"The Wiz," presented by Broadway San Diego

Green is all the rage in "The Wiz."                                                                              Photo by Jeremy Daniel

            Consider the production number that opens Act II of “The Wiz”: The setting is an Emerald City night spot, The No Sleep Club, bathed in oscillating green. There, in full throttle, pulsating dance and high-octane vocals, an Ozian ensemble to music by Timothy Graphenreed frolics as if in one of those Vegas hotspots where the price of bottle service alone is strictly for high rollers.
            This is not your grandmother’s “Wizard of Oz.”
            You can say that this number, “The Emerald City,” has very little to do with the well-known L. Frank Baum story of Dorothy Gale and her pals the Scarecrow, Tin Man and Cowardly Lion, and you’d be right. But “The Wiz,” which opened 50 years ago before moving to Broadway in 1975 and was subtitled “The Super Soul Musical ‘Wonderful Wizard of Oz’”, was never intended to be a note-by-note retelling of Baum’s tale, or of the beloved 1939 Judy Garland film.
            In fact, take out “The Emerald City” completely and “The Wiz,” which is on a national tour now at the Civic Theatre downtown presented by Broadway San Diego, is still a hipper, less sentimental and much funnier iteration of its ancestral sources. That’s not to say I don’t cherish the MGM film – who doesn’t? Try to think of “The Wiz,” if you haven’t seen it or the 1978 movie adaptation with Diana Ross and Michael Jackson, as a reimagining of the well-known “Oz” tale. There’s room in our cultural archives for all takes on Baum’s 1900 book. (Well, maybe not James Franco’s silly “Oz the Great and Powerful” prequel film.)
            This touring production of “The Wiz,” which was created by William F. Brown (book) and Charlie Smalls (music and lyrics) features additional material by comedian/actress and writer Amber Ruffin, who’s likely ramped up the humor of the show, and it had considerable to begin with. What’s always been notable about “The Wiz” to me is that its songs, so completely different from Harold Arlen and “Yip” Harburg’s in 1939, possess their own charm and musicality. Small’s version of “Follow the Yellow Brick Road,” “Ease On Down the Road,” is practically a standard today; the closing “Home” is a lovely ballad; and the personality-defining ditties given the Scarecrow, Tin Man and Cowardly Lion are fun enough without being at all derivative.
            On this tour, Nichelle Lewis is a forthright Dorothy and a performer with a potent voice. She’s the anchor among a rubbery Avery Wilson as the Scarecrow, Phillip Johnson Richardson as the Tin Man (the finest of the supporting actors) and Kyle Ramar Freeman in the can’t-miss costume of the Lion.
            Melody A. Betts takes no prisoners – well, actually she does take Dorothy prisoner, but I’m talking performance-wise – as the Wicked Witch of the West, in “The Wiz” called Evillene. As The Wiz, Alan Mingo, Jr. is good fun and a vital force in all the Emerald City production sequences.
            It’s great to see Deborah Cox, so memorable on the Civic Theatre stage in 2017 in “The Bodyguard,” playing the most dazzling Glinda you’ll ever see. She gets two numbers – “He’s The Wiz” and “Believe In Yourself” and knocks both out of the park.
            The story of “The Wiz” does not depart significantly from traditional “Oz” tellings, but some of the plot developments unfold without much buildup or even logic. Maybe that’s because we all know how it turns out anyway. More or less. It’s the staging of this show that is more noteworthy. The way, for example, that spinning dancers are employed to “portray” the tornado that sweeps Dorothy’s house off the Kansas ground.
            Both Hannah Beachler’s prodigious scenic design and Sharen Davis’ wildly colorful yet functional costumes give “The Wiz” its flash and dash, and Jaquel Knight’s choreography has a breathless, contemporary feel to it.
            Even with all its energy, “The Wiz” is lengthier than it probably needed to be, but come on – you don’t go from the Kansas plains to Oz and back in 90 tidy minutes.
            “The Wiz” runs through Jan. 14 at the Civic Theatre, downtown.