Broomsticks and barricades: Performance, empowerment, and feeling in Wicked and Les Misérables

In this article, I examine the act one finales of two Broadway megamusicals – ‘Defying Gravity’ from Wicked (2003) and ‘One Day More’ from Les Misérables (1987) – to query the relationship between the performance of these numbers and the generation and circulation of feelings of empowerment. As musical theatre scholar Jessica Sternfeld argues, megamusicals offer a performance where ‘emotions run high [and] the tears tend to flow both onstage and in the audience’. Both ‘Defying Gravity’ (where one character in a single song offers a performance of empowerment) and ‘One Day More’ (where an ensemble performs empowerment) have been singled out for their affective impact on audience members and their association with empowerment. Through an analysis of these two numbers, I argue that the numbers’ artistic elements intentionally emphasize the performance of empowerment’s two defining characteristics, power and change, in order to amplify characters’ feelings of empowerment. This, in turn, establishes an affective link between stage and auditorium.