Good evening / Good morning,
I don’t even know how to start this post because it’s something
like 3am, but I am still over the moon and I feel like I’m defying gravity, just to stay on theme. I am warning anyone who is
reading now: this post is about me
fangirling over Emma Hatton and seeing her in “Wicked” – it’s for my personal record,
I understand it’s not the most interesting story to read, and it’s pretty long
:)
Tonight was special, tonight was amazing and I am so happy I
keep feeling tears build up in my eyes. I know, it sounds silly, but you also
have to understand that I have seen Emma Hatton perform and I have met her in person. Emma Hatton. The woman I have
a fan page on, one of my top idols, the woman who sings pretty much all that I
have been listening to lately... so yeah, I am
excited, happy and still incredibly upbeat because of this. Emma Hatton! Emma
is the current standby Elphaba (the Wicked Witch, aka the Green Girl) in
London, even though she is going to become lead on the 2nd of
February :D As I have mentioned in all
my previous posts about “Wicked” she is my absolute favourite and tonight was a
incredible show for that very reason.
It all started with Emma being announced for the Friday
night show on Tuesday and me organising with some of the people from the Wicked
fandom on twitter to meet on that same day. We were such a nice group in the
end! First of all I met up with Sophie, a huge Jennifer DiNoia fan, at 4.30pm
at Victoria Station. We went to the Apollo Victoria theatre and stood outside
stage door chatting and just freaking out about how amazing “Wicked” is and how
incredible Jennifer and Emma are (reminder – Jennifer is my next favourite
Elphaba AND the one I have seen twice). It was amazing, because we spent about
2 hours there in the cold, but I was fine because it was so exciting to be
talking endlessly about our “addiction”! And Sophie is lovely!! We also found
out we have the same Elphaba necklace :D
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| The same Elphaba ("Because I knew you") necklaces *_* |
In the time we were
there, technically waiting for Emma but since she didn’t show up we had to give
up on her, we met a few members of the ensemble, some of the main cast and
Savannah (Glinda). Gosh, we had this very embarrassing experience with a man
that was looking through the window of the stage door waiting for someone and
then he saw my programme and asked me: “Is it worth buying?” – we discussed the
programme a bit and then we asked him if he was seeing the show and he said he
had already seen it the previous night... so we were like “Oh, you have seen
Jennifer then!” and he didn’t know who we were talking about so we told him she
was “the green one” in the show. In that moment Savannah came out of the stage
door and went straight to hug him, they were clearly friends, so we were so embarrassed
because we couldn’t understand how someone who knows one of the two leading
ladies personally wouldn’t know the other one at least by name... whatever, I
still don’t get it -.-“ While Savannah was out there I also managed to give her
the card I had written for her :)
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| Cards for Emma and Savannah |
Around 6.30, Sophie and I went back into the station and to the
Starbucks there and met also Cecilia, a huge
Emma fan who has seen her pleeenty of times! At first I felt a bit shy having
two people who had already met before and I wasn’t sure what to say, but then
they were both so friendly and nice and we started talking and we were all
incredibly excited about the evening :) During the afternoon I was soooo
nervous about seeing Emma in the show, because until that moment I had only heard recordings of her and I was
terribly worried I wouldn’t like her live Elphaba (acting-wise, etc...). I mean
it, I was very very anxious. Eventually, other two joined us (Martin and
Lauren) and we made our way to the theatre – we were all scattered around the
theatre, but I was in first row in the very centre *_* It was my first time
being central and I loved it! I barely spoke to Martin and Lauren before the
performance, but Sophie and Cecilia were so cute and even excited for me because
it was my first time seeing my favourite Elphaba... awwww!
The show, meaning
EMMA:
There’s no need for me to comment the show, because it was
just as good as always in the whole. Just a note for records: some of the actors/actresses got the script wrong tonight and changed what they were meant to say (e.g. Madame Morrible going "
she must be captured" instead of "
she must be found and captured"). I am not commenting anything else about the show, but I
have
to comment on Emma.
On the very moment she set foot on stage I had tears in my
eyes. She looks so petite and sweet in her young-Elphaba costume!! From the
beginning, from the first time she spoke, I was in love with her. She is
hilarious, her acting is incredible and her facial expressions and body
language are indescribable. She makes for the perfect Elphaba, showing vulnerability
mixed with power, with a lovely sweet touch added onto the Elphaba I was used to
see with Jennifer.
