a vocal riff assured to move you again to 2003.
The unique Elphaba and Glinda are again within the Depraved film adaptation
Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth seem through the first “Depraved” film’s huge refrain quantity “One Brief Day.” The sequence marks Elphaba and Glinda’s arrival within the Emerald Metropolis because the Ozians welcome the particular company of the Fantastic Wizard of Oz. About half-way via the tune, the duo sees a staged musical in the course of Emerald Metropolis being placed on the place the Wiz-o-Mania Gamers are performing the story of how the Wizard got here to Ozand altered their land eternally. Menzel and Chenoweth are credited because the “Wiz-o-Mania Superstars” and take the vocal lead on a brand new tune all about The Grimmerie, the magical ebook the place the Wizard supposedly will get his powers. That is proper, they are not simply popping in to smile on the digicam, they’re additionally singing.
To make issues even sweeter, Menzel at one level delivers her well-known vocal riff from the top of “Defying Gravity.” Whereas it isn’t the full-out wail that the movie’s Elphaba, Cynthia Erivo, unleashes within the movie, it is a beautiful torch-passing second. It is as if film Elphaba heard the vocal run, felt a connection to this celebrity, and turned it into her personal battle cry as she confronted down an Emerald Metropolis that wishes her lifeless. Though motion pictures do not function the identical approach as a Broadway present, it could be laborious to not erupt into applause the second these two dwelling legends seem on display. Collectively, they’re limitless, the best group there’s ever been, and director Jon M. Chu superbly honored the legacy of the stage present by incorporating them into the characteristic movie.
“Depraved Half One” is now enjoying in theaters all over the place, and critics are united in encouraging film lovers to test it out.
