Elphaba
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| Elphaba | |
|---|---|
 Idina Menzel as Elphaba with Norbert Leo Butz as Fiyero in the Original Broadway Cast of Wicked |
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| First appearance | Wicked (1995) |
| Created by | L. Frank Baum & Gregory Maguire |
| Portrayed by | Idina Menzel |
| Information | |
| Nickname(s) | Elphie Fabala Sister (Saint) Aelphaba Fae Auntie Witch |
| Species | human (witch) |
| Gender | female |
| Title | Wicked Witch of the West |
| Family | Melena Thropp (mother) Wizard of Oz (father) Nessarose (half-sister) Shell Thropp (half-brother) |
| Children | Liir |
| Address | Kiamo Ko |
Elphaba is the name given to the Wicked Witch of the West in Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire, as well as in the Broadway adaptation, Wicked. In the original L. Frank Baum book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the witch is unnamed and we know little about her life. Elphaba is modeled after the witch as she is shown in the 1939 classic movie The Wizard of Oz: Green-skinned, clad entirely in black, and wearing a tall peaked hat. Maguire formulated the name out of L. Frank Baum's name. L. Frank Baum became El-pha-ba. In both adaptations, Elphaba is also called by several nicknames including Elphie, Fabala, Sister (Saint) Aelphaba, and Fae.
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[edit] Elphaba in the book
Elphaba is the daughter of Melena Thropp and the Wizard of Oz (a fact which Elphaba discovers near the end of her life). Her father's origins beyond Oz is one possible explanation of her green skin, and is the reason she is able read to the Grimmerie. Through her mother, she can lay claim to the highest held title of Munchkinland, the Eminent Thropp. Frexspar, the unionist minister and missionary, is her mother’s husband. Nessarose, the Wicked Witch of the East, and Shell, the Emperor of Oz after the wizard's departure, are her half siblings. Elphaba also has a son, Liir, who was illegitimately conceived with her lover, Fiyero. Liir was apparently carried to term while Elphaba was in a coma.
Elphaba attends Shiz University where she becomes fast friends with Glinda (who later becomes "Glinda the Good") and Boq. She also meets Fiyero there. When she runs into Glinda near the end of her life and finds out Glinda has given Nessarose's ruby slippers to Dorothy and is helping to support the Wizard, she becomes angry, frustrated and sad. Elphaba also has paranoia problems, so she is scared as well. She enters into a heated argument with Glinda, eventually storming off to track down Dorothy and retrieve the slippers, with which she is obsessed. Shortly thereafter, the two encounter each other as Elphaba prepares to return to the Vinkus. Glinda attempts to speak to Elphaba, but finds herself ignored. This is the last time the two see each other.
Elphaba is portrayed as an aspiring revolutionary, perhaps inspired by her childhood days in Quadling Country, whose ecosystem and people were stricken by the government’s ruthless ruby mining and road building efforts in the area. She is shown as a passionate supporter of Animal rights (Animals, as opposed to animals, are speaking/thinking animals): she speaks out against Madame Morrible’s anti-Animal poetry; works with Doctor Dillamond, a Goat, to find the biological difference between Animals, animals, and humans; protects a Lion cub in a life sciences class; and is often shown refusing to eat meat that could possibly come from Animal sources. Her revolutionary goals, however, fade after a failed assassination attempt on Madame Morrible’s life and the death of Fiyero.
The theme of forgiveness plays a large role in her life after this point, as she attempts to seek forgiveness for the death of Fiyero from his wife, Sarima. Sarima, however, refuses to listen to Elphaba’s story of his death, and when she is murdered by the Wizard’s forces, Elphaba is left unsatisfied and plunges into madness. The theme of forgiveness comes full circle, and is instrumental in her death: Dorothy comes to Elphaba's castle asking her forgiveness for killing her sister. Elphaba dies before being able to grant forgiveness of her own.
Elphaba is green, and several theories are put forward in the book to explain the phenomenon. Melena sees the color as a punishment for her infidelity to her husband, Frexspar sees it as originally as a result of his careless words “The devil is coming” on her birth day, and later as punishment for his failure to protect his parishioners from the Clock of the Time Dragon. The Wizard’s use of the Magical Elixir during Elphaba’s conception, along with the fact that the Wizard is of another world, are also possibilities.
Elphaba is also seemingly allergic to water. This connects to the Elphaba’s ponderings over the existence of her soul: without water, there is no baptism. While she raves at Dorothy toward the end of the book, Elphaba claims that she does not want a soul, as it would grant her "everlastingness", and she has already been tormented enough by life. The final bucket splash is described as a baptism, after which Elphaba is clearly shown to have a soul.
This bucket splash also connects to the fable of Saint Aelphaba, for whom Elphaba is named, who was said to disappear beyond a waterfall, and never return. This in turn connects Elphaba with the stories that Sarima tells her children about a wicked witch who disappears into a cave. At the end of the story it is tradition that the children ask if the witch ever comes out, to which Sarima replies "not yet". At the end of the book, that dialogue is repeated, suggesting that Elphaba will eventually rise again. In interviews, Maguire has stated that the witch may die but will always come back, no matter what.
