Elphaba

Infobox character
colour = green
name = Elphaba
portrayer = Idina Menzel et al.


caption = Idina Menzel as Elphaba with Norbert Leo Butz as Fiyero in the Original Broadway Cast of "Wicked"
first = "" (1995)
last = "" (1995)
nickname = Elphie
Fabala
Sister (Saint) Aelphaba
Fae
Auntie Witch
species = human (witch)
gender = female
age = thirty-eight (at time of death) [cite book | last = Maguire | first = Gregory | title = Wicked | publisher = Harper Collins | year = 1995 | pages= page 458 | isbn = 0-06-135096-6]
title = Wicked Witch of the West
Thropp Third Descending
family = Melena Thropp (mother)
Wizard of Oz (father)
Nessarose (half-sister)
Shell (half-brother)
Eminent Thropp of Munchkinland (great-grandfather)
children = Liir
residence = Kiamo Ko
creator = L. Frank Baum & Gregory Maguire

Elphaba Thropp is the name given to the Wicked Witch of the West in ' 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" (Margaret Hamilton): 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.

Elphaba in the book

Elphaba is the illegitimate daughter of Melena Thropp and a traveling salesman who is very strongly hinted to be the Wizard of Oz. Elphaba does not discover who her true father was until late in her life, and grows up believing that her mother's husband Frexspar is her father. Her mother's promiscuity is perhaps the reason why her skin is green. 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. Because of her noble ancestry, Elphaba bears the title of "Thropp Third Descending".

Elphaba is born with green skin, 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 originally sees it 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. Elphaba's deciduous teeth are all extremely sharp, and in early childhood, she possesses an urge to bite everything around her, including herself. When these teeth fall out in due course, they are replaced by an ordinary set of permanent teeth, and this is a source of great relief to her parents. Elphaba is also unusual in that she is apparently allergic to water, and avoids touching it at all times, never crying or bathing. She cleans herself by rubbing oil into her skin.

Frex always favors Nessarose over Elphaba, a source of constant resentment in Elphaba's life. Nessa is seen to embody the qualities which the zealous Frex desires in a daughter, and which Elphaba lacks: Elphaba has no religious faith, but Nessa is almost ridiculously pious. Although both girls possess physical abnormalities (Nessarose was born without arms, possibly due to use of the Magic Elixir her mother used during pregnancy to prevent her next born child from also being green), Nessa is considered as beautiful whereas Elphaba is generally seen as freakishly ugly. During her visit to Munchkinland near the end of the third section of the book, Elphaba discovers that the Quadling Turtle Heart may in fact have fathered Nessa. Both Melena and Frex loved Turtle Heart, so Nessa always meant more to Frex than Elphaba did.

Elphaba attends Shiz University where she becomes best friends with Galinda (who later becomes "Glinda the Good") and Boq. She also meets Fiyero, who later becomes her lover and eventually the father of her son, Liir. However, because Liir is apparently carried to term while Elphaba is in a coma, Elphaba is uncertain as to whether or not she actually is the boy's mother. Liir's maternity is never explicitely stated in the book, but he later sires a child with green skin, apparently confirming that Elphaba is his mother; Maguire has also described Liir as "Elphaba's son" in interviews. [cite web |url=http://www.fwomp.com/int-mcguire.htm |title=An interview with wizard-like author Gregory Maguire |accessdate=2007-01-15 |last=Merritt |first=Byron |coauthors=Interview with Gregory Maguire |date=2004-11-01 |work=fwomp.com]

Nessarose later joins Elphaba at Shiz. Frex sends Nessa a beautiful pair of jeweled slippers as a gift, and these slippers are later enchanted by Glinda to enable Nessa to walk without assistance. Elphaba pretends not to care that she received no gift from their father, but the shoes later become an obsession for her, as she sees them as a symbol of Frex's favouritism. After Nessa's death, Glinda gives the shoes to Dorothy Gale, thus sparking a conflict between herself and Elphaba which remains unresolved at the time of Elphaba's death. Elphaba hunts Dorothy down in an attempt to wrest the shoes from her.

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 ("A"nimals, as opposed to "a"nimals, are capable of speech and advanced thought). Elphaba speaks out against Madame Morrible’s anti-Animal poetry and works with Doctor Dillamond, a Goat, to find the biological difference between Animals, animals, and humans. She protects a Lion cub in a life sciences class and refuses to eat meat that could have come from Animal sources. Her revolutionary goals fade after her failed assassination attempt on Madame Morrible’s life and the death of Fiyero at the hands of the Wizard's guards.

