Found on-line via artsbeat@ARTSJOURNAL.com:
Wizard of Oz: Why is Andrew Lloyd Webber setting out on the Yellow Brick Road?
William Langley explores the perennial appeal of L Frank Baum's The Wizard of Oz.
The Telegraph, UK
Published: 6:35PM BST 25 Sep 2010
Looked at closely enough, even the greatest showbusiness masterpieces have their flaws. But happily, most of them are nothing the good Lord Lloyd-Webber can't fix.
"The fact is that The Wizard of Oz has never really worked in the theatre," declares the West End maestro. "The film has one or two holes where you really need a song. For instance, there's nothing for either of the two witches to sing."
Next year, therefore, Lloyd Webber's souped-up, enhanced-witch-deployment version will hit the stage – starring Michael Crawford, it was announced last week, alongside 18-year-old Danielle Hope, winner of the BBC talent show Over The Rainbow.
But will it be better? Worse? Or just different? For more than 70 years, the original film version of L Frank Baum's children's story has stood as such a monument to wholesomeness and innocence that hardly anyone remembers what a nightmare it was to make, or the toll it took on its participants.
Judy Garland, barely 16 when she landed the role of Dorothy, went on to a life of scarcely relieved hell, marrying five times, sinking into debt and depression, and dying, aged 47, from an overdose of barbiturates. Popular song-and-dance man Buddy Ebsen, originally cast as the Tin Man, nearly died after inhaling aluminium powder from his costume and woke up in hospital to be handed a bunch of flowers by producer Mervyn LeRoy and told: "By the way, you're fired." On Palm Sunday in 1962, Clara Blandick, who played lovely Auntie Em, returned home alone from church, laid out the awards, mementos and photographs from her career in her bedroom, put a gold blanket over her shoulders, and tied a plastic bag around her head. Even Toto the dog had a nervous breakdown.
And it wasn't as if the film was an immediate success. [ . . .]
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