Great Moments in Representation: 'Wicked' & the Representation of Women On Stage

Alexia Khadime and Lucy-St. Louis (Photo by Matt Crockett)

Ashley Griffin, Guest Editorial

This article is part of our “Great Moments in Representation” series, where we look back at important performances from underrepresented groups in Theatre, TV, and Movies.

In 2003, a musical opened on Broadway that did what no successful commercial musical before it had ever done. Centered on something more experimental than dancing, singing “Cats”, more spectacular than a flying helicopter, and riskier than titling a musical “Urinetown”, this musical was:

Centered around two female leads.

I kid you not; this literally blew Broadway’s mind. 

Up until this point, the most noteworthy show to center around two women was “Side Show” the brilliant but not ultimately successful (and not known to many people outside of the Broadway community) show about real-life conjoined sisters Violet and Daisy Hilton and their struggle to fulfill their personal dreams and find romance. Most Broadway shows followed the (however well disguised) formula of the “leading lady” and the “comic secondary female role” (think Laurie and Ado Annie in “Oklahoma”, or even Millie and Miss Dorothy in “Thoroughly Modern Millie” (though in that show both get a fair shake at the comedy) if there are even two female leads in a show at all. 

But “Side Show” was a slightly under-the-radar, obscure bio-musical. “Wicked” was, at the time it opened, one of the most expensive musicals ever produced, created by an all-star team led by Broadway superstar Stephen Schwartz in his return to Broadway after a decades-long absence, funded partially by a Hollywood film studio and based on two of the biggest cultural juggernauts in history – “The Wizard of Oz”, and Gregory Maguire’s literary Ozian riff “Wicked” – which all but created a new genre of storytelling (retelling a well-known classic from the villain’s point of view.) 

Focusing the musical on the friendship between Elphaba (Maguire’s name for the Wicked Witch of the West) and Glinda was not a foregone conclusion. Both characters obviously appear in the novel (most notably as reluctant roommates in college), but the story is most definitely Elphaba’s. Glinda is on the sidelines or completely absent for much of the tale. 

But two things happened at the musical’s inception that set the wheels in motion for a refocusing of the story. The first was Schwartz bringing Winnie Holzman on board as the book writer. At the time, Holzman was most well known as the creator of the T.V. series “My So-Called Life” starring Claire Danes. Schwartz liked how she handled the female characters and a female-centered story and thought she would be a perfect fit for “Wicked”.

The second is that Schwartz wanted to write the role of Glinda for Kristin Chenoweth – a perfect match of character and performer if there ever was one. When development started on “Wicked”, Chenoweth had recently won a Tony award for “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” which made her an overnight sensation.

But she hadn’t yet had a Broadway starring role, let alone something tailored for her. With her brilliant comic timing, dramatic chops, stunning voice, and beautiful, blonde, petite looks, she was the only choice for the role, and Chenoweth signed up immediately.

In fact, no one else had ever played the role of Glinda (other than an occasional understudy) between the musical’s inception and Chenoweth leaving the Broadway production. This meant that the role of Glinda would need to be built up. It took a while to figure out, but the creators clearly wanted to keep giving Chenoweth more to work with.

In fact, Chenoweth’s unique abilities even determined Glinda’s vocal sound in the show – Chenoweth wanted to feature both her operatic soprano and her Broadway belt, inspiring Schwartz to write Glinda’s vocals as a lyric soprano when she’s in public (think “No One Mourns the Wicked” and “Thank Goodness”) and a belt when she’s in private (think “Popular”).

As the musical continued to develop, the primary challenge for the creative team was pairing down Maguire’s novel into a concise, two-act musical. The “Wicked” novel goes in many directions, from Elphaba’s complex underground political affiliations to the religious history of Munchkinland to Animal rights and more.

But as the musical progressed, it became apparent that it came alive whenever Elphaba and Glinda interacted. The show became about their friendship and how these two very different women change each other “for good”. The characters are completely divergent, and even the actresses who originated the roles (Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth) said they were diametric opposites in almost every way, from their personalities to their looks to how they approached their work in the rehearsal room.

When “Wicked” opened, it became a cultural phenomenon – especially with young women. As with most things that girls and women enjoy, it was ridiculed. I was deeply affected when I saw “Wicked” for the first time, and I remember arriving at NYU for college and being absolutely teased for liking the show.

After all, this was “spectacle” and “spectacle” was killing theater, right? There were many reasons for “Wicked”’s success, specifically with this demographic, but a large part was the female characters at the show's center.

Glinda is beautiful, popular, and wealthy. She is charming, funny, ambitious, and actually quite smart (more in a political way than a book-smart way). We first meet her in a scene reminiscent of “Ding Dong the Witch is Dead” where she tells the Munchkins that the Wicked Witch of the West has just died.

