Outside the world premiere of “The Wizard of Oz’ at Sphere” in Las Vegas

Last night, I attended the world premiere of “‘The Wizard of Oz’ at Sphere.” That’s the much-ballyhooed remastering of the classic 1939 movie starring Judy Garland. It’s gussied up using all kinds of AI and other electronic and even physical tricks, like shaking sets, blowing wind and even monkey drones, before a gigantic screen dwarfing the audience on a number of sides. The production was made for the state-of-the-art Sphere performance venue just off the Las Vegas Strip. Technologically, it is a show to behold.

But equally interesting and even delicious is what I see as the underlying political messaging. It’s not hard to see the timing of this new production, which uses much-enhanced footage from the original film, as a biting allegory against the administration of President Donald J. Trump. What makes that so appetizing to me is that the moving force behind the production (and the Sphere) is James L. Dolan. The 70-year-old New Yorker, who also controls Madison Square Garden, the New York Knicks and the New York Rangers, has been routinely described for years as a supporter of and significant financial donor to Trump.

I couldn’t stop marveling (and laughing) at all the anti-Trump symbolism. While closely following the 1939 movie, the remake touches so many issues that now make the Trump regime so controversial.

Let me list a few:

–Climate change, as evidenced by the opening gigantic Kansas tornado, that Trump and his minions deny is happening.

–The pompous Wizard of Oz himself, played by Frank Morgan, who is revealed as a phony con man who lies, makes stuff up but says soothing platitudes to his supporters. Morgan’s hair looks like Trump’s, too. Near the end of the movie, he gets away with his wrongdoing, not by an immunity ruling from a U.S. Supreme Court stacked with supporters, but simply by flying away under a balloon filled with–appropriately–hot air.

–The diminutive Munchkin residents of Oz, who unanimously and warmly welcome Dorothy, an illegal alien without papers.

–The desperate search for quality medical care, by the Tin Man (for a heart transplant), the Cowardly Lion (for mental health treatment) and the Straw Man (for brain surgery), in a land, Oz, that clearly lacks a good and comprehensive medical infrastructure.

–The opium crisis, symbolized as Dorothy nearly dies while traversing a poppy field before a benefactor (the Good Witch of the North) conjures up a snow storm to lessen the deadly fumes.

–A high Oz official–the Wicked Witch of the West–who tries to use the power of her position to extort others for personal gain. She threatens Dorothy with the death of her dog, Toto, if she doesn’t give her the ruby-red slippers protecting Dorothy from harm. The WWOFW is still scene-stealingly played in the remake by Margaret Hamilton. But it’s extraordinarily difficult not to see in her a little bit of Trump’s Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, who actually did kill her dog (and bragged about it in her book).

–Flying monkeys ordered by the WWOFW to capture and take into custody Dorothy without due process, in the style of Homeland Security and Trump aide Stephen Miller.

I am hardly the first to suggest there is a political meaning in the tale of Oz. Some scholars have suggested the best-selling 1900 children’s novel on which the production was based, The Wonderful World of Oz, by L. Frank Baum, was actually a political allegory describing the effects on folks of 19th-century U.S. monetary policy centered on gold versus silver as the standard. I think it fair to say a lot can be read into the story. However, I’m not sure I would go quite as far as one memorable TV blurb for the original movie: “Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first person she meets and then teams up with three strangers to kill again.”

I have absolutely no idea how much of this Trump imagery may have dawned on Dolan, who is notoriously secretive and rarely talks to media he doesn’t control. Indeed, at the world premiere he demonstrated his inexperience at public speaking. Dressed sort of a wizard, he gave a halting, rambling welcoming speech from a distant corner of the vast theater–he could hardly be seen–bragging about his vision. At one point his microphone failed, certainly not a good omen for the high-tech performance that was to follow.

Yet it proved to be a terrific, even memorable show. The production really rockets along, with astute editing and cuts paring the 102-minute-long 1939 version to about 75 minutes. Moreover, future customers won’t have to listen to the droning of Dolan, who actually lists himself in the movie’s ending credits as “Chief Muckety-Muck,” and appears secretly in the film for about two seconds as a digitally-inserted cameo figure. I’m guessing a Munchkin (Dolan is not a tall man).

In the Sphere parking lot afterwrds, heading back to the New to Las Vegas world headquarters, I happened to look to the northwest across the Strip, where a mile away stands Nevada’s tallest non-casino building. That’s the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas, half owned by The Donald. The word TRUMP graces its top–in all caps. That’s not unlike many of the president’s over-the-top social media posts. More of that Trump symbolism surrounding the new realm of Oz.