[edit] Elphaba in the musical
For the musical Wicked, Elphaba was written to be less cynical and more sympathetic than the novel counterpart. In the book, Elphaba virtually goes mad, and tries to convince herself and others that she is truly "wicked"; however in the musical, she is merely carried away by her emotions for a period after the deaths of several of those closest to her. The end result in both cases is an unfair and distorted transformation of her reputation into a legendary figure of evil.
Liir and Sarima are not present in the musical, and a love triangle with Fiyero and Glinda exists instead of that with Sarima. The young Elphaba shows interest in sorcery from the beginning of her education (being selected by Madame Morrible to be tutoured personally), as opposed to having it thrust upon her as in the book. Elphaba is explicitly shown to survive at the end, and goes to live a life beyond Oz with Fiyero, where in the book her impending resurrection is only hinted at. Elphaba is also the creator of the Tin Woodman (through a spell to save Boq, who had had his heart shrunken to apparent non-existence by Nessarose), the Scarecrow (through a spell with which she attempts to save Fiyero from being tortured to death on her account) and the Cowardly Lion (the Lion Cub she rescued from the class after the Goat Doctor's removal); in the book the former is a result of an ax bewitched by Nessarose, and the latter's existence has nothing to do with Fiyero, other than her slight suspicion that he might indeed be her love coming back to find her, which just proves to be a paranoid delusion.
Her relationship with Glinda (called "Galinda" until she renames herself in the latter part of the first act) is a central feature of the musical. As in the novel, the two initially despise each other, but eventually develop a strong friendship (though their original, mutual hatred is far stronger in the musical than in the book). For a while, Elphaba goes along with Glinda's attempts to make her popular, but her rebellious and revolutionary nature ultimately forces her to reject both social and political popularity in favour of doing what she knows to be right in fighting to save the Animals. Just prior to Elphaba's supposed melting, the two confess that each has been changed by their friendship: Elphaba admits that Glinda was the only friend she ever had, and Glinda replies that Elphaba was the only friend she has ever had who really mattered.
Elphaba also has a less significant vendetta with Madame Morrible in the musical than in the book: In the novel, Elphaba relentlessly attempts to kill Morrible, but in the musical, Elphaba has virtually nothing to do with her after the conclusion of the first act.
In the musical, Elphaba's aversion to water is no more than one of several ridiculous rumors started by those who fear her. Elphaba used this to her advantage by disappearing when Dorothy threw a bucket of water at her, fooling everyone into believing she was dead, even though she just went down a trapdoor.
The role of Elphaba was originally played on Broadway and in London by Idina Menzel, who won the 2004 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her performance.
[edit] Powers and Abilities
The first power which Elphaba demonstrates is the ability to perform a magical attack on anyone toward whom she feels anger. She uses this power twice: Following the song "Dear Old Shiz", Madame Morrible insists upon caring for Nessarose, something which Elphaba has always done herself. When the headmistrss ignores her objections, she flies into a rage, and somehow causes everyone standing around Nessarose's wheelchair to be thrown backward. The chair then spins in place for several seconds before reversing into Elphaba's hands. She uses this power a second time when, following the firing of Doctor Dillamond, the new History teacher brings a caged Lion Cub into the classroom and announces that he intends to prevent the Animal from learning to talk. This enrages Elphaba, and she uses her magic to throw everyone away from the cage and subsequently immobilise them long enough to take the Lion Cub out of the room and set it free. In this instance, her power does not affect Fiyero, the first suggestion that she may have feelings for him.
Elphaba is shown to have certain precognitive and/or clairvoyant abilities. These are in evidence at two points during the musical: During the song "The Wizard and I", Elphaba sings of how she has just experienced "a vision almost like a prophecy", in which she foresees that one day, all of Oz will hold a celebration all to do with her. In a tragic twist, this actually turns out to be the celebration which takes place following her supposed death. The second reference to this ability occurs when she has a vision of Dorothy's house flying through the sky, accompanied by a feeling that Nessarose is in danger. Her seeing the house could be regarded as simply catching sight of it as it is carried by the cyclone, however the fact that Fiyero, who is with her at the time, could not see it seems to support the theory of its being a vision.
Elphaba is able to read the Grimmerie despite the fact that it is written in 'the lost language of spells'. She first demonstrates this talent when the Wizard asks her to perform a levitation spell on one of his pet monkeys as proof of her powers; she finds exactly the right spell within seconds, reads it as easily as she would her own language, and makes it work perfectly on her first try. However, although she has an instinctive knack for knowing which spell is appropriate in certain cases, and can pronounce the words of the language, she later reveals that she does not actually understand what they mean.
