Let The Green Girl Go! A Look at WICKED's Elphaba

"Are people born wicked or do they have wickedness thrust upon them?"

I remember the first time I saw Wicked. I was young, maybe 13 or 14, and my mom was starting to pass her Broadway obsession onto me. She took me to see some of her favorites - Cats, Phantom of the Opera, Aladdin - in New York, and the brief taste of magical musicals inspired us to get season tickets to the travel shows in Austin. 

The first show of the season was Wicked. I went with my best friend and her mom as well as my own. I recall feeling absolutely enchanted and enthralled by the hilariously heart-wrenching tale. It's about sisterhood, really. It's about the meaning behind magic, the corruption that springs from lies and propaganda, and the irony that lies in pitting "good" against "evil."

In a moment of perfect timing, I happened to have tickets to see Wicked again on Easter Sunday (the layers!), and I found myself paying explicitly close attention to Elphaba, and at the risk of repeating some of the information we touched on during the Wizard of Oz presentation, I'd love to explore a few of the key moments, quotes, and choices that struck me on this second viewing of the performance.

First, the driving plot of the storyline has eluded me for ages, but I was reminded on Sunday that Wicked is set against the background of a very corrupt Oz. The "wizard," i.e. the fraud from Kansas, has been stripping rights from the animals of Oz, caging them and preventing them from speaking. When Elphaba's professor, Doctor Dillamond (who is a goat) is removed from his teaching position at her university, Elphaba just wants to fight back.

This conflict of morals pushes Elphaba to rescue a small lion cub (who later becomes the cowardly lion) and to attempt to free the monkeys working for the wizard by granting them wings. Her unwillingness to support the oppression and false propaganda perpetuated by the wizard is what lands her the iconic title of "Wicked Witch," and ultimately creates a rift between her and Glinda, who agrees to lie alongside the wizard to maintain her image of goodness. Elphaba is manipulated into this role, tricked by the wizard to do his bidding.

Before he is taken, Doctor Dillamond branches the idea of the scapegoat. "Oh, dear students, how I wish you could have seen it as it once was. Where you could walk down the halls and see an antelope explicating a sonnet... Don't you see, dear students, how our dear Oz is becoming less and less colorful? ... And the question [becomes] 'Whom can we blame?' Can anyone tell me what is meant by the term 'Scapegoat'?" (Wicked). It gets Elphaba thinking about the injustice in Oz beyond the prejudice she's personally faced her whole life due to being green.

The animals of Oz are the first scapegoats created by the wizard in a vile attempt to "unify" Oz. When Elphaba calls him a liar, he responds:

"The truth is not a thing of fact or reason, the truth is just what ev'ryone agrees on. Where I'm from, we believe all sorts of things that aren't true. We call it- 'history'." - Wizard

*Insert the entire point of our class.* Belief is everything. The people of Oz believe Elphaba is wicked, and so she is. The wizard and Glinda promote Elphaba's evil, and so she continues to play the part.

The villagers make wild accusations and spin rumors about the Wicked Witch having a third eye, possessing the ability to shed her skin, and a soul so unclean water can melt her. 

And it's just a dramatized continuation of what Elphaba has experienced her whole life. People have always pointed fingers at her, loathing her, ostracizing her, othering her, until she fit the mold they constructed for her. From Glinda and other students at school to eventually the whole land of Oz, Elphaba makes the perfect target; she's already as different as it gets.

For this reason, the wizard reveals his other master plan; to make Elphaba not just a scapegoat, but a true villain. An enemy. 

"Elphaba - when I first got here, there was discord and discontent. And where I come from, everyone knows: the best way to bring folks together, is to give them a really good enemy." - Wizard

Much like the people of Salem who deeply feared the invasion of the Devil and his armies, the people of Oz are made to genuinely fear wickedness, and as Elphaba embodies evil, they resent her in turn. They don't however, resent magic or witches. In fact, they adore Glinda...

Glinda the Good creates her reputation by being "perfect." She does what she's told, even if it might be morally wrong or uncomfortable. She behaves bubbly and embodies stereotypical beauty, light, and trustworthiness. She's Elphaba's opposite, revered for shutting up instead of shunned for standing out. She's selfish, and she's rewarded for it in the end. Elphaba even points out the obvious, "We can't all travel by bubble!" meaning not everyone holds the privileges that Glinda does.

In terms of magic-wielding, the musical does feature the grimoire (pictured above), an ancient book of spells and sorcery. It's mentioned that only a single professor after years of training can decipher a few passages, but Elphaba has an innate ability to read the book and use the spells. The musical also makes a point about how spells are irreversible, which comes to haunt Elphaba the more magic she uses. It's an interesting commentary on the permanent consequences of our choices, but also the misplacement of blame. Plenty of characters misuse the spells in the book, and yet Elphaba is blamed for every mistake simply because she possessed the book or "presented" it to those characters.

In the end, Elphaba fakes her death by water (courtesy of Dorothy) and entrusts the grimoire to a much-changed Glinda. She hopes Glinda will use her protected position to take actions Elphaba would have been persecuted further for. 

So, beyond the surface - the broom, the black cloak and pointy black hat, and the animal familiars - Wicked explores the complex dynamic between truth and blame, the stereotypes that both benefit and banish women, and unique relationships that can form between women who are so different and yet deep down, want to be accepted all the same.

On that note, I'm incredibly excited for the Wicked movie to be released later this year. I'll drop the trailer below, but I'm curious to see how they expand upon Elphaba's character, her magic, and her relationship with Glinda.