I don't care what you say, Stephen Schwartz is a God — Page 3

Actually, the wicked/good theme was much more blatantly spelled out in the musical than it was in the novel, which gets a bit bogged down with rhetoric. It is all about perception, but in the novel, pretty much everyone could be perceived as good or evil, especially Elphaba. While some of her deeds might seem admirable, the question of her character is far less ironic than it is in the musical. At the end of the novel, you could still say she was quite a bit wicked in nature. I'm not going to mention any spoilers, but if you think about what was left out of the musical, you might get what I mean.

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Personally, I think the idea of perception plays on the presumption that the audience is familiar with Baum's work and the 1939 film. Other than Morrible's line christening Elphaba as the "wicked witch", do we really need to be reminded more often that she has been depicted as a wicked character before? There are enough moments in the show that illustrate anger, vengeance, delinquence and antisocial behavior. I really didn't have difficulty understanding how others may perceive her.

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I guess you're right, in that the musical doesn't really explain what makes people "Wicked." Of course, Harispray doesn't teach you how to make hairspray either.

I don't fully understand the problem with the 'bridges' lyric, it makes perfect sense.

'there are bridges you cross
you didn't know you crossed
until you crossed'

Basically, sometimes you do things without realizing you were doing them until it was done.

Ok maybe that explanation wasn't the best, but it really isn't as bad as it's made out to be.

Same goes for the 'and nobody in all of Oz, no wizard that there is or was' - clearly a connection to the backward way Ozians speak in the Wizard of Oz with 'if ever a Wiz there was' or whatever the line is.

He gets unjust jibes and a little too worshiped sometimes, but it can't be denied he writes a hit here and there.

Spork, I know there's a lot of contention with Elphaba's character development because the musical doesn't detail about her transformation into wickedness, save for "No Good Deed", which frankly is just Elphaba shouting nonsense sounds at a book. It also hints at her wickedness by having that scene where she imprisons Dorothy but it's not that a poignant scene to see as having sunk to the pits of wickedness. I agree with that.

But how bout seeing it as....

Elphaba was never meant to be viewed as truly wicked. It is the lies spread by Morrible to create the perception of wickedness, and this catalyses her 'abandon all hope' behaviour and causes her to 'might as well be wicked since all think of me this way'. as such, it is a commentary, i use this term oh so loosely, trust me, on how the best of us can fall to 'evil', without truly being innately evil - the No Good Deed song is sound evidence of that. So Wicked is not about showing the transformation of Elphaba to wickedness, but rather, showing how lies and fabrication can force wickedness onto an entirely good natured person, hence the line by Glinda: "Are people born wicked, or do they have wickedness thrust upon them?"

I guess that's just how I saw it.

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Updated On: 12/8/08 at 08:44 PM

WICKED isn't supposed to be a realistic character exploration. It's supposed to be a study in symbolic archetypes. The endlessly abused living saint who thinks all the suffering in the world is her personal responsibility to set right. The sellout who chooses the adulation of a crowd over the love of those who matter most to her, and lives to regret it. The guy who has literally everything and gives it all up for an ideological cause symbolized by a woman, winding up a homeless, rootless freak of nature and not really caring. The hypocrite who commits endless atrocities but is so good at coming up with rationalizations for them that he really has no idea that he's doing anything wrong. The self-pitying weakling, crippled both physically and emotionally, who never really grew up and who expects other people to solve her problems but also resents them for doing it. The selfish, contemptable loser who destroys himself and hurts everyone else through an obsessive "love" for a woman he barely knows, and turns into murderous psychopath when he doesn't get her. These are fairly complex types compared to, say, the cast of ALLEGRO, but they are symbols rather than realistic people. But unlike the novel, the musical tried to tighten its play on the "Wizard of Oz" by not straying all that far from the tone of its source. And "The Wizard of Oz", in both the book and the movie, is exactly the same kind of moral fable enacted by symbols that I just described. You can understand why they made that decision.

And anyway, so what if WICKED the musical oversimplified
"Wicked" the novel? I'm sorry, I'm just sick of hearing that argument. I'm sure you're all "Camelot" fans. But have you ever read "The Once and Future King"? I could go on for hours about the violence Lerner's libretto did to that book, but it's never stopped me from loving "Camelot". That's the way it goes when you're turning a sprawling novel that covers twenty years into a two-hour stage production. If you think they did such a terrible job in WICKED, you try it.

Eh, my dislike mostly stems from the score, anyway.

I've never read the book, so I can't say if it's better or not.

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We were talking about this in class today. Our TA brought up an interesting point that I hadn't thought of before. Apperently, Stacy Wolf has written in great detail on sexuality in musical theater so we looked at Wicked as a queer musical. This is what we came up with: "What is this Feeling" is like "People Will Say We're in Love," the dance at the Ozdust ball room is the dance at the gym in WSS, the duet portions of "Defying Gravity" espress Glinda's love for Elphaba, and "For Good" is far more interesting than "As Long As You're Mine." Just look at the lyrics:

What is this feeling?
So sudden and new?
I felt it the moment
I laid eyes on you
My pulse is rushing
My head is reeling
My face is flushing
What is this feeling?
Fervid as a flame,
Does it have a name?

What is this feeling?
So sudden and new?
I felt it the moment
I laid eyes on you
My pulse is rushing
My head is reeling
My face is flushing
What is this feeling?
Fervid as a flame,
Does it have a name?

And then the rest of the song is about hating each other. Is that supposed to represent a lesbian couple as well? Or as long as they are being taken out of context, couldn't they be sung by a man and a woman? I don't understand...does Stacy just look for portions of lyrics that could be applicable to gay couples (basically any song of forbidden or unrequited love) or try to see something in a musical that doesn't exist?

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I'm not a Wicked fan but I always enjoyed the cleverness of those lyrics. To have Stacy take them out of context and twist them to fuel her own agenda just makes me think she's rather limited as an academic.

https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Premiere_And_Celebration_Of_7th_SCHWARTZ_12131214_20081124

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My friend once said that Wicked was one entire big lesbian moment; I just think the whole queering of Wicked boils down to the fact that it had two female leads.

Well, whether or not Elphaba and Glinda had gay feelings for each other is really anyone's guess, but the point is, it's not crucial to the plot. I guess Stacey Wolf can interpret the song and lyrics whatever way she wants, but ultimately it doesn't affect my understanding of the musical. I choose to see friendship between them and nothing much more.

That said, i have to admit I grossly misinterpreted The Wizard and I the first time I heard it. I actually thought Elphaba was singing of the Wizard as a lover. I guess I only heard...

"Oh, what a pair we'll be
The Wizard and I;
Yes, what a pair we'll be
The Wizard and..."

and

"
And I'll stand there with the Wizard,
Feeling things I've never felt.
And though I'd never show it,
I'll be so happy, I could melt!
And so it will be
For the rest of my life,
And I'll want nothing else
Till I die."

...and assumed she was in love with the Wizard. Also didn't help that I was one of those who misheard "I'll want nothing else Till I die" as "I'll walk down the aisle till I die" - which just made me think her lifelong ambition was to marry the Wizard. I am just such a failure

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