She is lovely, loved, and very “nice”. But when she starts getting grilled by the Munchkins about her relationship with “the Witch” we start to see cracks in her façade. She (somewhat, we learn later why not fully) owns her friendship with Elphaba, and the entire story that follows is her remembering her and Elphaba’s relationship.

We see Glinda (or Galinda at this point) arrive at Shiz University. She’s instantly the person everyone wants to hang out with. She’s confident, self-assured, and “good” – this is not a Regina George we’re dealing with. She might be a little out of touch, but when she says she has a private suite, she quickly adds, “But you can all visit me whenever you want!” She is sincere.

She is honestly trying to be nice and inclusive, but because she loves the adoration, this sends her way. She is also focused and determined – her singular goal in attending Shiz is to be a part of Madame Morrible’s elite sorcery seminar – which she, shockingly to her, is not accepted into. 

She meets Elphaba, and they are like oil and water. But Glinda, after attempting to undermine Elphaba, Glinda ultimately comes to care for her and begins to realize some of her shortcomings. Throughout the show, Glinda follows her ambitions to the point of compromising her morals. But when she ultimately gets everything she thinks she wants, she realizes that her life has been built on a selfish, shallow foundation, and she does what few characters of her “type” do – set out to make it right no matter the cost. When Elphaba sings to her at the end 

“And just look at you, you can do all I couldn’t do” 

It’s a statement that Glinda’s sincere social skills and niceness give her the ability to institute change in a way Elphaba, with her brashness, blunt honesty, and single-minded focus, couldn’t. Glinda goes from being superficially “good” to being truly Good during the course of the show.

Conversely, Elphaba is strong-willed, fiercely intelligent, and intensely vulnerable with a defensive façade. Her identity has been built on being “different”, unwanted, and unloved. But she is idealistic, imaginative, and kind. I like to think of her character as – if she had been born in Kansas with non-green skin, she would have been Dorothy. Elphaba arrives at Shiz, the diametric opposite of Glinda – she is not loved, not popular, and never seeks the spotlight but is constantly the source of unwanted attention (as she says, “I don’t cause commotions, I am one”.) But she quickly discovers that she is powerful in a way that makes her special.

Whereas Madame Morrible instantly shuts down Glinda’s attempts to study sorcery with her, practically the instant Madame Morrible meets Elphaba, she announces that not only will Elphaba be admitted into the sorcery program, but that Morrible “will take no other students.”

Ultimately, unlike Glinda, Elphaba’s morals win out over her desire for love and acceptance, and she is publicly branded as “evil” for doing what is right. Elphaba’s journey is one of self-acceptance and love – by the end of the show, she has embraced her power and uniqueness while opening herself up to love from others while coming to understand and embrace her flaws. 

Many women saw themselves in Elphaba and Glinda. This was especially meaningful as, too often, women (and other marginalized groups) must relate to a character not overtly representative of themselves when consuming media. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this – we should all be able to empathize with and relate to characters that are different from us, but it becomes a problem when you never see yourself in a story.

I’m not saying that every story must have a token character from every marginalized group, but I am saying that every marginalized group deserves to have their stories told. This isn’t a case of token gender swapping; this is about everyone being able to see stories that holistically relate to their unique experience.

Elphaba and Glinda aren’t characters whose stories would be identical if you swapped in two guys. Being women is innate to their journeys and experiences. It’s complicated to get into the specifics without discussing gender identity, which is a complex conversation, but I’ll speak from my personal experience. 

I appreciated that Elphaba’s power was not just an appropriation of stereotypical signifiers of masculine power. She doesn’t have a sword in her hand; she’s not physically fighting anyone (the closest she comes is a comic moment when Elphaba and Glinda, for the briefest instant, fight each other with broom and wand, respectively). Her emotional life is a central aspect of who she is; her power is tied to her emotions and intellect. 

For Elphaba and Glinda, how they physically appear and move through the world is central to their arcs and personal battles. Glinda’s looks are so important to her because, like for most women, it is often our currency in a patriarchal world. Likewise, Elphaba’s “otherness” is tied to her appearance. This is something women deal with in a unique way.

There was a line floating around after “Wicked”’s opening: “There’s a green girl inside us all”. I know that certainly resonated with me. The idea that what others deem “wrong” about you is plastered on your face, and if you could only get the Wizard to “de-greenify you,” you would belong.

The challenges the characters must overcome are primarily psychological. The way that Glinda undermines Elphaba when all the students go to a party at the Ozdust Ballroom is something most women will recognize on a personal level. I remember feeling a visceral gut punch watching Glinda manipulate Elphaba into believing Glinda wants to be her friend – capped with a gesture that worms its way into the deepest part of Elphaba’s vulnerability. Glinda gives Elphaba a hat that she “sells” as being “the coolest” – and Glinda would know – Glinda is the coolest, best dresser in all of Oz.

