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‘The Wiz’ Review: In a New Broadway Revival, Dorothy and Friends Get Lost in a Hypercolor Whirligig

This hypercolor Broadway staging diminishes some of the show’s reliable pleasures with unmitigated, candy-colored exuberance.

Sidney Lumet’s shadowy film, starring Diana Ross and Michael Jackson, sets the Black spin on L. Frank Baum’s children’s story “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” in a blighted, nearly bombed-out New York City. Excess is the defining trait of a fantastical realm otherwise lacking a unified look: storybook scenery (by “Black Panther” designer Hannah Beachler) contrasts with uncanny projections (by Daniel Brodie) that resemble Roku City crossed with Middle Earth; costumes (by Sheren Davis) burst with embellishments in yellow, orange, turquoise and pink. That nearly every surface seems overworked presents not just an aesthetic hurdle but a dramatic one, as Dorothy and the companions she collects while easing down the road — Scarecrow (“The Voice” alum Avery Wilson), Tinman (Phillip Johnson Richardson) and Lion (Kyle Ramar Freeman) — recede from the busyness even when they’re meant to pop.

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