Originally posted 30 March 2017.
I have a confession to make.
Most people that know me, know that I’ve spent the last five and a half years working towards being a Drama teacher. What most people don’t know is that there’s a significant part of me that thinks I won’t be as great at it as I could be.
Drama is all about creating, and performing, and expressing, and exploring and I love all of these things… but it is also about theatre.
In fact, there’s a huge chunk that is all about theatre – you know the whole performance part? Yeah, that’s usually what we mean by ‘theatre’. The place with the stage, and the curtains, and the sometimes uncomfortably low seats? That’s it!
Well, I feel like that is the reason I won’t be as great as I’d like to be. I don’t really go to the theatre all that much… and its something that would definitely help as a drama teacher. I remember seeing a few different plays when I was younger, and thanks to my amazing high school drama teacher (yes, you are amazing and you should know it) I got a few more shows on my ‘seen it’ list. But after high school it got a little trickier. Theatre can run pretty expensive, and as a uni student and carer, time and money were a tough sacrifice.
A few years down the track, in a stroke of luck and connections I was able to get a job teaching after school Drama classes. This provided Josh and I with a little extra money than we were used to, and I decided that I wanted to use it to help develop me as a teacher. I used it for buying plays, resources, but I also wanted to use it to see more theatre.
Not long after I started the job, I found out that Wicked would be showing in Newcastle. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek! It was in my top two list of favourite plays and Josh hadn’t seen it yet! So after preparing myself with every pro for why we should see it and their counter argument, we discussed, and Josh agreed.
We were going to see Wicked!
I was psyched! Not that I really need to mention it, but psyched enough to spend the two weeks before seeing the show, listening to the soundtrack. On repeat.
I don’t know what it is, but something about that play moves me in an on-the-brink-of-tears-feeling-uplifted-and-I-don’t-know-what-to-do-with-myself kind of way. Seeing it again was amazing! Josh was pretty shocked. He was expecting high school quality stuff and he got so much more than that. I have to admit it was slightly different than when I saw it the first time, and I couldn’t help but compare, but it still created that same mystical, magical feeling that I craved. It brought on those crazy, inspiring feelings, as well as that great love for the whole story, the score, the themes of good and evil, and I couldn’t get enough of it.
My sister had the novel and tried to read it, but gave up. I had been meaning to read it for a while now – aren’t we always? So like many other things, when it first came to putting together my nike list, I felt an even greater desire to add number twenty nine… read Wicked.
The first time I heard about Wicked was in high school. All I really knew about it was that it was a retelling of the story of the Wizard of Oz, from the perspective of the Wicked Witch of the West. The year after I graduated, Charlotte, my sister, had an excursion to go see Wicked. I was so jealous! I told my ex drama teacher that if any of the kids couldn’t go or had to pull out, that she should call me and I’d be there in 10 minutes to take their spot.
Keen as a bean.
That half hour before I knew the bus was supposed to leave I sat with phone in hand, fingers crossed that I’d get the call. I waited, and waited and it was about 5 minutes before I knew they were set to leave and… I figured that no kid was dropping out and that I should get on with my life for that day.
Longer than my desire to see Wicked, was my dream to one day visit the states. When this dream finally became a reality and I was in the planning stages, I felt that going to see Wicked could happen at no better place than while I was in NEW YORK CITY!
Who wouldn’t want to see something on Broadway?
This want-to-be-drama-teacher did! I was so excited. And anxious. Anyone that knows me well, knows that I am a planner and a pre-planner, and a planner who likes to pre-plan when I will be planning or pre-planning.
We were in New York City for the first time and I did not want to miss a second of the show. Earlier in the day, Charlotte and I walked over to the theatre… for a few different reasons. We were foreigners without any kind of guide – or google maps – and I wanted to make sure we knew how to get there. I also wanted to time how long it would take for us to get there by foot. We were staying just a few blocks away. You think I was going to trust city traffic or taxi drivers who drive like they have a death wish? NO THANK YOU!
I sat down and was ready to be blown away. Charlotte had prepared me to ‘not be put off by the first song’, but before I could even worry about that, I was amazed by the set alone.
It was beyond words or anything that I’d ever seen before. The rest of the show was as incredible! Everything was like perfection.
I fell in deep love with the score. There’s something about an orchestra playing that music which has a crazy influence on me. It’s a kind of bliss I experience nowhere else. But I also fell in love with the themes and concepts that the play explored. The whole idea of good vs. evil, what good even looks like, are our lives mapped out and is every thing we do supposed to happen which ultimately is in line with our destiny?
It was only about three hours and they had me hooked. I bought the soundtrack, the hoodie, and I wanted to see it again. And again. Charlotte bought the novel and I begged if I could borrow it the second she finished it.
That begging to read the novel was almost five years ago and this is how the tale has gone since.
Charlotte began to read it and not even ten pages in, told me that it was super weird and was not like anything that we saw on stage. I was a little confused by what she meant, but still wanted to eventually read it. Begging had turned into eventually because life was getting busy and watching TV was less effort than reading… and I was sick of all my uni readings that it kind of maimed my love of reading for fun.
Isn’t it interesting to see how our pretty little excuses pop up so easy when we let them?
