Hi, everyone and welcome back to one of your favorite segments, the Sound of Musicals. 欢迎回来 , 你们最喜欢的板块之一, 曲外之音.

Hello, Oliver.

Hello.

So welcome back to the show. And since I have been proposing some of the musicals, so now it's your turn. Which one would you pick?

Well. I've got a couple of questions actually, before we begin, my first question is, do you like witches and magic and things like that?

Oh. I love witches.

They're pretty good.

Wizardry witchcraft. My thing, that's totally my territory.

Okay, okay, what about if I give you some characters? Could you tell me the show that they're from? Do you think?

Okay. Interesting

How about a lion, a scarecrow, a tin man. Any ideas?

Ah, we're gonna talk about Wicked.

Yeah.

Wicked.

Wicked.

So Wicked中文名叫魔法坏女巫. It sounds like a child's show, but it's actually not. Wicked is a musical based on a novel of the same name, which was published in 1995.

But this story is actually based on an older novel, and the film named The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. 很多人应该听过中文名叫绿野仙踪或者奥兹国或者Oz国历险记. Oliver, let me ask you the original story, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, how popular, how well known it is in English-speaking culture?

It is incredibly popular. I am certainly the movie is, I think it's one of the most watched movies, it's up there in the what most watched movies of all time category. It is so popular, certainly in the UK, I'd imagine in the US as well. And probably all around the world. The characters - easy to kind of get along, to understand that easy to like and it's got a very clear, good, bad type of type of vibe to it. So everyone can kind of support the hero and against the evil wicked witch.

Yeah. Did you watch or read it as a child?

I have watched the movie. I watched it a few times as a child, but I’ve never read the book. The book is a new one for me.

Okay. So the original book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, follows a Kansas farm girl named Dorothy. And I'm sure many of you recognize the name Dorothy陶乐丝或者陶乐西. And so, she's just an ordinary farm girl, but one day she ends up in a magical Land of Oz after she and her pet dog Toto are swept away from their home by a cyclone.

Yeah. Dorothy, Toto and their house all get taken away in a big tornado or cyclone or something and placed in this magical world with talking scarecrows and Tin Man, robots and lions who are terrified of everything, cowardly lions and it's very very good.

Yeah, and she was trying desperately to get back home. And she ran into a lot of adventures. It sounds almost like very similar to the whole idea of Alice in Wonderland.

It does feel very similar to that, yes, getting a young girl lost in a magical world just trying to get home.

Yeah, so apart from those characters that Oliver just mentioned, the Lion, the Scarecrow, and the Tin Woodman. They're also the Wicked Witch and the Good Witch and the Wizard of Oz.

这里面还讲到什么坏女巫, 好女巫. If you have read the book or watched the movie, I'm sure you know which ones I’m talking about. But this musical, interestingly, is told from the perspective of the two witches, it's not focusing on Dorothy at all.

No. Wicked takes the original story of The Wizard of Oz and it flips it around. It happens, I've seen it happening a lot in movies and things nowadays.

The movie Magnificent did something similar where the evil traditionally evil character, we see the story from their point of view and from their perspective and it's not quite what we assumed it was. And Wicked, does it very well.

It's almost like they made a prequel to The Wizard of Oz.

Yeah, it shows things that we would have no idea of knowing just from watching The Wizard of Oz. So, we understand a lot more about the characters in the world in which they all live.

OK.

So Lulu. Why don't you take on the - my normal job of doing the brief overview and why don't you walk us through Wicked?

I guess it's because I sound very excited about the story. As I like any story with witches and wizards, so the story started before Dorothy was even born. So this wicked story has nothing to do with the original story of Dorothy. This happened way before and there are two main characters or two witches, Glinda, the good. She's just called Glinda the Good and Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West西部坏女巫叫Elphaba, which was in the original story, it just said she was bad, she was wicked. Dorothy needed to destroy her, but never really talked about why, never talked about how is she wicked.

Okay. So, the show starts with a celebration through the Land of Oz following the death of Elphaba. Glinda the Good这个好女巫就talk to bout Elphaba’s passed saying that her mother had an affair with a traveling salesman. While her father was away, she gave birth to a daughter with green skin. And that is the most defining feature of Elphaba, The Wicked Witch. 这个坏女巫她最大的特点就是全身的皮肤是绿色的.

It is, yeah. The Wicked Witch of the West in the original Wizard of Oz. You knew she was evil because she had a long nose and green skin and a traditional witchy look, and I think it's really interesting and very very brought a modern take to this idea of she must be evil, she's got green skin, look at the way she looks, she's a bad person. I think it's quite interesting how they've turned that on its head.

Yeah, just sounds there's some racism hidden underneath this.

Certainly. So I wouldn't say it's hidden very well. To be honest it's right there.

Because she was obviously judged by the color of her skin. So, this green-skinned and rejected Elphaba had a troubled childhood and eventually arrives at Shiz university. So, this is just a university where they learn how to be a witch think about Hogwarts in Harry Potter books.

Wizard of Oz Hogwarts, yes.

Yeah. So they went to this university, she went with her sister Nessarose. And she becomes roommates with the blonde and very popular Glinda. And Glinda was traditionally beautiful - blonde hair, you know, sparkling eyes. Everybody loves her and they are such polar opposites. And they clash with each other constantly, to think cheerleader and the weird nerd.

You couldn't have two more different characters. Really no.

