AsWickedbreaks box-office records and sells out screening after screening, it’s clear that everyone is obsessed with the spectacular film. Led by vocal powerhouses Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba and Ariana Grande as Glinda delivering a once in a lifetime performance, die-hard theater nerds and casual moviegoers alike cannot stop talking about the silver-screen success. However, plenty of viewers aren’t super familiar with its origin outside thehit Broadway musicalof the same name and L. Frank Baum’s classicThe Wizard of Ozthat inspired it all.
The musicalWickedfirst premiered in 2003 after adapting Gregory Maguire’s 1995 novelWicked: The Life and Time of the Wicked Witch of the Westto the stage. Maguire wanted to write a compelling story that explores the nature of evil, so it’s no wonder he decided to use one of the mostfamous movie villainsof all time as a jumping off point. Cautious of creating a dark, revisionist take on the ever-wonderful world of Oz, he sought to keep its legendary characters intact as much as possible, even when it came to their names.
Initially,Wickedpresents its good witch as Galinda, but she changes her name to Glinda later on in the story — honoring Dr. Dillamond as well as Baum’s original character. However, when it came to naming Elphaba, Maguire had to come up with an entirely new name. Wanting to pay homage to both characters, he again looked to Baum for inspiration.
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The 1939 MGM classicThe Wizard of Ozand itsiconic use of Technicolorhas made it a must-watch film for people of all ages, and Gregory Maguire is no exception. According to aninterview he did with WGBH radio, his younger years were spent enthralled by the timeless story and its potent characters. Oftentimes, he would even convince his seven siblings into acting out the movie in their own homemade plays, eventually turning to gender-bending and Disney-character crossovers to add some flare.
As the years passed, he developed a preoccupation withits darker themes, but not without maintaining his childlike sense for storytelling. Although he admitted that the Wicked Witch of the West was still “menacing to [his] dreams” as an adult, and the flying monkeys were terrifying to watch as a kid, neither villain seemed to possess the bone-chilling power and fraudulence of the wizard. He confessed that after watching them all onscreen many times over, he “began to realize that the wizard, who lied to Dorothy — who sent her off into danger with no expectation of being able to pay his debt to her — was just as scary, if not, in fact, scarier.” On the other hand, he shared thatthe Wicked Witch was straightforward in her nefarious intentions, “She never lied to Dorothy. She never tried to trick her. She said exactly what she felt. And she did exactly what she said she was going to do”.True wickedness, to Maguire, instead came with ambiguity.
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Thus, Maguire’s interest in writing about thecomplexity of eviland its frequently uncertain origins began, and it only proved more necessary as his adult world met with his youthful imagination. In anotherinterview with TuftsAlumni, Maguire spoke about the real evil around us, remembering a gripping headline after the first Gulf War broke out in the 1990s that read “Saddam Hussain, the Next Hitler?” Being a pacifist in a world built around violence, he started to question how he would react to or change when facing a monster like Hitler. Additionally, while living in London around that same time, he was horrified by the news story of some teenagers murdering a toddler, and couldn’t stop wondering about what could have driven them, anyone, to commit such an extremely wicked crime.
So, what does it mean to denounce someone as evil, wicked, or a true villain? To answer this looming question, Maguire set out to create his most popular novel.
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Most audiences will agree thatthe best villains are those with complex backgroundsthat make their evil actions realistic and, as a result, more human. Characters, despite the bad things they do, arestill loved by fanswhen they can empathize with what drove them to it. Considering Elphaba’s nuanced resolve to fight against injustice and challenge authority, even if that means taking a morally ambiguous route to do what’s right, it’s obvious why she’s become a household name.With Baum only referring to her inspiration as the Wicked Witch of the West, how exactly did Maguire decide on this popular protagonist’s name?
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During his interview with WGBH, Maguire also explained that his “ability to write stories was a result of [his] ability to play like any child’s ability to play, to take what you have and make something new out of it. If that doesn’t work, take it again, scramble it up and make something new again”. He used that same simple creative process to come up with Elphaba, “I invented the name by playing with the initials of the author, Lyman Frank Baum. I tried Lafaba. I tried Lafeyba. And then I tried Elphaba. As soon as I got Elphaba, I thought, oh, that’s it.”
It all came down to what Maguire does best: playing around with ideas and making something new.Elphaba’s birth was a combination of Maguire’s imagination (and intuition), as well as his desire to give tribute to Baum— the man who gave him, and so many others, a cherished story to play with. Hopefully, itslatest film adaptationcan similarly encourage a new generation of witchlings to keep playing for years to come.
