A couple of weekends ago, I went to see Wicked, along with my daughter and her nearly nine year-old son. The play is in its 20th year and had been on my ‘go see list’ for some time, because I knew the play was doing something different from the Wicked vs Good Witch formula of the Wizard of Oz classic & The Wiz. The desire for my grandson to see it motivated me to act, and no persuasion was needed.
Straightaway, the play signals that we’re in for a story told through lens of a wider angle and greater depth than its forerunners. During the celebration of Galinda, the white (Good Witch), a voice of curiosity sounds — “What happened to her (the Wicked Witch), why did she become wicked?” Ah, the transformative power of a question and the assumption it rests upon. And before the plot turns to flashbacks, Galinda shares she was once Elphaba’s friend. More novelty!
The portrayal of young, blond, Galinda conveys her self-enamored gestures of repeatedly flipping her hair with her hands, or moving it side to side with head turning. Her words project her sense that the world is hers, including the handsome male protagonist. This reveals an awareness of whiteness, as often experienced by people of color, but not commonly represented. Galinda and green-skinned Elphaba attend the same school. Their teacher, Dr. Dillamond, a Goat, introduces difference in species, along with those of white and green skin. He notes that many more animals, once present, have been run off.
Galinda and the other white-skinned students are ‘different’ from Elphaba, who cares about the unjust treatment of people and animals. Ephaba wears a Black hat, eventually, but I don’t recall her being dressed entirely in Black. The play does not flip the typical dichotomy, that is, exchange Black/evil for White/evil. Over time, Galinda and Elphaba both learn something valuable from the other, and as it turns out Elphaba wins the man prize, a white male who is won over to taking action for social justice.
The Gershwin theatre’s 1900+ seats teemed with adults and children, clapping, cheering, and engaged throughout. The creator(s) of Wicked focused their creative eye on transformation. They scrambled the dualism of good and evil, and of good associated with white and evil associated with Black. They offered context, and complicated it to include the value of fighting for fairness across differences.
In doing so, they lifted hearts like mine and my daughter’s, desperate for it, as well as so many hearts, like my grandson’s, just being hearts.