Talia Suskauer as Elphaba and Allison Bailey as Galinda in the North American tour of “Wicked”. (Photo: Joan Marcus)

Probably for the first time in Elphaba’s life, a woman in a position of power is treating her kindly, offering her a hand and helping her be accepted in and navigate her way through the world of “womanhood” – a world that has completely excluded Elphaba all her life. Elphaba is, in fact, so touched by Glinda’s gesture that she puts her own future and dreams (the one she sang an entire “I Want” song about in “The Wizard and I”) in jeopardy, telling Madame Morrible that she will quit the sorcery seminar, giving up all hope of meeting the Wizard, unless Glinda is included too.

When she then shows up at the Ozdust ballroom proudly wearing the hat, making probably her first attempt to be a part of the “group” because she believes she will now be welcome, she is immediately ridiculed by everyone present. It turns out Glinda gave Elphaba the ugliest hat in all of Oz to wear, then set her up for public humiliation.

For most women, that hits close to home. There’s an old adage, “Guys will take you out back and settle a dispute with a fight, and then it’ll be over and done. Girls will make you think they’re your best friend, then give you an eating disorder.” It’s harsh and stereotypical, but there’s a kernel of truth in it. 

But, even more of a shock, Elphaba and Glinda aren’t the only fleshed-out female characters in the story.

Let’s not forget Elphaba’s sister, Nessarose, who, though a secondary lead, gives us a third female perspective – this one between Elphaba and Glinda’s.

Nessarose is beautiful. She’s nice. Her family loves her, and is being groomed to become the next leader of Munchkinland (usurping her sister’s position in the line of succession). But she has a disability (she is a wheelchair user), which sets her apart.

She’s not ostracized like her sister (no green skin) but feels she can never belong like Glinda. Nessarose has an opposite arc from Glinda and Elphaba – she goes from being a sweet person to someone willing to do anything and bend any moral code to get what she wants. She is so desperate to keep the first boy who shows her any sign of affection (even though she knows it’s not real) that she literally changes the laws of her country to enslave him and his entire race.

Then when he protests, she tries to use magic forcibly she knows she doesn’t understand or have control over to make him love her – almost killing him in the process and ultimately causing him to be turned into a mechanical man with no heart (she then deflects the blame onto Elphaba).

There is Madame Morrible – the (at least in the first act and arguably for most of the show) most powerful person in Oz. She’s the one pulling the strings and controlling all the events, the only one who knows the truth about the Wizard, and is the bridge between the Wizard’s political power and the actual magical power of Oz. Seemingly a positive female mentor for Elphaba, she is ultimately a (if not THE) villain of the piece and uses her power to bring down Elphaba and emotionally manipulate Glinda. 

And then, over all the proceedings, there is the shadow of Dorothy and the added complexity to her character (in the minds of the audience), knowing how people and forces outside of her knowledge are manipulating her and the events she experiences. In this world, Dorothy is an innocent bystander, a child being used as a pawn in the political machinations of Oz. Dorothy is such an important character in our collective consciousness that I would argue that, though she literally only appears as a shadow in the musical and is only spoken TO by the principal characters, she functions almost as a tertiary lead in our minds as we watch the show.

There is a romance intermixed with Elphaba and Glinda’s story, but it has much more of an impact on Elphaba’s personal journey than it does on the plot or the relationship between Elphaba and Glinda (it is the reason Glinda suggests the Wizard and Morrible go after Nessarose to get at Elphaba, and there is resentment in the second act when Fiyero chooses Elphaba over Glinda) but “Wicked” is not the story of a love triangle.

In fact, when the show first opened, Norbert Leo Butz (the original Fiyero) said in an interview that he quickly had to adjust to the fact that, for the first time in his experience, he, as the leading man, was primarily there to serve the story of others, rather than have his story be the central focus (a situation women are all too familiar with).

In the years since “Wicked, " other shows have featured multiple female leads. “War Paint”, for all its faults, comes to mind as a story with two interesting women at the center, as does “Grey Gardens”. “Six” gets the female-driven narrative beautifully right by telling six unique and complex female stories equally (deliberately taking back the power for the silenced voices of what has historically been a story inappropriately focused on the man in their collective lives). I hope this trend will continue, not just because it’s “politically correct”, but because we need these stories and characters.

What was done with “Wicked”’s female characters was remarkable – but the fact that it was so remarkable in 2003 is troubling. And the fact that there was such an insidious fallout from it is more troubling still. I wonder who most men relate to in “Wicked”.: is it Fiyero, the Wizard, or Boq? They are all great characters and very relatable.

Is it BECAUSE they’re the male characters? I hope not. But I bet more than a few men identify with Elphaba, just as I relate to Frodo in “The Lord of the Rings” because his journey, more than any other character in the story, most closely resonates with me.

Representation matters – not just for those who need their stories told and have long been excluded from the narrative, but so that we can all learn to see ourselves in those different from ourselves. We need to take a closer look at how subversive, in many ways, “Wicked” actually was and continues to be. It is a show that has personally changed me “for good”.