The Wizard of Oz Musical Review

For me, thinking of the Wizard of Oz always reminds me of the original MGM classic film from 1939. Going to see the musical, I expected that the music would be greatly contrasted from the original scores of the movie; I was wrong. In fact, most of the original numbers still remained in the musical, but were extended to some degree. It was nice to know the plot before going into the musical; this made it easier to see the small differences between the movie and the show. For one, Dorothy was caught in the tornado instead of having her head being hit by her glass window. It looked slightly corny, but I have to give kudos to the production department for using computer generated effects and projections to make the tornado more realistic. Overall, most of the computer generated backgrounds and effects worked, but when Dorothy left Oz in the end, I found it very cheesy with the ruby slippers looking so animated.

All in all, it was still entertaining. The key to this type of musical is that is was made for the kids and their parents. The wicked witch of the west for example, had a different personality then the actress in the movie. I believe she acted the way she did to pull of humor for the children, and it worked. The scene that should have been dropped all together was the Jitterbug scene. Now of course, it has been stated that the Jitterbug was cut out of the movie too because it was all-in-all corny. The producer and editor back in 1939 made the right call of leaving it out of the final cut. I would recommend this musical to parents with younger children because they will all enjoy it. For those who are older and just want to come for the fun of it, I would say it might be better off just to rent the original film.