You Have to Watch Wicked Twice

And let me tell you why...

Hi friends! It’s a special week here at Gay Buffet. You’re getting a Tuesday newsletter and you’ll be getting one on Thursday as well! This was going to just be an art section, but it expanded past its bounds into its own article. I hope you enjoy it!

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Last weekend, I, alongside a record-setting number of people, went to see Wicked: Part One. In fact, I saw it twice in the span of three days (because Casey couldn't go the first time). I don't love seeing movies multiple times, but doing so this time turned out to be a surprising gift.

I have a complex history with Wicked: The Musical, but I was nothing but excited to see how they took such an iconic story and translated it from stage to screen. I settled into my seat in a theatre packed with excited fans, and as I started to watch the movie, something strange happened. I was having trouble paying attention to the onscreen action; I was looking around a woman's hat in front of me, frustrated that the couple behind me wouldn't stop talking, and quickly made peace with the fact that I would be unable to process the experience of the movie separately from the movie itself. While I'd prepped for that, it was still frustrating. But little did I know it would also seep deeper than that, going back almost two decades.

Wicked has been an international juggernaut for the past twenty years, a feat few other musicals can claim. It smashed onto Broadway in 2004, broke records there, and launched multiple national and international tours. The talks of the movie have been circulating amongst theatre fans for decades. It even made its way all the way across the Pacific to Hawaii. When I was a little kid, the closest movie theatre (an hour) from my house would play "Defying Gravity" and "Popular" in the lobby for years. When I'd have to scurry out of a showing to pee, those songs were my soundtrack, and they've created strange but strong sense memories.

Flash forward over a decade to 2019, and I had the immense honor of being able to do the show on tour. That experience turned a nostalgic memory into my first big job. That experience came complete with workplace drama, high-stakes moments, wonderful highs, and really challenging lows. I had that unique relationship with Wicked, but it probably took me further from the show than the average Wicked fan. So I had a lot coming with me into the theatre that night. But so did everyone else. How could they not? How can you take something that has been an iconic staple of our musical theatre lives for twenty years and try and leave your baggage at the door? You can't.

(L) The Day of My Wicked debut in 2019, and (R) Fiyero debut a few months later.

On that first viewing, my thoughts kept short-circuiting as my actor brain kept remembering cues or visuals from my time onstage doing the show. It was almost as if my brain was going no, that isn't how that part goes, not because I didn't like what was happening onscreen, but just because my brain was hardwired through months of repetition to 'know' something else. I was overjoyed to hear the overture, but kept seeing my friends in monkey suits overlaid over the incredible CGI monkeys flying over Oz. During added scenes in the film, I kept thinking, "is this new, or was I just not onstage for this scene?" During the cinematic dance breaks, my body moved involuntarily through sequences even as the dancers onscreen did fresh choreography

So when I left the theatre, instead of being able to simply reflect on a movie I had just watched, my head was full of contradictions. I couldn't appreciate all of what I had seen because my brain felt literally unable to let go of the differences from what I'd been so used to.

Then I saw it again.

And what a different experience it was. Since I knew what to expect, I was able to go in and have a new experience. It's almost as if I had the brain of a complete Wicked virgin and could actually just watch the movie. It felt like two entirely different experiences, and I was surprised by how drastic the difference was. I was able to take in the incredible attention to detail that is evident throughout the film. I was able to appreciate the changes that they made rather than just be jarred by them. I was able to luxuriate in the time spent inhabiting Wicked's version of Oz. Even the unfortunately deep parallels between our reality and theirs hit even harder on this second go-round.

But beyond the film itself, this experience of seeing it twice taught me how our expectations can drastically affect our experiences of something with a surprising tangibility. We all know that that can happen, sure, but to feel the difference within 72 hours was quite informative. When I walked in the first time, my brain literally couldn't comprehend what was happening, but the second time, I was able to really be present, and my emotions evidenced as my tears flowed freely. And all this has made me wonder, in what other ways do our expectations get in the way of our experience of life?

Let's imagine my experience is grounded in science (I have no clue if it is), and I like speaking in absolutes (which I normally don't). If you show up to an event with a weighty expectation, then you're already getting in the way of the event. Say it's a concert you want to love, but your hopes may be so high that anything outside of your expectations will lead to disappointment. Or, conversely, it could be an audition you're dreading, the fear will get in the way of how your brain is working even if you're doing well. Maybe that's why it's hard to remember things surrounding especially charged experiences. Perhaps our brains are too busy trying to reconcile the present with what is imagined to actually store anything as memory. Again, not a scientist. This could all be proven fact already or pure poppycock.

But I'm not here to prove a thesis; I never have been. I am here to wonder about what I can do with the experience I had and make you a little curious too. Was there any way that I could have made my first viewing different? Would I have wanted to? Now that I've had this experience, how can I move forward with this knowledge and maybe try to have fewer expectations? Wouldn't that be scary?

Expectations help us plan what might happen. Expectations help us map out hundreds of different scenarios and make hundreds of different contingency plans. And if I'm unable to make those hypothetical plans, then I just have to make peace with the fact that a great big unknown is out there, and that is terrifying.

But it will also help me experience it to the fullest and be present in every moment. And to me, that is what life is all about. Experiencing the entire breadth of opportunity that this world and this life have to offer. So, while this hasn't been quite the 'review' of Wicked that I thought it would be when I sat down to write, isn't that the whole point? I had an expectation, I let it go, I shook up my brain a little, and that terrifying unknown led me down this beautiful yellow brick road.

All my love, Aidan