It feels appropriate that Wicked returned to Keller Auditorium during spooky season, as Portlanders will take any chance to attend a show in costume. Dozens of witches dotted the audience on opening night. Fans sang along with the numbers and burst into preemptive applause when Elphaba (Lauren Samuels) appeared onstage.

Few stage musicals break through the cultural zeitgeist the way Wicked has; the North American tour has been running continuously since 2005. If you’re a long-term fan, you’re going to get exactly what you expect from this production: strong performances of beloved numbers and the shared enthusiasm of fellow attendees. On the other hand, coming to the show in 2024 felt like opening a time capsule from a different era—in both form and content.

The highly polished production has a hybrid steampunk / Tim-Burtonesque aesthetic. Clocks and gears feature prominently in the set, and the ensemble costumes are cut and layered in a way that calls back to circus tents. It feels like you’re seeing the original production from 2003.

Broadway musicals are known for their fast pace, big emotions, and glossing over deeper nuances, but considering the source material, the show lands differently than it would have 20 years ago. An adaptation of Gregory Maguire’s 1993 hit novel—itself a retelling of L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz—Wicked fleshes out the backstory for Elphaba, Wicked Witch of the West, and Glinda, Good Witch of the South. They meet as rivals during university and slowly develop a friendship, which comes to a head over a boy and also creeping fascism. 

As it turns out,  all is not right in the Land of Oz. In the background of these two women coming into their own power, non-human citizens are living under growing repression and scapegoating. Elphaba is ostracized herself, until she proves useful to the system that exploits difference. Political ideology drives the two friends apart, but Winnie Holzman’s theatrical script treats the system—and how the witches choose to participate in it or rebel against it—as set dressing. 

However, while the show resonates with our modern day, it doesn’t have much to say beyond the idea that people ostracized by the mainstream have humanity. That's still a lesson worth learning in this country, but as the latest in a series of Most Important Elections of Our Lifetime looms near, it comes off as well-trod and shallow territory.

The musical sheds a lot of Maguire’s pointed political commentary on propaganda and terrorism to focus on the relationship between the two witches. As Elphaba, Samuels performance builds throughout the show, mirroring the growth of her character. By the end of Act One, as the crescendo of "Defying Gravity" takes flight, she commands the stage with her voice and presence.

In turn, Austen Danielle Bohmer brings unexpected nuance to the role of Ginda, giving her journey from shallow sycophant to put-upon political figure a wonderfully weird edge under her veneer of perfection. She echoes comedian Maria Bamford with her strange quirks and mannerisms. 

Even as this show must leave Portland for other cities in early November, fans won't have to wait long for yet another adaption—also scripted by Holzman. The first of a two-part version of Wicked hits movie theaters this fall. It'll be interesting to see how Holzman expanded the musical and if she brought back some of the novel's commentary.


Wicked plays at Keller Auditorium, 222 SW Clay, through Sun Nov 3, for shows and tickets visit portland4.com, all ages