Besides these specific powers, Elphaba has amazing power and proficiency with magic in general, to the extent that Madame Morrible insists that she be tutoured in sorcery individually. Elphaba can perform the spells of the Grimmerie (reputed to be the most powerful in all the Land of Oz) with ease, even succeeding in creating an effective result when the subject of the spell is many miles away and when she has adapted the incantation to suit the circumstance in which it is used. An example of such a success when both of the aforementioned problems have been in play is the spell she used to save Fiyero from death, although admittedly that spell did have the unintended effect of transforming him into a scarecrow. She has also used the book's spells to accomplish feats which appear to be impossible for Ozian magicians, such as enabling things to fly. Toward the end of the musical, it is revealed that the Wizard is in fact Elphaba's father, and Madame Morrible attributes Elphaba's immense magical power to the fact that "she was a child of both worlds".
In the book, Elphaba doesn't have that knack for magic. She has a hidden magic power, but it only emerges when Elphaba gets extremely angry. This happens twice in the book: Once when the cook of the caravan she was going with to get to the Vinkus threatened to cook Elphaba's son, Liir, after Elphaba had complained about the cook's cruelty to Animals. His corpse was found all puffed up, as if he had been attacked by bees. Elphaba had some bees with her on the journey, and it is implied that she may have influenced them to kill the cook. She denied that she had done anything to him until the Elephant, Princess Nastoya, told her that she had a hidden power. The second time she used this power was when Sarima's son Manek convinced Liir to hide in the fish well and left him there. Liir nearly drowned, but they were just in time to save him. Elphaba realized she had motherly feelings for Liir, but her anger at Manek caused her hidden power to jump out again, this time making an icicle fall on Manek and kill him. Both of the times her power showed itself, it was to protect Liir.
[edit] Musical cast
Actresses who have played Elphaba in the musical include:
[edit] Previous
- Idina Menzel (Original Broadway, Original London)
- Shoshana Bean (Broadway, US National Tour, Former Broadway Standby)
- Eden Espinosa (Original Los Angeles, Broadway, Temporary US National Tour replacement, Original Broadway Standby)
- Ana Gasteyer (Original Chicago, Broadway)
- Julia Murney (US National Tour, Broadway)
- Kristy Cates (Original Broadway Understudy, Temporary US National Tour Replacement, Chicago, Original Chicago Standby)
- Dee Roscioli (Chicago {will return to the role on August 24}, Former Chicago Standby)
- Saycon Sengbloh (Broadway Standby)
- Brandi Chavonne Massey (Broadway Understudy)
- Jenna Leigh Green (US National Tour Understudy)
- Maria Eberline (US National Tour Understudy)
- Victoria Matlock (US National Tour, Former US National Tour Standby)
- Coleen Sexton (US National Tour Standby)
- Shona White (London Standby)
- Kerry Ellis (Future Broadway, Former London {until 1st December when she will return}, Original London Standby)
- Cassidy Janson (London Standby, Former London Understudy)
- Caissie Levy (Los Angeles, Former Los Angeles Standby, Former Broadway Understudy)
- Lara Janine (Former USJ)
- Jillian Giacchi (Former USJ)
- Erin Cornell (Former USJ)
[edit] Current
- Stephanie J. Block (Current Broadway, Original US National Tour, Understudy in San Francisco Try Outs, Original Workshops)
- Julie Reiber (Current Broadway Standby, Original Los Angeles Standby)
- Chelsea Krombach (Current Broadway Understudy)
- Carmen Cusack (Current US National Tour, Former Chicago Standby)
- Donna Vivino (Current US National Tour Standby)
- Merideth Kaye Clark (Current US National Tour Understudy)
- Lisa Brescia (Current Chicago, Former Broadway Standby)
- Jennifer DiNoia (Current Chicago Standby, Former Chicago Understudy)
- Vicki Noon (Current Chicago Understudy)
- Alexia Khadime (Current London)
- Ashleigh Gray (Current London Standby, Former London Understudy)
- Sabrina Carter (Current London Understudy)
- Teal Wicks (Current Los Angeles, Former Los Angeles Standby)
- Marcie Dodd (Current Los Angeles Standby, Former US national Tour and LA Understudy)
- Courtney Corey (Current Los Angeles Understudy)
- Megumi Hamada (Former Tokyo)
- Higuchi Asami (Current Tokyo)
- Willemijn Verkaik (Current Stuttgart)
- Sabrina Weckerlin (Current Stuttgart Standby)
- Roberta Valentini (Current Stuttgart Understudy)
- Amanda Harrison (Current & Original Australia Elphaba)
- Jemma Stevenson (Current Australia Standby, Former USJ Elphaba)
- Patrice Tipoki (Current Australia Standby)
- Kathleen Hennessey (Current USJ Elphaba)
- Charity Smith (Current USJ Elphaba)
- Cassie McIvor (Current USJ Elphaba)
- Antonia Marr (Current USJ Elphaba Standby)
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