Hyde Park Pick: Wicked

In 1900, L Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz hits shelves and catches the imagination of readers around the world. In 1939, Dorothy and friends go technicolour in the iconic film adaptation The Wizard of Oz. In 1995, Gregory Maguire publishes Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, an Ozmopolitan reimagining of the antagonist’s backstory and, in 2003, that story comes to the stage as Wicked. It goes on to win three Tony Awards and a Grammy. Inexplicably, it’s twenty-one years later by the time the whole world is rejoicifying as they sit down to watch Wicked in cinemas. So, what’s the big deal? And, with so much immeasurable hype around one of the biggest musical IPs of all time, how has the film soared up to its lofty heights?

Wicked tells the story of Elphaba, previously known to Oz academics and novices alike as The Wicked Witch of the West. Gutsy, gifted and inexplicably green, Elphaba finds herself enrolled at Shiz University. While trying to hone her skills as a sorceress, Elphaba is stuck sharing a room with the prim, proper and positively pink Galinda (later, Glinda) Upland – who also happens to be leading the charge to belittle Elphie for her verdigris. As Galinda battles to keep up her queen bee appearance, Elphaba’s focus falls upon their animal professors, who seem to be losing their ability to talk. With something afoot in Oz, Elphaba has bigger artichokes to steam than her challenging roommate but, confusifying at is seems, friendship is often found in the most unlikely of places. It’s enemies-to-besties done right which, in this case, means done through the form of angsty duets, where battling alto and soprano lines beneath tight choreography really pack the passive aggressive punch. As Elphaba’s powers grow and bubble to boiling, the pair find themselves whisked away to the Emerald City where The Wizard awaits – a man for whom Elphaba has many questions. What is happening to the animals? How can we work together to save them? And, quietly, Can you do something, anything, to degreenify me?

It's a story alight with the same theme that made Baum’s novel and the subsequent film so powerful; the desperate and unifying need to find somewhere to call home. Building on that though, Wicked compacts that search for home with themes of otherness and othering. In a world where animals talk and professors can control the weather and, literally, a wizard is president, it is being green that sees Elphaba cast out from the social hierarchy. There are parallels across history that we can conflate here – about race, gender, sexuality, class and more – and it’s in this aspect that Wicked, the movie, shines the brightest.

In depicting the life of a woman driven to push back against an oppressive regime, as well as a world that tells her that she is unwelcome, Wicked uses its expanded runtime to embrace the politics of the story. The movie takes us through only the first act of the musical – its runtime, however, is longer than the whole show. There’s not a moment wasted and, from the effigy of Elphaba in the opening number to the billowing cloak against the horizon in the closing number, Chu has created an adaptation that dances (through life) between two stories; one of coming-of-age, and one of the birth of an uprising. It’s timely in unexpected ways, for an adaptation of an adaptation of a book written in 1995, and songs that the musical theatre fans amongst us know word-for-word land here with a new and heftier impact

It would be scandalacious to celebrate this movie without mentioning the talents of Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, who both deliver performances that have set the press and the internet ablaze. The day I’m writing this, both have received Golden Globe nominations for their wonderful witches – and for good reason. Cynthia is no stranger to lending her powerhouse vocals to musical theatre, and her Elphaba is as startlingly human as she is evidently magical. The emotional journey of this Elphaba is substantial enough to make brilliant use of every minute of this movie, and to still leave you eagerly awaiting Wicked: Part Two next year. Ariana’s comedy muscles are flexing from her first scene to her last and her voice has the vigor to match. And in her softer moments, where we see the perfect pink façade fall away, Ariana seems to make light work of exploring Glinda’s darker, sadder sides. Despite the tough acts they’ve had to follow across the history of the show (Idina Menzel, Kristen Chenoweth, Rachel Tucker, Louise Dearman, and the list goes on), Cynthia and Ariana have created something timeless and definitive. Led by the careful hands of Jon M. Chu, this version of Oz is tangible and vast in a way we have never seen before. It’s all grand, it’s all green, and it’s all well worth the wait.

Ozian Words: A Glossary

Ozmopolitan – Think trendy, but think trendy in Oz. Big green spectacles and the like.

Rejoicify – To celebrate, ideally in the form of a musical number.

Degreenify – To take something green and remove its greenness.

Confusify – To render someone baffled, discombobulated or otherwise boggled.

Scandalacious – The sort of thing that makes you gasp, squeal or faint.

Wicked is showing at HPPH from Fri 20 December. You can book tickets here.