And they studied magic and dream about one day working with the Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

So, there are obviously lots of details in this. For example, they have one animal professor, so this professor is actually an animal, a goat, Doctor Dilliman and who is ostracized and forced to leave. And this leads Elphaba to worry about the discrimination and suppression of animals in this university. 她会担心这些她的教授受到的歧视受到了排挤. 其实你从这儿就可以看出, Elphaba其实是一个挺好的人, 她并没有任何的坏心眼. 除了她长得不一样之外

Meanwhile, the two witches also fall in love with the same guy, Fiyero, although later it shows he clearly favors Elphaba. Instead of the popular Glinda, the witches finally meet the Wizard of Oz in the Emerald City, which is the capital of Oz.

And then Elphaba discovers the Wizard of Oz who she admired before, but this turned out to be a complete fraud. He is a liar. 本来Elphaba是尊敬, 非常想去拜师在Wizard of Oz的门下, 结果后来发现他就是一个大骗子.

And then he is behind the suppression of the animals. And he is a fraud who uses tricks and lies to remain in power that he actually has no magic. And she refuses to work for him and just runs away.

Yes. So this is where I noticed that the story, it definitely starts to turn a lot darker from this point onwards.

Yeah. This is when the Wizard of Oz and he's accomplished, they just tricked all people in Oz to call Elphaba or tag her as the Wicked Witch. They don't explain why she's wicked and just say she's wicked, she's a bad bad witch. We need to kill her. And This reputation just quickly catches on. If you think about it, it's really scary.

It is how quickly just the words of one man for his own reason can spread and change the opinion of someone who had done nothing wrong.

And later on, Elphaba has more face-to-face confrontation with the Wizard and vows to fight him to the end. And the guy she likes Fiyero escapes with her, leaving Glinda, the good witch behind. And remember, Glinda also loves this boy.

Yeah, so it must be pretty heartbreaking for her to see that the boy she loves has run away with someone who now she is being told is the Wicked Witch.

Yeah, and guess what she did.

I don't know what did she do.

She was very brokenhearted. She obviously wants to get back at Elphaba and now Elphaba already got a bad reputation.

So Glinda just tells the Wizard to use tricks to tell Elphaba that her sister, who she cares about a lot. Nessarose is in trouble, in order to lure her back so that they can attack her or kill her. So did happen. They were trying to do something to her sister and they played tricks and they killed Nessarose. By - guess what dropping a house, changing the weather, created a cyclone and dropped the house on Nessarose, crushing her to death, and guess whose house it is.

I think I know. This is Dorothy’s house from the Wizard of Oz story, isn't it? That's how they bring that into it, oh right.

Exactly. That's - so they killed her sister. And Glinda, during this whole thing, I think Glinda was not really a bad person. She obviously did that out of a broken heart, but eventually, she realized hang on a minute. I cannot be on your side because the Wizard and all of his people they're evil and then she refuses to participate anymore. Yet people in Oz are now calling for the death of the Wicked Witch.

Glinda now turns around and warns Elphaba of the danger and they try to repair their friendship. Elphaba holds Dorothy now hostage and asks her to give back her sister’s magic shoe. Remember those shoes Dorothy wears in the original story.

Yeah, I remember the movie that they are very shiny red shoes and they have the magic. When she clicked her heels, she could go home. I think at the end was the big surprise there. Yes, I remember them.

原来绿野仙踪里面Dorothy穿的魔鞋, 其实她是从女巫的手里拿到的, 那么在这里它是Elphaba的sister, 她的遗物相当于.

So Dorothy now throws a bucket of water on Elphaba because apparently water will melt the witch.

That's how they defeat her in The Wizard of Oz, isn't it? She throws the water, the witch dies and then she goes home happily Dorothy. Yeah.

Exactly. And so supposedly this melts the Wicked Witch. Elphaba is supposedly dead. All that is left was a bottle of green elixir. 她被水融化了之后就留下一瓶绿色的药水, Glinda, later on realizes, this bottle belongs to the Wizard of Oz and guess what and finds out that he is actually Elphaba's biological father and her mother's lover.

What? He was trying to he was turning everybody against his own daughter.

So. 这个Wizard of Oz其实是Elphaba的亲生父亲, and the reason why Elphaba is green-skinned is because of the green elixir.

Oh right, okay. So the Wizard of Oz made her different. Is that right?

Yeah, and all of these sufferings basically he caused.

He did it all. Yeah.

Yeah. And before you feel really sad and sorry for Elphaba, we also find that Elphaba actually faked her death. She's not really dead. And she left Oz with her love Fiyero.

That is a much better ending. I have to say, much better.

And in the end, Glinda tells people of the Oz that the wicked witch is dead because she just didn't want to go through the trouble of explaining to the whole story. And she has earned her title as Glinda the Good.

The Good. yeah.

Yeah. It’s a little bit of a long story, but I think it has a lot of attachment to the original story, for example, Glinda. And the Wicked Witch of the West, they both were actually in the original book.

They were, yeah, and in the original movie, I remember that the Wicked Witch of the East who is the Wicked Witch of the West's sister is the one that gets killed by Dorothy house falling on her. So it's got a lot of sort of interweaving with the original stories.

Yeah. Ok. So that was a long story and for themes and conflicts, we're gonna wait till the next episode where we're also going to get into the music as well.

Fantastic. Can't wait.

All right. We'll see you in the next episode.

Goodbye.