Stage/Theatre

What: Wicked
Where: Princess of Wales Theatre, 300 King St. W.
When: Now, until Sun., July 21
Highlight: Lauren Samuels’s performance of 11 o’clock number No Good Deed
Rating: NNN (out of 5)
Why you should go: Director Joe Mantello knows how to pull off a spectacle.

EVERY 20 MINUTES OR SO, Wicked offers a sequence of unforgettable bombast. A witch flies, a troop of monkeys appears on metal bars, a dancing prince belts a high note or the lights surrounding a talking metal face start strobing.

Although I’m very much a lover of the hit musical’s score (by Stephen Schwartz), returning to the touring production now playing the Princess of Wales meant realizing that those spectacular moments we associate with the Wizard of Oz prequel — the iconic ones that circulate online and audiences rave about over post-show drinks — are 95 per cent of what the show has to offer. So often, the scenes between feel like mere connective tissue. This can frustrate — but only until the next climax hits and director Joe Mantello’s stagecraft becomes magical enough that little else matters.

Seconds in, celebratory streamers shoot toward the audience: the Wicked Witch of the West is dead! But as good witch Glinda (Austen Danielle Bohmer, who understudied the titular princess of Diana on Broadway) floats down in her metallic bubble (set by Eugene Lee), addressing the Munchkins below, she’s less pleased than expected. Turns out she knew the Wicked Witch back when she was called Elphaba (Lauren Samuels, from the U.K.) and ostracized for having green skin. Then ensues a show-long (two hours and 45 minutes, including intermission) flashback detailing the origin story of both witches as well as a few other familiar figures from the land of Oz.

It’s odd to watch a production conceived of two decades ago with a totally different cast. How can anyone be expected to take ownership of their roles, especially when Winnie Holzman’s book isn’t funny and hinges on a confusing, seemingly earnest plot line about the oppression of a goat? (In fairness, the story is adapted from Gregory Maguire’s novel of the same name.) It’s a tough task that Bohmer and Samuels tackle admirably, keeping the show mostly upright. And at least they get to unleash during songs, Bohmer pairing a cutting soprano with heightened, bubbly body language, Samuels navigating her behemoth of a role with poppy flair. As The Wizard, meanwhile, Broadway vet Blake Hammond gives the tour’s most grounded performance, making a feast out of a role that seems partly inspired by the central circus-man of Cy Coleman’s 1980 musical Barnum.

But who needs groundedness when defying gravity is an option? It’s spectacle people attend for and spectacle they get, from the steampunk dragon hanging above to the hundreds of green lights decorating the psychedelic Emerald City in One Short Day, that undeniable winner of a song (though Wayne Cilento’s slick choreography appears throughout, there are surprisingly few old-fashioned group numbers, so it’s always welcome when the ensemble gets its chance to dazzle). Less than a day later, the plot is already fading in my mind — but the dexterous design and Samuels’s ridiculous high notes in No Good Deed? I’ll cling to those forever like a witch does her broom.