Elphaba
Elphaba Thropp is the name given to the Wicked Witch of the West in Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West 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: 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, and Fae.
Template:Spoiler Elphaba was born with green skin to parents Frex (in the book, a minister; in the musical, the governor of Munchkinland) and Melena. In the book, she has a disabled younger sister, Nessarose, who grows up to become the Wicked Witch of the East, and a younger brother, Shell. While the musical features Nessarose as a prominent character, it makes no reference to Shell. Because of her condition, Elphaba is shunned by her father, who instead gives all of his love and attention to Nessarose. It is revealed Elphaba's father Frex blames her for Nessarose's condition. He reminds Elphaba that, because he was so dismayed over her green-tone, he forced Melena to take milkweed, resulting in Nessarose's condition (in the novel, Nessa has no arms; in the musical, she has arms, but is wheelchair-bound.) Regardless, Elphaba is very close to and protective of her sister. In the novel, Elphaba is eventually accompanied by a boy named Liir who is believed to be her son. (Liir is the protagonist of Son of a Witch, Maguire's sequel to Wicked.) The assumed father of Liir is Fiyero, who earlier had an affair with Elphaba.
In both the book and musical, Elphaba is a misunderstood and unfairly loathed young woman who becomes a revolutionary and falls in love with the Winkie prince Fiyero. In the book, Elphaba becomes a radical Animal rights activist, involved in direct action, and her lover Fiyero is eventually killed by oppressive government forces for his association with her. Elphaba also forms an unlikely friendship with Galinda, the girl who would eventually be known as Glinda the Good. While the exact incidents of Elphaba's life as presented in the two works are quite different from each other, they both show that Elphaba is not, in fact, as "wicked" as she has always been portrayed. In the musical, neither Fiyero nor Elphaba really dies; Fiyero is transformed into the Scarecrow, and Dorothy assists in faking Elphaba's death. In the book, Elphaba does die from Dorothy's water, but the death is accidental. It is later revealed in both works that Elphaba was the illegitimate daughter of The Wizard of Oz. It is also revealed that it might have been the Wizard's seduction of Melena with a magical green elixir that caused Elphaba to be "greenified." Elphaba herself carried a bottle of the elixir always with her, a fact that Galinda later remembers when confronting the Wizard with the truth of Elphaba's condition.
In the book, and hinted in the musical, it is revealed that Elphaba suffers from a very simple Freudian complex. Elphaba assumes, and her father Frexspar later admits, that Elphie's deformity was a "punishment" for his sins, while Nessarose was a reprimand for her mother's lax morales. Because Nessarose was not his "fault", he doted on her in extremity and wished nothing to do with his firstborn. The irony of both situations was that Elphaba may not have been his "fault" at all, the Wizard is hinted to have been her biological father while Nessarose was suggested as being the daughter of a Quadling called Turtle Heart, though he has suspected this and come to terms with this possibility (he may have slept with the young Quadling himself, though this is never confrmed or denied).
In the Broadway musical, the character of Elphaba was originated by Idina Menzel (shown above), who won the Tony award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical for the role and is scheduled to reprise the role in London, England. After she left the show, her replacements were Shoshana Bean and Eden Espinosa. On the musical's first national tour, Elphaba was first played by Stephanie J. Block, then replaced by Julia Murney. In the permanent, sit-down Chicago run of the show, she was originally played by Ana Gasteyer (of Saturday Night Live fame) and then replaced by Kristy Cates. London, Los Angeles, and Japan productions are in the works.
Idina Menzel was recently cast to reprise her role as Elphaba for the first few months of the West End production of Wicked. She will be replaced by Kerry Ellis in early 2007.
