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Was the Wicked Witch really allergic to water? Why was the
Cowardly Lion so cowardly? Dante St James finds out.
Elphaba in a US production of Wicked.
The new Broadway musical Wicked
provides answers to every question you could possibly have of The Wizard of Oz and then some. But this
is really the bittersweet tale of one Elphaba Thropp: the girl who would grow
up to become the Wicked Witch of the West.
Chatting about the show with Amanda Harrison and Rob Mills
of Wicked, The Untold Story of the
Witches of Oz, it was clear that there was much more to this multiple Tony
and Grammy award-winning musical, than just a nostalgic walk down the Yellow
Brick Road.
“The wicked are not necessarily born wicked,” explains
Amanda Harrison who plays Elphaba. “There are often circumstances that lead them
to a darker path. At some stage in every wicked woman’s life she was an
insecure teenager who hated her body.”
Harrison, known for her roles in Sunset Boulevard, Les
Miserables and the West End productions of Mama Mia! and We Will Rock
You, speaks of her character with affection.
“Elphaba was born with green skin to the Governor of
Munchkin Land, so you’ve got a politician’s daughter with a birth defect who is
teased and bullied right through her childhood. But then it gets a whole lot
worse when she heads off to college only to find that her roommate is the
prettiest girl in the class.”
Harrison draws parallels between Elphaba and what many GLBT
youth experience today.
“You’re different. You know it. Everyone else can see it.
But you’re an outsider. You’re teased. You’re compared to people who are more
‘normal’ and you react to that. Sometimes you make good decisions. Sometimes
you make really bad ones.”
Which leads us to one of the more tabloid-worthy snapshots
of the story. Rob “Millsy” Mills plays Fiyero, the swaggering bachelor-about-Oz
who sweeps both witches off their broomsticks.
“Most people wouldn’t know that I grew up around musicals," Mills says. "When
I was little I used to sit and listen to old recordings of Frank Sinatra, Dean
Martin and Doris Day with my mum!”
Not what I was expecting from the man who was, at one time,
linked with a certain hotel heiress. Yet Mills has already shuffled his way
through a number of recent musical hits including Grease: The Arena Spectacular and the Perth production of Hair.
“What I love about Wicked
is that nothing is what it seems. We know Dorothy’s story, but there’s this
whole other sub-plot with love triangles, politics and coming-of-age that happen
long before a girl and her dog were no longer in Kansas.”
Naturally, being a Friend
of Dorothy myself, I couldn’t help but ask whether those ruby slippers make an appearance. Mills confides: “I was actually gonna pinch them myself in case they do a
drag version of the show at The Peel!”
Wicked comes to
Melbourne’s Regent Theatre in July 2008. Tickets on sale now through
Ticketek.
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