playbill vip

DIRECTOR'S NOTES

The grass is always greener on the other side, and in this iconic story, the idiom is to be taken literally.  Right from the start, Dorothy is searching for something more vibrant, more colorful, more alive than her run-down Kansas farm.  When we first meet her, running helter-skelter towards her family, she encounters her Uncle Henry and Aunt Em intent on their work, and they barely look up, much less spring into action.  While Dorothy can imagine taking a short flight over the rainbow to a land full of happiness and vivacity, there is a troubling inertia plaguing her family, her friends, and even her enemies. So it is fitting that when she imagines a better world, Dorothy dreams herself into a place where the grass really is greener, the sky is bluer, and the road is… yellower?  It’s certainly longer, and as it leads us from Munchkinland to the the Emerald City, it guides the story and its heroes from loss to reunion, from confusion to understanding.  Travelling along that path, Dorothy is able to pull her friends out of their stagnant farm lives and onto a road that leads to an adventure.  And those friends, no longer resigned to being bystanders on the sidelines of the journey, become teammates and equals who share her goals and help her along her path.  

This beautifully idealized vision of cooperation and camaraderie compels Dorothy along her voyage, but also highlights the other, darker side of the story -- the Wicked Witch.  She surrounds herself just as Dorothy does, but with lackeys rather than teammates, servants whom she orders around and sends off to do her bidding while she stands firm, rooted, and unmoving.  The Witch lives in the shadow of Dorothy’s journey, and her wickedness goes hand-in-hand with her inertia.  Intent on getting the slippers and her revenge, she cripples herself with singleminded stubbornness, and in refusing to take a step down a different path, leads herself inevitably to her own doom.  You can see this highlighted in this production as the Witch never sets foot on the road, standing always off to the side, while the intrepid heroes rarely stray far from its safety.

The Wizard of Oz invites us to explore our own journeys, and ask ourselves what we might learn along the way.  Even if in the end, our wanderings lead us back to the beginning, as they do for Dorothy, lessons may come from just taking the journey in the first place and allowing ourselves the opportunity to grow and change, rather than seethe and stagnate like the Wicked Witch.  And if the road seems endless, and you’re not sure how to get where you’re going, don’t let that keep you from setting out -- as we know, it’s always best to start such things at the beginning.  Just follow the Yellow Brick Road!

Magistra Mahler

Director