The Wizard of Oz - Birmingham REP

This is a very good production, which comes to the end of its run this weekend. Friday night was pretty full but there were empty seats. Very from the end of the front row was great.

The show starts around 10 minutes early with the band (and various ensemble members with guitars and the like) joining in with an overture. Like much of the music, it's the same songs as the original but played in a different style, so this part had more of a ragtime feel. Later on, you see lots of styles of music even including a bit of rap. It works in most cases, although I am partial to the original sound.

Lots of other changes have been made. The most obvious is male characters changed to female, as well as a usually female role played by a man in drag. This is very inclusive performance, reflective of Birmingham as a city, so many roles are played by black actors (the audience on the evening I saw this was still predominantly white, but this has been playing two daytime shows a day to schools for much of its run).

This was a performance with surtitles, positioned right above the conductor. I didn't really notice them, although some of the cast did sit with legs dangling over the front of the stage at one point, which would have blocked the view of anyone who needed them. The surtitles also made it obvious when the cast deviated from the script, most obvious in a joke about bondage and safe words, which got the biggest laugh from the audience (there weren't many children in).

There is no traditional yellow brick road, just various yellow items moved about. Likewise, the effects are very simple, with the tornado shown by ripping parts from a house structure leaving just a frame, used in many other ways, behind (this also got laughs from the audience, which I'm sure wasn't the attention). And puppets are used well to show some of the inhabitants of Oz.

I've seen three versions of the Wizard of Oz in around 12 months. It usually drags a bit. This version runs for 2 hours 35 minutes (including a 15 minute interval) and you do still notice the padding in the second half, but there are enough moments of magic that it doesn't feel too long. I couldn't say the same about the other versions (Sheffield Crucible last year and ALW version on its Australia tour). The Birmingham Rep version is by far the best and I think you'll struggle to find many ways directors can innovate with the Wizard of Oz more.