Propaganda

I few years ago I discovered Wicked. I'm not really sure how... or when... or what lead up to it. It might have been a song I heard or I might have seen the cast singing during the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade... I'm not really sure how it happened. But I saw or heard a portion of it somewhere and I was fascinated. I bought the soundtrack and listened to all the music - it's really clever stuff... the play on words, the juxtaposition of good against evil... the preconceived and misguided notions of what each means. I read about the plot of the play and discovered it was based on a book... so me being me, I bought the book - because after all one interesting thing tends to lead me to another interesting thing and so on and so on ad nauseum.

The book is more involved then the play and much darker in a lot of ways. It delves more into the loneliness and isolation that the Wicked Witch felt... and being a book, the author, Gregory Maguire, could develop a much more intricate plot. The whole premise really does become a question of what can we really know, how well can we really comprehend a situation, when we don't know all the angles. After all perception is reality, correct? It may not be everyone's reality but it certainly is ours. In the book and the play Elphaba (the Wicked Witch of the West) isn't evil at all, she's merely a child of accident, circumstance, and propaganda. She doesn't conform to societal standards of beauty - she's green for goodness sake... and she's seen as easy to manipulate. The Powers That Be use her insecurity and desire for acceptance against her. In the end she attempts to fight the system, she attempts to do what's right and good and honest and it backfires.

I loved The Wizard of Oz when I was little - I still do... but I see it though different eyes now... grown up eyes maybe? Dorothy just wanted to go home - home to a place she was loved and accepted, a place where she was content and valued. She had to lose it to see what it all really meant - to see what she really held within her heart - to truly find and understand how she fit into the grand scheme. And when she did realize it, when it finally made sense, the loss was only a dream... a jarring glimpse into the vacuum. But for The Wicked Witch - for Elphaba - she lived the vacuum... it was her reality. She was ostracized, criticized, demonized - mentally beaten, emotionally whipped, spiritually deprived. Dorothy is handed love and acceptance on a silver platter and she rejects it, at least until she discovers its value, and she seeks it out again. So easy for someone who's always known it to cast it aside - to capriciously wonder what else exists. For Elphaba it doesn't come that easily. She is rejected and neglected by even those who are supposed to accept her. When she does find true friendship and true love its because of who she is down deep on the inside - people had to be willing to look beyond the uncomfortable, beyond the exterior and take the time to find the beauty that existed. In the play she finds it, temporarily, and she's content with the temporary because after all she never believed it could be hers in the first place... a "better to have loved and lost" approach, until at the end she rediscovers it, finds it didn't really disappear after all, it had only taken on a new appearance.

It fascinates me... this idea... this thought that people can have it all - all the love and support and acceptance - and yet totally misunderstand what it means. The proverbial grass does look greener so they go searching for it... longing to find something better - longing for the freedom and excitement just somewhere over that rainbow. They are quick to set aside what they have for what they think they don't - they believe chance after chance after chance exists. Sometimes they see the truth and sometimes they don't... they leave destruction and heartache in their wake - they are careless people. And then there can be people who never experienced it, have no idea what it feels like, yet they can value it above all else... they know exactly what it entails, exactly its worth... they realize it's something that is rare and percious - to be nurtured and tended and when they do find it, when they do finally experience it, they respect it - treasure it above all else.

So many people who have seen the play respond to the characters - especially that of Elphaba and I've wondered about that, wondered why. Is everyone finding the same thing or does it touch them all in different ways? Is that character somehow a representation of so many people's reality? Does everyone see the same things ? Do we all feel rejected? Are we all just hoping someone will look beyond the obvious to see the beauty within?

Each of the songs in the play conveys a different emotion, a different reality, a different perspective... and depending on my mood I have favorites. Lately it's "I'm Not That Girl" so cue the pity party please....