The Wicked side of Gregory Maguire

MANILA, Philippines - In Wicked the musical, lead character Elphaba — the future Wicked Witch of West — declares: “I don’t cause commotions, I am one.”

A decade after it debuted on Broadway, Wicked continues to be a theatrical “commotion,” thrillifying audiences with its reinvented Oz lore and going places literally, including Manila come Jan. 22 at the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) Main Theater.

Wicked tells the untold story of the Oz witches Elphaba and Galinda/Glinda the “good,” unraveling before and after Dorothy with her ruby slippers enters the picture. It is inspired by the 1995 novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of West, the first volume in Gregory Maguire’s best-selling series that “re-imagined” the L. Frank Baum 1900 classic novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and the subsequent 1939 Hollywood hit The Wizard of Oz.

In Wicked the novel, the American author turned the (in)famous fairy tale villain into a sympathetic heroine and gave her the name Elphaba (after the initials of L. Frank Baum), as he “set out to tell her story from beginning to end… One way of doing this — in the novel, mind you — was to allow the Witch to have a good voice.”

In the stage version, it was Stephen Schwartz (Godspell and Pippin) with his music and lyrics, who made sure that good voice is put to good use with a diva-worthy repertoire thanks to songs like Defying Gravity. Gregory noted in the souvenir program for the Wicked run in Auckland, New Zealand (which The STAR covered late last year): “When Stephen Schwartz approached me with the notion of turning Wicked into a musical play, I needed much less persuading that I let on,” adding that “… from the opening anthem’s foreboding figure of notes… the score for Wicked respects the book’s tensions and ambiguities” making the figures who once lived solely in his head seem more real,” he added.

Wicked is the first adult book Gregory wrote (after penning many a children’s book) which spawned three more sequels. It is not the only “revisionist” tale he weaved, however, with his Mirror, Mirror for Snow White as well as Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister for Cinderella.   

The STAR recently interviewed Gregory over e-mail, wherein he offered a glimpse of his own “life and times” before and after his Wicked success, talked about classics he’d like to re-imagine and re-tell, and revealed his Pinoy connection.

He said, “I have been to Manila, Baguio, Banawe’s rice terraces many, many years ago, with the American cousins of relatives who lived in Pasig and Makati. It was, I believe, in 1981, and I have never been back. But I loved it and I do hope that Filipinos say ‘Mabuhay’ to Elphaba and her friends when they fly in! I remember making a friend named Edgar Mendoza, a designer. I have no idea if he is still around or in business. Haven’t heard from him in over 30 years!”

Here are excerpts from the e-mail interview.

Can you recall the exact moment when the idea of Wicked first came to you?

“No. But I do remember the moment when I realized that the information we did have about the story was incomplete. In one of the songs from the MGM film (The Wizard of Oz), the Cowardly Lion sings, ‘What makes the Hottentot so hot?’ Even at the age of eight, I knew that Hottentots were from Africa, not from Oz: So how could the Cowardly Lion use such a reference? Similarly, when Dorothy sings to the Tin Man, ‘You could be another Lincoln…’ he doesn’t stop the song to ask, ‘What’s a Lincoln?’ They are not telling us the whole story, I said to myself, and scrunched closer to the TV to see what else was going on.”

What was life like before your Wicked series’ success?

“I began to publish children’s books when I was about 25 — novel-length fantasies with overtones, I guess, of Peter Pan and Mary Poppins. When I decided I wanted to write for adults about evil, I was stymied until I remembered the old saying, ‘Write what you know.’ What do I know, I only know children’s books, I thought, and the scales fell from my eyes with a clatter.

“My life before Wicked was happy and rewarding. And anonymous. My life since has been happy, and rewarding, and somewhat more public. Still, the Wicked Witch is always a lot more photogenic than a jowly middle-aged Irish-American writer, so I get around pretty well without mobs finding out I’m on the premises.”

I’ve read you’ve had interesting encounters with Oz “purists,” what’s the most memorable of them all?

“It took Wicked a couple of years before the purists relaxed. I tried to point out kindly that, in fact, MGM had made crucial changes to the myth of Oz as presented by L. Frank Baum. Usually, such remarks of mine were met by people rushing by singing If You Only Had a Brain in a taunting fashion. But little by little, the book caught on through underground approval, and then the Oz purists took a second look and decided I did not quite deserve the Fatwah of the Emerald City that they had been considering.”

You’ve said in interviews that you don’t write anything that doesn’t ask big questions. What’s the biggest question and message readers will take away from Wicked?

“What is the true nature of evil? Is evil determined by culture, by history, by God or by spirits, by the accident of birth or the behavior of individuals? I can’t say I provide an answer, but this is a question we do well to ask ourselves over and over. It is never an old question.”

About the musical adaptation, you mentioned in an interview that the most moving part for you is when Elphaba says, “It’s my fault,” why so? What’s your other favorite moment in the play?

“Since my own mother died when I was born, I always felt sensitive to Elphaba’s thinking that the death of her mother was her own fault. I think I grew up feeling I had a double burden of life upon my shoulders: I had to live not only for myself but in a way to compensate for the transferred and donated life of my mother. I have tried therefore to live richly, well, appreciatively, courageously — in her memory and in her debt.

“I do love other moments in Wicked. When Elphaba and Galinda first dance together at the Ozdust Ballroom, and they learn the power to appreciate each other despite their differences — that is a very small moment, done with minimal music and no language, and it is one of the most touching moments in the play. It is a metaphor for any time we reach out to someone else despite our fears of rejection.”

What’s your daily writing life like?

“I try to write about five pages a day when I am writing a new novel, and a first draft is usually done in a couple of months. The older I get, the more time I spend on revisions — my newest book has gone through eight drafts. It is out next year. (I’m working on) a book called Egg & Spoon, a fantasy set in Tsarist Russia about the time of Dr. Zhivago, more or less.”

When did you know that writing was the career for you? 

“I loved to make things by the time I was six, and by the time I was nine, I had begun to find the ‘business’ lives conducted by the men around me — my dad, his pals, etc. and dads on TV, etc. — looked horrendously boring. That wasn’t the immediate push to being a writer, but I did realize I would want to be self-employed. And what else is a self-employed person but, in effect, the artist of one’s own self?”

How would you differ writing for children and adults?

“Writing for children — in any genre — is harder than writing for adults. Children are more demanding and will cut the writer off at the kneeds if the book fails to satisfy immediately, thoroughly and honestly.” 

Any words of advice for aspiring writers?

“Ben Shahn, the artist, once said, ‘Never turn your nose up at anything. Pay attention to everything, especially to the things you think you dislike. You can still learn from them.’ I try to practice this nearly every day of my life.”

If there’s another classic tale you’d want to give a “wicked” treatment, what would that be and why?

“I have been playing with the idea of writing a book called Drosslemeyer, about the godfather who gives Klara the Nutcracker in the story of the same name. I don’t know why I would want to write that. Writing it would give me the answer.”

(For details on Wicked in Manila, visit www.wickedthemusical.com.ph or call TicketWorld at 891-9999.)