Elphaba attempts to seek forgiveness for the death of Fiyero from his wife, Sarima, who welcomes her and allows her to live at Fiyero's castle of Kiamo Ko. However, Sarima refuses to listen to Elphaba’s story. When Sarima is murdered by the Wizard’s forces, Elphaba is left unsatisfied and plunges into madness. Dorothy later comes to the castle asking her forgiveness for killing her sister, but Elphaba is killed before being able to grant forgiveness of her own.

Though Elphaba had originally considered sorcery to be nothing more than "entertainment", and was not interested in studying the art, she is revealed to have taken correspondence courses in magic during her time living in the Emerald City. While living at Kiamo Ko, Elphaba discovers the Grimmerie (a book containing vast magical knowledge) in the attic of the castle. Using the limited amount of information which she can decipher from the cryptic book, she begins to practice sorcery with greater success than ever before.

Dorothy kills Elphaba while trying to save her from a fire, not realizing that the witch is vulnerable 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, since 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 ties Elphaba to the stories Sarima tells her children about a wicked witch who disappears into a cave. At the end of the story the children always ask if the witch ever comes out, to which Sarima replies "not "yet". At the end of the book this dialogue is repeated, suggesting that Elphaba will eventually rise again. In interviews, Maguire has stated that a witch may die but will "always" come back, no matter what.

Elphaba in the musical

For the musical "Wicked", Elphaba was written to be less cynical, more likable, and far more sympathetic than the novel counterpart. In the book, Elphaba virtually goes mad, and genuinely becomes "wicked", though understandably so; 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, Sarima and her children are not present in the musical, and a love triangle with Fiyero and Glinda exists instead of the posthumous one (after Fiyero's death) with Sarima. The young Elphaba shows interest in sorcery from the beginning of her education, 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 Doctor's Dillamond's removal); in the book the former is a result of an axe 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. 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.

Her relationship with Glinda (called "Ga"linda" 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. 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 demonstrates a natural talent in the field of sorcery early in the musical, and is selected by Madame Morrible to be tutoured personally. She progresses quickly, and is eventually called before the Wizard of Oz himself, with a view to becoming his "magic Grand Vizier". However, when she learns that the Wizard is in fact a powerless fraud , Elphaba steals the Grimmerie from him and sets herself up as a rebel. In retaliation, the Wizard has Madame Morrible spread the rumour that Elphaba is a "Wicked Witch", to turn the public against her. She becomes the subject of national hatred thereafter, and her attempts to convince the people as to the Wizard's corrupt rule are regarded as slander. As more and more of her friends turn against her, Elphaba gradually comes to accept her reputation as a villain, and the supposed death of Fiyero is what finally causes her to embrace it completely. However, when she realises that Fiyero has in fact survived, Elphaba acknowledges the mistakes she has made in her life, and decides to get a fresh start outside of Oz.

In the musical, Elphaba's aversion to water is no more than one of several ridiculous rumors started by those who fear her. Elphaba uses this to her advantage by disappearing when Dorothy throws a bucket of water at her, fooling everyone into believing she has been killed, even though she just went down a trapdoor.

The role of Elphaba was originally played on Broadway and in Londoncite news |last=Wolf |first=Matt |title=Idina Menzel |publisher="Broadway.com (London)"|date=2006-09-25|url=http://london.broadway.com/story/id/3003794/story/id/3003794 |accessdate=2008-02-18] by Idina Menzel, who won the 2004 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her performance.

Musical cast

Actresses who have played Elphaba in the musical include:

Previous

*Idina Menzel (Original Broadway, Original London)
*Shoshana Bean (Broadway, US National Tour, Former Broadway Standby)
*Eden Espinosa (Original Los Angeles {will return to the role in November 2008}, Broadway, Temporary US National Tour replacement, Original Broadway Standby)
*Stephanie J. Block (Original US National Tour, Broadway, Understudy in San Francisco Try Outs, Original Workshops)
*Julia Murney (US National Tour, Broadway)
*Ana Gasteyer (Original Chicago, Broadway)
*Kristy Cates (Original Broadway Understudy, Temporary US National Tour Replacement, Chicago, Original Chicago Standby)
*Lisa Brescia (Chicago, Former Broadway Standby)
*Saycon Sengbloh (Former Broadway Standby)
*Brandi Chavonne Massey (Former Broadway Understudy)
*Jenna Leigh Green (Original LA Understudy, Former US National Tour Understudy)
*Maria Eberline (Former US National Tour Understudy)
*Victoria Matlock (US National Tour, Former US National Tour Standby)
*Coleen Sexton (Former US National Tour Standby)
*Shona White (London Standby)
*Cassidy Janson (Former 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)
*Laura Guimarey (Former D'art Peru Original Peru)
*Dan'yelle Williamson (Former Chicago Understudy)
*Kathleen Hennsensey (Former USJ Elphaba
*Charity Smith (Former USJ Elphaba)
*Cassie Mclvor (Former USJ Elphaba)

