One thing Stephen Schwartz does extraordinarily well is the "I Want" song: "The Spark of Creation," "The Wizard and I," "Out There," "Just Around the Riverbend." He understands that a musical's protagonist should have absurd ambitions: to play God (as in "Eden"), to act as co-ruler of Oz ("Wicked").
It's nice to see Schwartz returning, so many years after "Wicked," doing the thing he does best. Jackie, in "The Queen of Versailles," is another version of Elphaba, someone with few advantages (and one enormous dream). It's not clear to me how Chenoweth will play the adolescent Jackie, but if any late-career actor can pull it off....?
It takes cunning to climb from penury to stratospheric wealth; Jackie eventually obtains the means to build the largest house in America. Though it's easy to focus on Jackie's tackiness (she is tacky), a smart writer observes that Jackie is (also) sort of brilliant. In her high-school hallway, Jackie daydreams: "I've got brains. And I've got guts. And I'll be *using* that."
A high point in the Schwartz "I Want" template is the stripped-bare bridge. For example, from "Wicked":
Unlimited....
My future is unlimited....
And I've just had a vision, almost like a prophecy....
Schwartz seems to quote himself, today, borrowing from "Wicked" to write "Versailles":
American royalty....
Nightly, on my TV....
American royalty:
Meet Jackie Mallory...
That's all I have to say, for now. I'm cautiously optimistic.
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