Wicked: An Untangling of Adaptations

My introduction to the land of Oz came when I was a child via my mother’s VHS tapes. I was four, five and six, and at least once every weekend I watched our tape of The Wizard of Oz. It was a good deal: my mom would have a designated time to nap while I sat spellbound for hours by the colors and music and wonder.

My first encounter with Wicked was more incidental, through the mercy of an iHeartRadio's shuffled radio station when I was still too young to have money for music streaming services. I loved the songs, and when I was a teenager, I was given tickets to see the musical which I loved just as fervently in its totality. Needless to say, I was in the movie theater to see Jon M. Chu's Wicked: Part One (2024) on opening week. I adored it! This movie works most effectively on an audience of sentimental Wicked fans, and I am that audience. It reignited my old interest and sent me, finally, looking into the world of Gregory Maguire's four-part book series, The Wicked Years. And what a world it is!

From our wicked witch of the west to the ugly stepsister, Gregory Maguire's writing career has been heavily invested in the eternal art of the retelling, in showing a world from a unique view and under new skies. His book Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, which was adapted into the Broadway musical, and in turn adapted into the 2024 film starring Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, stems from delving deeper into the setting of L. Frank Baum's 1900 novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (fun fact: Elphaba’s name is taken from L. Frank Baum's initials! L-F-BA!), its sequels, and its 1939 film adaptation, The Wizard of Oz.

No matter the adaptation, the question of good and evil is a load-bearing wall in Wicked's narrative. As Glinda asks in the song "No One Mourns the Wicked"—are people born wicked, or do they have wickedness thrust upon them? The rest of the story invites even more thought from its audience. Who or what is shaping the perception of morality in society? What should one do in the face of injustice? How can one truly make good? How do you forgive others? How do you forgive yourself?

Every telling asks this of us, but none do so with the profundity of Maguire's book, Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, unfettered as it is from the constraints of a runtime. Let the record show: The Wicked Years is not a book series aimed towards children. While the musical has a recommended age for children as being 8 and up, and the movie is rated PG, The Wicked Years has understandably, and perhaps understatedly, been described as “dark.” In Maguire’s own words from a 2013 interview with The Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy, "My take on Oz is sinister in some ways, but it is no less capable of salvation at the same time. In other words, my world is just as corrupt and just as redeemable as the real world in which we live. At least that’s my artist’s attempt."

So what reflections of the world darken The Wicked Years? In all versions of Wicked, Elphaba Thropp is marginalized for the color of her green skin. The abuse Elphaba faces is such severe and lifelong othering and degradation that she believes herself to be without a soul, barely a person, and struggles to accept love and to show it. There is also the rise of fascism under the Wizard’s tight-fisted rule over Oz, affecting not just the Animals (distinct from animals, who don’t share their sapience) like in Wicked’s other adaptations, but the diverse populations all throughout Oz. The Quadling people are ethnically cleansed and their ecosystems trampled for ruby deposits. The Arjiki people are seen as savages and face the growing threat of occupation and violence from the Wizard’s Gale Force. Munchkinlanders chafe under poverty and exploitation amidst drought and dream of independence. From poetic propaganda to forced assimilation to segregation, the war against oppression is fought on all fronts. There is death, there is loss, and there is the bitter struggle between keeping up the fight and resigning yourself to failure.

Another unadapted complexity of the first book is religion. There are multiple factions at play: the pagan worshippers of fairy queen Lurline, Unionist worshippers of the Nameless God, the growing thrall of the Pleasure Faith. It is a driving force amongst factions and the center of more than one philosophical volley in the original text, but is only alluded to elsewhere. There are even major divergences in prominent characters. In the book, Fiyero is the dark-skinned prince of the Arjiki people of the Vinkus (not Winkie country, which is explicitly a slur in book verse) and his bond with Elphaba has a distinctly fraught tint to its intensity. 

Nessarose is a deeply devout follower of Unionism, like her and Elphaba’s father Frexspar, which is a primary catalyst in the role she finds herself assuming throughout the story. She also has Amelia, meaning she was born without arms, rather than using a wheelchair, which shifts the direction of how her disability informs her emotional journey. The rich map of Oz, which can be seen within the book and as a backdrop in the Broadway production, is so present in the narrative. We move from Elphaba’s birthplace of Rush margins, to Shiz University, to her days of radical Animal activism in the Emerald City, to her journey to Kiamo Ko and all the fate that follows. It is a sprawling, bold, incisive book with a primary protagonist in Elphaba that demands your attention and earns your empathy.

This is not to imply that the Wicked musical and movie are without their own singularity. My favorite adaptational choice is the one to focus the story fully around the relationship between Elphaba and Glinda, which is very much present in the novel but not the lens by which the story breathes as it is in its subsequent adaptations. "What Is This Feeling?," "Popular," "Defying Gravity," and the upcoming "For Good" are songs wholly centered around the two characters and are emotional linchpins in the narrative. The misunderstanding and understanding, the push and pull, the love beneath it all. That beating heart of connection between these symbols of that overarching question of good and evil. The thing that, in my opinion, makes the impact of these stories as powerful as they are.

There are also the unique perks of differing mediums. For Wicked on Broadway there is that thrill and resonance of all good live performances. The swell of the orchestra, the rebounding of spectacular voices in the very same room as you. The knowledge that your experience, this show, is one-of-a-kind. For the film Wicked: Part One (2024), there is the grandeur of seeing it all on the big screen. The magnificent physicality of the sets; the halls of Shiz University, the splendor of the Emerald City, the field of nine million real tulips planted to bring Munchkinland to vibrant life.

All this is to say: I recommend experiencing Wicked in all its forms and I highly recommend reading Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West—it deepened my thoughts on this story and enhanced my enjoyment of every version. You can check the status of BPL’s copies of Gregory Maguire’s work on our website. 

It’s not too late to catch Wicked: Part One in movie theaters or the musical on Broadway, and it’s never too late to crack open the books and get lost in Oz once more. In the words of Elphaba, “You’ll be all right. Now you’re a seasoned traveler. This is just the return leg of a voyage you already know.”