Then she sung. “The Wizard and I” is already one of my favourite
songs from the whole musical, but when she started singing I thought I would
just melt there :P She is stunning, fantastic, capable of transmitting an
enormous amount of emotions both with her voice and her movements! From that
moment I couldn’t take my eyes off her, I observe all the little things that
she does differently from Jennifer, I listened to her voice and I knew I had
no reason to change my mind about my
favourite Elphaba. In the interval I went to see Sophie and Cecilia and Cecilia
and I were both with tears in our eyes and we were completely freaked out
because of how amazing Emma was. Even Sophie, an hard-core Jennifer fan, had to
admit she is incredible and that she found some things she does even better
than Jennifer!
OMG Emma is perfection, pure magic and talent. She is
incredible, definitely my favourite Elphaba! Her performance just made me so
happy :) I could go on forever about how amazing she was, but I’ll just point
out the highlights of Emma’s performance so I remember all of them:
- Elphaba introducing herself to the other students: her way
of saying the funny lines when she is explaining her “verdigree” was too funny to hold back lots of laughs. My personal
favourites were “Oh... do I have something
stuck in my teeth?!” and then later to Madame Morrible “I’m the other daughter, Elphaba. I’m
beautifully tragic” - her accent and her tone of voice were the best!
- Her riffs during “The Wizard and I” were magical, even if
she doesn’t hold the “feeling things I’ve
never felt” like Jennifer! Her last note was so long and so powerful...
perfect way to make me love her from her very first song!
- In “What is this feeling?” I finally saw her and Savannah one
next to the other and it was too cute to see how tiny Emma is! Savannah was
literally looking down on her, both for being taller and being on heels haha I
don’t know why, but I found it terribly cute - she looked so little and frail!
- Elphaba’s little dance in “Dancing through life” was the
most hilarious I have ever seen, both live (well, I’ve only seen Jennifer’s
live to be fair) and online :P Then it ended with the very sweet scene of
Glinda and Elphie holding hands, becoming friends... and I melted!
- I always thought “Popular” to be Savannah’s song, because
she is the best Glinda ever and makes it so funny, but this time I have to say
that also Emma did her part. Unlike many other Elphaba’s I have looked at or
seen, she actively participated with nods, shaking her head, making faces,
laughing... and when she talks she actually sounds so realistic, not forced at
all! Totally adored her in “Popular” *_* My favourite bit is when Glinda goes “Don’t make me laugh... no, don’t!” because
during that little pause Emma actually starts laughing and then is reprimanded
by Savannah and she suddenly goes back to having a serious face suddenly :P
- When Elphaba is running with Fiyero to save the lion cub,
Emma made the most hilarious faces. Fiyero goes in the wrong direction: rolling
eyes and pointing to the other side funnily. Fiyero says “Do you think I am really
stupid?” and her “No! Not really stupid” comes out in a way that has
everyone bursting out laughing. Gotta love her!
- I already loved Emma’s “I’m not that girl”, it’s one of my
favourites from her, because of how sweet and heartbreaking she makes it sound,
but seeing her interpret it in person brought it to a totally different level. She
looked like a girl in love who can’t have, and barely can admit to herself that
she wants, the boy she is in love with – and that’s exactly the role she is
meant to interpret in that moment so I adore the fact that she is able of
making that side of Elphie emerge! Most importantly though... she held the last
note of the song and made it high! That’s how it’s originally meant to be, but
no Elphaba I (or Sophie or Cecilia) know of has done it before, and even Emma
hadn’t done it previously apparently, but it came out beautiful! Jennifer, and
everyone else, normally keeps that last “girl”
low, but she went for it and held it and I had starry eyes :D
- Emma’s “Defying Gravity” is the best one ever. Like, ever. I even had Sophie admit that Emma’s
“it’s meeeee!” is perfect! She riffs
so much and has so much power in her voice, which comes out particularly in
this iconic song and I was amazed at seeing it live, from up close. To be
honest, the girl sitting next to me started crying for how incredible Emma was (first
time she was seeing Wicked, to be clear)! So glad I wasn’t the only one haha
- During “Wonderful” she imitated the Wizard’s “jazz hands”
and, since I was waiting for it after Cecilia’s warning, I focused on her to
notice that... I was almost the only one laughing at that stage but I couldn’t
help it. Too cute!
