Making Creator Headlines · Page 1
Erivo Trades Musical Grandeur for Pink Velour
· New York time
Cynthia Erivo played Glinda in an SNL U.K. sketch called Nigerian Wicked, appearing alongside Ayoade Bamgboye as Elphaba. Variety describes the performance as a lo-fi, melodramatic spoof of the Oscar-nominated musical, with Erivo wearing a blonde wig and a pink velour tracksuit. The recognizable fantasy world arrived with considerably less apparent interest in maintaining its formal dress code. The casting reversal and inexpensive-looking presentation give the parody its structure. A familiar musical can carry a great deal of recognition into a small comedy scene, leaving the performers free to change the tone, clothes and emotional temperature. Here, an enormous entertainment property becomes something that looks willing to borrow a neighbor’s extension cord. For an industry accustomed to treating production scale as evidence of importance, the sketch offers a cheerfully economical counterproposal. Recognition does some of the work that scenery usually performs. Erivo’s presence supplies the connection to the original, while the tracksuit handles the demolition of its dignity. The joke is not that elaborate musicals have become unnecessary. It is that, once the audience knows the world, a pink outfit can apparently obtain temporary planning permission to rebuild it.
Read this story in the full newspaper →Satire. Not factual reporting. Read the original reporting from the linked publishers.