Review: "The Wizard of Oz" Shows that a Panto United Will Never Be Defeated

The Wizard of Oz

Written by Robert K. Benson

Directed by Madeline Wall

Presented by NYC Panto at Parkside Lounge

317 E. Houston, Manhattan, NYC

November 22-December 20, 2025

Diego Velázquez, Jonathan Nathaniel Dingle-El, Lily Ali-Oshatz, Regan Sims, Matthew Mastromatteo, Rachel McPhee, David Hernandez III, Stephanie Marrow, Blake Williams. Photo by Michael Russell. 
With Thanksgiving now in the rearview, we're once again officially in the holiday season, with all of the overcrowded trains, office parties, and throngs of tourists that come with it. Happily, it also brings the return of NYC Panto, an annual spot of unadulterated joy whether you're a seasonal skeptic or Santa superfan. Panto, a British holiday tradition, typically offers a comedic riff on a well-known folktale or fairy tale with stock characters such as the Hero and Villain and call-and-response elements, and NYC Panto follows up last year's hilarious take on "Jack and the Beanstalk" (you can read our review here) by mashing up parts of The Wiz and Wicked with The Wizard of Oz. Set in NYC and its alternate reality Oz analogue, this Wizard of Oz spins up a rollicking tornado of social satire and NSFW sauciness that ultimately lands on a message about the need for community in confronting our problems.
Rachel McPhee, Stephanie Marrow, David Hernandez III, Regan Sims. Photo by Michael Russell.
Rather than a Kansas farm, the show's meta frame places us in an NYC venue where a group of actors is planning to rehearse a show as a storm is brewing outside. Running the venue–and orienting the audience regarding panto–is drag queen Lady Chicken Cutlets (a terrific Matt Mastromatteo). The actors are denim-clad Hunky (Lily Ali-Oshatz), whose belt buckle may be bigger than his brain; MTA employee Chicory (Diego Velásquez), a fount of poetic ennui; Zach (Jonathan Nathaniel Dingle-El), a pouncer [sic] at a local cat cafe; and our Hero, Dotty (a wonderfully expressive Regan Sims), saddled with problems both from money and from a little dog who's much hornier than you may remember Toto being. Dotty's been kicked out of her apartment, owned by landlady Petunia Mulch (Rachel McPhee, one half of R & R Productions with Oz playwright Robert K. Benson), the strength of whose New York accent is matched only by the strength of her attachment to coffee. We also meet Alan Sus (Blake Williams), who is totally not Elon Musk, before we are whisked off to the show's equivalent to Oz. This shift, which has a rather different catalyst than in the source texts, involves excellent use of an umbrella draped in fringed fabric and an equally excellent costume insta-change by Dotty.
Regan Sims, Diego Velázquez, Lily Ali-Oshatz, Jonathan Nathaniel Dingle-El. Photo by Michael Russell.
In this version of Oz–the bawdy name of which becomes a running joke in itself–the witches of the Upper East and West Sides have divided both that part of Manhattan and their coffee shop empire between them. The Wicked Witch of the West Side (Rachel McPhee, delightfully taunting the audience in the Villain role), meanwhile, has a romantic history with Glinda (Matt Mastromatteo), echoing their real-world counterparts Miss Mulch and Lady Chicken Cutlets. Dotty's arrival takes the Wicked Witch of the East Side out of the picture, though not with a house but with a symbol of her lack of housing. She meets some Munchkins (David Hernandez III and Stephanie Antoinette Marrow, who are also extremely funny as a pair of Gen-Z-affected Flying Labubus) and the Mayor of Munchkinland, who is played by various special guests (celebrity chef Francis Legge at the performance we attended, whose acting and directing background probably helped him acquit himself well in the role). Then, it's off to seek the Wizard (Blake Williams, entertainingly shouty in the part) at the end of the yellow line in Queens, a journey during which she encounters a scarecrow (Lily Ali-Oshatz), Tin Man (Diego Velásquez, deploying some scene-stealing deadpan delivery), and a fabulous, colorful Cowardly Lion who is an actor playing a scary lion (Jonathan Nathaniel Dingle-El). Now if Dotty can just keep from being too distracted by the Scarecrow's hunkiness….
Stephanie Marrow, David Hernandez III, Jonathan Nathaniel Dingle-El, Lily Ali-Oshatz, Regan Sims, Diego Velázquez. Photo by Michael Russell.
This quest receives musical accompaniment from Music Director Kendall Perry, who also contributes some jokes and human-made sound effects from their seat at the keys, and the characters periodically sing brief comedic numbers, including original music by Gabriel Spector and Lily Ali-Oshatz. The show's jokes take aim at local issues such as NYC's recent mayoral election, its unaffordable rents, and its unreliable transportation infrastructure, but they also skewer large-scale issues such as trend-chasing consumerism (hi again, Labubus) and how Americans equate capitalist consumption with political expression, and even then still focus on meaningless culture war distractions that serve to divide them in order to dilute their potential collective power rather than on the systemic exploitation that the ruling class imposes on them. The Wicked Witch of the Upper West Side finding Dotty by using her coffeeshop app as a means to track her is a great touch, as is the long, long pause before all the Wizard can offer when confronted is "Oops." All of this is, of course, stirred in with a lot of gleeful raunchiness for a blend far tastier than anything pumpkin spice-flavored. Panto may be an imported form, but, as NYC Panto shows us once again with The Wizard of Oz, that just makes it an even more perfect fit as a New York holiday tradition.

