The Australian production of Wicked opened in Melbourne a few weeks ago and I saw it last Wednesday. On the whole it was very enjoyable. One thing I noted though was that the local performers all put on American accents - with varying degrees of success in my opinion. Why would they do this? It was an otherwise rather grating aspect of the performance. Is this likely to be a contractual requirement for foreign productions? Or just an attempt on the part of the local singers to copy the original production as faithfully as possible?
Um, because it takes place in Kansas?
I thought it took place in Oz.
And isn’t Oz basically an imaginary adjunct of Kansas? In any case, it’s an essentially American story, no?
Is it? I didn’t get any such sense.
In The Wizard of Oz, yes. Not in Wicked. At least not in the Broadway musical (I have not read the novel and don’t know if it’s different there.) IIRC there’s nothing specifically American about the story.
I know the 1989 Royal Shakespeare Production of The Wizard of Oz had everyone putting on American accents, in Oz as well as in Kansas.
The Wizard of Oz’s great claim to literary significance is that it’s the first important American fairy tale. In addition to the obligatory Old World archetypes (A witch, a lion, a princess in the subsequent books, etc.), it has a snake-oil salesman and a friggin’ robot! Plus, the Kansas homestead and the tornado clinch it as Americana.
Wicked is more tied into an era than a geographic location, with its themes of revisionism, Freudian analysis and animal rights. I can’t think of any good reason not to do it with Australian accents. Philip Jose Farmer gave them a Germanic accent, IIRC.
I saw it in London a couple of years ago and only the actor playing Elpheba used an American accent, the others were all English (some very much so!). In fact the guy playing the prince is actually Australian but he used an English accent.
Gahlinda’s character seems to require a nasal tone but I assume that there are Aussies who can do such a tone with their own accent (though I can imagine what that would sound like). I see no reason American accents would be required otherwise.
The Wizard most certainly would need an American accent, being an old Kansas man himself.