What Is This Feeling?
Original Broadway Cast of Wicked
A comic duet that functions as a declaration of mutual incompatibility, "What Is This Feeling?" arrives on a wave of mock-operatic drama that perfectly captures the absurdity of instant, passionate dislike. The arrangement leans into its theatrical excess deliberately — soaring legato phrases, choral swells, the full vocabulary of romantic love songs deployed in service of mutual loathing. Chenoweth and Menzel play the joke from opposite angles: Glinda's disgust is confected and performative, Elphaba's is blunt and entirely genuine. The brilliance is in how the number holds the audience's awareness of dramatic irony — we already sense that these two will matter deeply to each other — while staying fully committed to the characters' present certainty that they won't. The surrounding ensemble's cheerful participation in the animosity gives it the texture of a high school cafeteria ritual, familiar and precise. It is the funniest number in the show precisely because it is played completely straight.
fast
2000s
bright, theatrical, comedic
American musical theatre
Musical Theatre, Comedy. Comic Duet. playful, comedic. Opens with mock-dramatic declaration of mutual loathing and sustains gleeful theatrical excess as choral participation escalates the absurdity.. energy 7. fast. danceability 5. valence 8. vocals: contrasting female duo, operatic legato against blunt comedic delivery, precise ensemble timing. production: mock-operatic orchestration, choral swells, full theatrical vocabulary deployed for comic effect. texture: bright, theatrical, comedic. acousticness 3. era: 2000s. American musical theatre. With friends who love musical theatre, when you want something played completely straight that lands as pure comedy precisely because of that commitment.