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“The greater sin is not in being declared Wicked, but in accepting appearances of Goodness.” The Broadway Musical by Stephan Schwartz, Wicked, is a magnificent story with outstanding morals and lessons. I have had the honor of seeing this musical many times in several cities in the past five years that it has been released. This performance has given it’s audiences a new outlook on prejudice and that you can never judge a book by it’s cover.
Nearly everyone has seen Frank Baum’s classic, The Wizard of Oz, at some time in his or her life. If they haven’t seen it they have surely heard the story that it holds. The story took on a greater meaning when Gregory Maguire decided to elaborate on Baum’s classic tale (Jones). Maguire wanted to explain all of the unanswered questions that the Wizard of Oz left us asking. Why was the wicked witch so angry and wicked? Why was she green? Was she born wicked? These are just a few questions that Maguire answers in his book that Stephan Schwartz sculpted into the musical, Wicked. Elphaba, the name given by Maguire to the wicked witch, was a misunderstood child from the very moment she was born. She was born with a green pigment in her skin color, which was due to her mother’s promiscuity (Maguire). Elphaba had one dream, and that was to meet the Wonderful Wizard of Oz. She was always an outcast and an outsider due to her outside appearance. The show touches on many of today’s issues that our society faces. Today’s culture is so obsessed with outward appearance it has turned into an epidemic. The reaction and treatment that Elphaba is forced to endure is an exaggerated symbol of how our shallow culture reacts to those who are different. Elphaba soon comes to realize that animals in Oz are being suppressed and forced not to speak and co-exist on the same level as humans in Oz (Maguire). She is a kind young woman in the beginning of her lifetime and she turns into sort of an animal activist. She wants to...