-John R. Ziegler and Leah Richards

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: "How To Eat an Orange" Cuts into the Life of an Argentine Artist and Activist

Image
How To Eat an Orange Written by Catherine Filloux Based on the writing of Claudia Bernardi Directed by Elena Araoz Presented by La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club at The Downstairs at La MaMa 66 E 4th St., Manhattan, NYC May 30-June 16, 2024 Paula Pizzi. Photo by Steven Pisano How To Eat an Orange , making its world premiere at La MaMa, does in fact include a real orange as a prop, and its multifarious symbolizations–evoking at different points cultural specificity, family history, matriarchal inheritance, and even a skull–are representative of the play's boundary-blurring, non-linear presentation of memory. The memories in question belong to visual artist, educator, and activist Claudia Bernardi , who lived through several years of her native Argentina's military junta, which held power from 1976 to 1983, before departing her country and eventually settling in the United States. How To Eat an Orange , from Catherine Filloux, a French Algerian American award-winning playwright,...
Read more

Review: The Immersive "American Blues: 5 Short Plays by Tennessee Williams" Takes Audiences on a Marvelously Crafted Journey

Image
American Blues: 5 Short Plays by Tennessee Williams Written by Tennessee Williams Directed by Jim Niesen Presented by the Irondale Ensemble Project at The Space at Irondale 85 South Oxford St., Brooklyn, NYC October 27-November 26, 2023 Shadenia Savid in Moony's Kids Don't Cry . Photo by Natasha Rotondaro In 1948, Tennessee Williams published American Blues , a collection of five one-act plays, and a remarkable new production of this collection by Brooklyn's Irondale shows that these works have lost none of their power to both entertain and challenge audiences in the intervening three-quarters of a century. Comprising plays written in the decade between 1936 and 1946 - Moony's Kids Don't Cry (1936); The Dark Room (1939); The Case of the Crushed Petunias (1941); The Long Stay Cut Short, or, the Unsatisfactory Supper (1946); and Ten Blocks on the Camino Real (1946) - American Blues represents the second part of Irondale's American Century, the first install...
Read more

Review: From Child Pose to Stand(ing) Up: "Yoga with Jillian" and "Penguin in Your Ear" at the Women in Theatre Festival

Image
Yoga with Jillian Written by Lia Romeo Directed by Andrew W. Smith Presented by Project Y Theatre and Richard Jordan Productions in association with The Pleasance June 2-17, 2023 Penguin in Your Ear Written and performed by Eliza Bent Directed by Jess Barbagallo June 10, 2023 Part of the Women in Theatre Festival , presented by Project Y Theatre at A.R.T./New York Theatres Michole Biancosino. Photo courtesy of Project Y Theatre This June, Project Y Theatre Company presents the eighth annual installment of its Women in Theatre Festival (WIT), which showcases new work by women and maintains "more than 50% female representation of all artists involved." This year, the festival includes a lobby installation project, titled In the Betweens , from scenic designer Chen-Wei Liao, through which audience members pass on their way into the theater proper. One first chooses first between "light" and "dark" rooms and then moves into "the gardens" before re...
Read more