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Few titles command the affection of “The Wiz,” the 1975 Broadway musical with music and lyrics by Charlie Smalls (and others) and a book by William F. Brown, especially with a mainstream Black audience. “The Wiz” cleaned up at that year’s Tony Awards and made stars out of Stephanie Mills and the incomparable André DeShields, who proudly strutted in his costume from the title role for years afterwards. And the show’s three most fabulous songs, “Ease On Down the Road,” “Home” and “A Brand New Day,” have been recorded and sung chorally now for close to 50 years. “Home” even rose to the top of the R&B charts.
Well, “The Wiz” is back in Chicago with a whole new Broadway-bound production, along with some book additions by Amber Ruffin, presumably an attempt both to freshen the storytelling and assuage any contemporary worries arising from the late Brown having been white, albeit highly sensitive to racial issues in his work. On Wednesday night at the Cadillac Palace Theatre, you only had to listen to the overture to understand the commercial viability of the project. Many shows have to win over a skeptical audience, but this one comes with so much goodwill toward the title that you can feel the audience not just wanting the show to succeed but lifting it up in the most practical of ways.
In most ways, then, this new production of “The Wiz” is a pre-Broadway tryout (another, “Boop! The Musical” is coming next week). But this is also a pre-Broadway tour, far from an unknown thing, with the announced Broadway star Wayne Brady joining the show when it reaches San Francisco. Alan Mingo Jr. is a very skilled and talented performer as the current Wiz, but Brady’s absence in Chicago still is unfortunate, given the amount of work yet to do here to ensure that what’s a very viable fresh approach to this justly beloved show achieves its full potential.
The strengths of director Schele Williams’ new production, slated for Broadway in April, include a rich performance from the long-phenomenal (and here underused) Broadway veteran Deborah Cox (”Jekyll & Hyde”) as Glinda; a breakout turn from Phillip Johnson Richardson, who wakes up the production when he creaks on stage as the Tinman and who’s a joint-creaking delight all night long; a hip, lush and consistently fascinating and unconventional design from Hannah Beachler (”Black Panther”) that leans into the show’s vaunted place in the history of Black Broadway and, when it actually is allowed to take focus, some thrilling choreography from JaQuel Knight, the man famously behind the moves in Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies” video. Sharen Davis’s costumes, a riot of color and imagination, are also fantastic.
The problems include a lack of directorial focus on what dance can do in this show, inconsistent pacing (”The Wiz” has to keep easing on down the road and this production is too long), a surprisingly dull transition between Kansas and Oz, mediocre sound reinforcement and a hesitant, emotionally impenetrable lead performer in Nichelle Lewis as Dorothy, who sure comes blessed with all shades of vocal talent, but who sends most of her lines of dialogue upstage and has a lot left to accomplish in this pivotal role.
In the end, this is Dorothy’s quest and, as everyone else stands aside for the crucial Act 2 11 o’clock show-stopper “Home,” Lewis simply has to command the entire theater with the force of her spirit and the depth of her heart. That’s going to take a lot more work. Yet “The Wiz” won’t work without that payoff in place.
Overall, this show has to lean into its eager audience more. Melody A. Betts, the longtime Chicago actor who plays Aunt Em/Evillene, shows how to do that in the first scene with Dorothy with just the line “I’m looking for who you think you are talking to,” but the show comes and goes in that regard. Sometimes it reaches out, other times it seems to disappear within itself. The former sections are, of course, what work; “The Wiz’ is a fun pastiche, and a celebration of home, community and friendship. There are plenty of big-hearted actors on the stage, including Avery Wilson and Kyle Ramar Freeman as Scarecrow and Lion respectively, but they’re not yet foregrounded as much as this material needs.
One unresolved issue, here, I think, is how contemporary to make this show: I say embrace a kind of cool, retro modernity, bring in the Beyoncé fans with Knight’s moves, add more of Ruffin’s witty one liners and pay loving tribute to the show’s singular history.
And then land the whole shebang right in the lap of what I suspect will be one eager audience after another.
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.
Theater Loop
Review: “The Wiz” (3 stars)
When: Through Dec. 10
Where: Cadillac Palace Theatre, 151 W. Randolph St.
Running time: 2 hours 30 minutes
Tickets: $55-$195 at 800-775-2000 and www.broadwayinchicago.com