- At the beginning of “As Long as You Are Mine” I thought she
and Jeremy Taylor (Fiyero) didn’t have much of the chemistry I could see
between him and Jennifer, but around the second stanza I had to change my mind
because they started acting it out beautifully!!
- Elphie’s cry on her sister’s grave sounded so realistic! And
then just after, there was the cat-fight scene, which was lovely haha Emma’s
laugh after Glinda’s slap was hilarious and the whole scene was just too much to
hold back :P “I know that for that
blissful blonde brain of yours [...] someone like him could choose someone like me!” Loved that bit, loved all the emotion
that was thrown out in one single sentence.
- “Fiyeroooooooooo!”.
The beginning scream of “No Good Deed” gave me chills down my spine –
perfection!! She put so much emotion in the whole song and it’s such an
impressive piece of music that I think I held my breath for most of it! She
truly looked “Wicked” and the effect of the lights and the artificial wind on
her cape made for an incredible scene *_*
- The whole “For good” sequence was heartbreaking, beautiful,
emotional. Emma looked tiny beside Savannah, but seeing these two friends
reunited, saying goodbye forever and telling each other how much they’ve been
influenced by the other... tears were a must and mine were a mix of sadness for
the story and happiness at how good Emma had been throughout the whole show!
- Eventually, though, it was time for the “Finale”... it was
perfect, but all I could think of was “no, Emma, don’t go!” and then she left
the stage and it was all over :( During the beginning of it, Jeremy (Fiyero)
was holding and hugging Emma and it was sooooooo cute, especially because he is
so much taller than her that he could actually lay his head on top of hers!
Loved that :)
- Nope, it’s not the end yet... curtain call is an important
part of the show! After clapping and cheering for all the cast, when Emma and
Savannah came out there was a huge standing ovation in the theatre, but in the
front row I was the only one who
actually stood! In the back rows there were plenty of people doing it, but
nobody at the front... it was kind of embarrassing being the only one, because
I was right in front of Emma and Savannah and they actually looked at me! But
they deserved that standing ovation, and even more :) When they started walking
back to retreat, Emma made these cute little jumps while backing out and she
had this huge smile on – she was so clearly excited about being on as Elphie
after some time off!
Stage door time:
I caught up with Sophie and Cecilia just at the end of the
show, all the three of us so thrilled and we were hugging and jumping around
and giggling and quoting the show with Emma’s accent and tone haha Then we met
also Martin and Lauren outside stage door and all together we waited. Gosh, I
was excited!
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| In the wait! |
I didn’t get any new signature from other ensemble people or
other cast members, because I was mainly concentrating on Emma. She finally
came out around 10.50pm and she was soooo adorable *_* Despite feeling like I
could freeze and not talk to her, I managed to speak because I was in the
middle of fans who were actually talking to her... I am so glad the others were
there! I told her that she had been amazing and that it was my first time
seeing her. So she asked me “Have you seen the show before?” and I was like “Yes,
twice, but you are my favourite Elphaba!”... and she was the cutest person ever
and smiled and answered “Aww that’s good to know!”. Then I gave her the card I
had written for her (written before the show, but with an addition made during
the interval – the first part only talked about her singing and the expectations
I had on her, then during the interval I added how much I loved her acting,
which I couldn’t know before as I had never seen her) and took a couple of
pictures :) Sophie was so nice as to take a photo of us with her little Polaroid
and this pretty little picture came out of it and I already have a tiny printed
photo with Emma *_* Also, Emma signed both the standby sheet I handed to her
(adding “Much love” before the signature!) and the programme, in the page where
there’s a little paragraph about her :)
While Emma was still there, Savannah came out as well and
she stopped for pictures with us and for a little chat – so sweet :D
Right, I think this is all I have to say, I am still excited
and over the moon but I’d better try and get some sleep! I am so looking
forward to the next time I see the show (31/01) and especially to the next time
I see Emma (2/02) :D And I also can’t wait to see these lovely twitter people
again, Cecilia and Sophie especially, as we promised one another we’ll keep in touch
and meet up soon!