I began reading Wicked almost as soon as I had put my nike list together. Sure enough, it didn’t take me long to finally figure out what Charlotte meant.
While the play spent about 90% of its time focusing on Elphaba’s teen/adult life (the Wicked Witch of the West), the novel spent at least the first 20 pages on Elphaba’s world before she was even born. I imagine anyone that tried to read the novel not having seen the play, would probably find it a much less confusing experience.
To add to that confusion, I found the writing style to be unusually ancient. I’ve had my fair share of scripture reading, but this was something different. The story telling is thick with imagery, and reading it is a bit of a sensory experience that’s evoked through *vague* metaphorical descriptions. Honestly, it felt like half the time I was reading in assumption. Talking to Josh I was like, I think I just read that so and such happened, but I’m not totally sure. So much so that, spoiler alert one of the characters dies, which we read about (apparently) and it wasn’t until chapters later that I realised they were even dead! I had to google to figure out exactly how it happened.
Tricky stuff.
Enough for me to find it super easy to put the book down and leave it for a month. Or more. Until I decided to get back up onto the metaphorical horse and try again.
Having now finished it, the greater challenge has been summing it up in a relatively precise manner. I could spend at least a good 3000 words and barely have touched the surface of what I want to say. In just one sentence I’d say my relationship with the novel was about as up and down as my feelings for celery – sometimes I eat it willingly without peanut butter, and other days it makes me gag.
The book is broken up into chunks that are quite like volumes in and of themselves, and usually signify a lengthy jump in time. I was slightly intrigued slash bored slash confused in the first chunk of the book which focused on pre-Elphaba and young Elphaba life. I kind of willed myself through it.
The second chunk was a lot more of what I was used to from the play, but had some significant differences. I was pretty interested because for a while it felt like I was seeing those characters I had loved from the play, but just in extended experiences, and I was fascinated to see where it would take them. Then that chunk ended and I was no longer pleased.
The following chunk brought some full on revelations about how the Wicked story was really supposed to go and I was not a happy camper. The Witch didn’t even die for the same reasons as the play! And spoiler alert, unlike the play, she does actually die! I didn’t want to keep reading, but the wonder of how the author had wanted the story to end kept me reading.
I finished reading it yesterday. Having had a few hours to mull it over, I think I’ve finally organised my thoughts… and here they come.
I hated the novel.
I will never read it again.
EVER!
*breathes*
In defense of the novel, I think if I had read it without any knowledge of the play I’d probably be a lot more accepting than I actually am.
I know when people read a novel, then go see the movie, they’re usually not very pleased with the changes. But seriously, the people behind the creation of the Wicked play took some SERIOUS creative liberties from the novel. So much to the point that I feel like they pretty much did what the author did. He took the setting and familiar characters from The Wizard of Oz and decided to retell the story in his novel. Having now read the novel, I feel that is exactly what the creators of the play did – they retold the story from the novel. And unfortunately I was in only in love with the retelling of the retelling. But this doesn’t mean there are sad faces all round. I definitely don’t feel like it was a waste of my time.
Intrigued?
Eighteen years of English lessons have taught me to be super aware and analyse every single thing in my life. Thanks be to my teachers for taking the joy out of watching anything mindlessly. No, instead let us analyse the way that specific camera angle expresses that guys authority.
Just ask Josh.
We can’t watch a movie without me making some comment on how filming that scene would have been totally awkward, or how that girl couldn’t have jumped on a plane in two days time to go work in another country because her Visa couldn’t have come through that quickly.
But it’s not all bad because its taught me how to find things to ponder and learn in the most obscure places.
Reading the novel brought more confusion, disappointment and mind boggling than wonder, excitement and joy I was expecting. But it also served me a lovely platter, garnished with a pretty cool life lesson. And unlike the author, I’ll lay it out for you in a straight out kind of way.
Here goes…
I’ve now read the novel – yes. I hated it – yes. But I know that I hated it.
If I never read it I would never have known that it could bring me so much frustration and disappointment, and I could have spent a lot of time imagining it up to be this great mysterious thing that could have brought me happiness – which is so far from the truth.
Isn’t that what we do, though?
We spend so much time regretting the things we never did thinking they could have been awesome, or we waste our time wondering if they could have been the thing to change our lives?
It’s so sad, because in reality, they could be about as good as the book – which for me, was not so good. The book was nothing like I thought it would be – and not even in the it-was-so-much-better-than-I-thought kind of way. But even if I could find myself in an alternative universe where time machines were an actual thing, I wouldn’t undo it. I wouldn’t ask back for all that time I spent reading it… and with over 400 ancient type language filled pages, it was a nice chunk of time.
Sure, I didn’t like the book, but I did find happiness in reading it because I stumbled on something greater than just the sum total of having read it. I found an awesome gem of wisdom. The experience was sometimes tedious, but it has given me an even greater desire to take things on and eliminate the whole happiness mystery. Will I find joy in this thing? Well let’s find out!
So its ultimately clear that I am in love with the play, and the play only. I’m sure it will continue to bring me that incredible bliss as well as powerful moments of pondering some grand concepts of life.
I will forever love Elphaba from the play. She was wildly misunderstood and heavy with good intentions. And of what really happened of the death of the Wicked Witch in the novel? Well, that’s for me to know and for you to read about.
