This spin on The Wizard of Oz was a Broadway hit in the 70s and became a film with Diana Ross. Now, the tale of Black joy takes Dorothy from a Manchester tower block and BLM protests to the Emerald City
The Wizard of Oz is a movie masterpiece that still glitters like a ruby slipper. Its stage prequel, Wicked, has been running non-stop since 2003. But there is another, lesser-known spin-off from L Frank Baum’s original novel. The Wiz, which filters the same story through the prism of African American culture, won seven Tonys during its initial Broadway run in 1975. It’s surprising, then, that this musical by Charlie Smalls (music and lyrics) and William F Brown (book) has been revived so infrequently over the years, or that reviews have sometimes been the critical equivalent of the bucket of water with which Dorothy vanquishes the Wicked Witch of the West.
The show’s reputation was hardly fortified by Sidney Lumet’s 1978 film version, a notorious flop despite its once-in-a-lifetime cast: Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, Lena Horne, Richard Pryor. The London-born director Matthew Xia, who is now overseeing a retooled version at the Hope Mill theatre in Manchester, adored it as a teenage Michael Jackson fan. “I even played the Scarecrow at school when I was 15,” says the bearded, wiry 39-year-old during a break from rehearsals. “Watching the film recently, I think it’s kind of wacky. Some of the choices are, like: ‘Why have you decided to do that? Why is Dorothy 34 years old?’” Its significance, though, remains undiminished. “It is ultimately an experiment in Black culture taking up space.”
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