Current

*Kerry Ellis (Current Broadway, Former London {until 1st December when she will return}, Original London Standby)
*Julie Reiber (Current Broadway Standby, Original Los Angeles Standby)
*Chelsea Krombach (Current Broadway Understudy, Former US National Tour 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)
*Dee Roscioli (Chicago, Former Chicago 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, Original Chicago 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 Melbourne Elphaba)
*Jemma Stevenson (Current Melbourne Standby, Former USJ Elphaba)
*Patrice Tipoki (Current Melbourne Understudy)
*Kathleen Hennessey (Current USJ Elphaba)
*Charity Smith (Current USJ Elphaba)
*Cassie McIvor (Current USJ Elphaba)
*Antonia Marr (Current USJ Elphaba Standby)
*Megumi Hamada (Tokyo)

Powers and Abilities

In the book, Elphaba does not possess the same knack for magic as her musical counterpart. She has a hidden magic power, but it only emerges when she is moved to extreme anger. This happens twice in the book: Once when the cook of the caravan she is going with to get to the Vinkus threatens to cook Liir after Elphaba had complained about the cook's cruelty to Animals. Shortly thereafter, cook is found dead, his corpse severely swollen as if he had been attacked by bees. Elphaba had some bees with her on the journey, and it is strongly implied that she may have psychically influenced them to kill the cook. She denies that she had done anything to him until the Elephant, Princess Nastoya, tells her that she has a hidden power. The second time she uses this power is when Sarima's son Manek had convinced Liir to hide in the fish well and left him there. Liir nearly drowns, but they are just in time to save him. Elphaba realizes she has motherly feelings for Liir, but her anger at Manek causes her power to jump out again, this time making an icicle fall on Manek and kill him. Both of the times her power shows itself, it is to protect Liir, and on both occasions, it results in a death.

Another demonstration of Elphaba's innate power occurs when she rescues the infant snow monkey which she later names Chistery: Seeing the monkey stranded on an island in the middle of a lake, Elpahaba feels compelled to save him, and runs toward the island depite her mortal allergy to water. As her feet make contact with the surface of the lake, a pane of ice forms beneath them, allowing her to reach the island unharmed. The others in the caravan speculate that the lake had previously been enchanted by a magician, but when Liir recalls the incident in "Son of a Witch", he claims that "The world conformed itself to suit her needs", implying that Elphaba did indeed cause the ice to appear, as well as possibly categorising this power as a form of reality warping. Of course, Liir was rather young at the time, and as he himself admits, he may simply have over-romanticised the incident in his mind. Apart from those incidents, there are others that may or may not be attributed to Elphaba's dormant powers, such as the storm that only she and her roommate Galinda notice or the horns that attack Fiyero. Both these last events could well have been provoqued by absolutely any magically empowered character in the land of Oz.

In the musical, Elphaba possesses 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.

Besides her specific powers, Elphaba's musical counterpart has amazing power and proficiency with magic in general, to the extent that Madame Morrible insists that she be tutored 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 has 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 both the musical and the novel, Elphaba is shown to have certain precognitive and/or clairvoyant abilities. In the book, the focal point of this power is a mirror made for her by Turtle Heart. She uses the mirror as a scrying tool in early childhood, and through it foresees several events, including the arrival of the Wizard in Oz. Her clairvoyant abilities 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 was 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 the book 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. In the novel, Elphaba also possesses the ability to read the Grimmerie, but with nowhere near the same facility. She is able to understand fragments of the text, but admits that most of it is "misty to [her] eyes". Despite this, she gleans much magical knowledge from the book over her many years of studying it, and puts the knowledge to good use. In the novel, the Grimmeire is revealed to have been created on Earth, which is why it is illegible to the people of Oz. However, being of mixed Ozian and Earthly blood, Elphaba possesses a natural ability to at least partially understand the contents of the book.

References