Around the time fantasy theatre was inaugurated with His Dark Materials in London, the Broadway stages introduced its own long-running proponent too: Wicked. The musical follows the story of the infamous Wicked Witch of the West, exploring her decisions and experiences prior to the notorious melting. Wicked took a different approach to fantasy by turning its story into a musical, adding another narrative and audial layer to its storyworlding, creating an impactful teenage fantasy whose generic innovations are present in fantasy theatre to this day. This chapter focuses on how Wicked, based on standard Broadway conventions, transforms Gregory Maguire’s novel into a new version of the famous Oz storyworld. The chapter examines how music, singing, and dancing all contribute to storytelling and magic creation, as well as affective promptings they employ to actualise their storyworld. The chapter also examines direct socio-political contexts of the musical to inquire how the newly introduced teen fantasy responds to them. Unlike His Dark Materials, which opted for more robust staging, magical elements of Wicked are brought to life via music, and the chapter argues that this Broadway megahit musicalised the genre ‘for good.’

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Wicked: The Musical Biography of the Wicked Witch of the West

  • Danica Stojanovic-Schaffrath

摘要

Around the time fantasy theatre was inaugurated with His Dark Materials in London, the Broadway stages introduced its own long-running proponent too: Wicked. The musical follows the story of the infamous Wicked Witch of the West, exploring her decisions and experiences prior to the notorious melting. Wicked took a different approach to fantasy by turning its story into a musical, adding another narrative and audial layer to its storyworlding, creating an impactful teenage fantasy whose generic innovations are present in fantasy theatre to this day. This chapter focuses on how Wicked, based on standard Broadway conventions, transforms Gregory Maguire’s novel into a new version of the famous Oz storyworld. The chapter examines how music, singing, and dancing all contribute to storytelling and magic creation, as well as affective promptings they employ to actualise their storyworld. The chapter also examines direct socio-political contexts of the musical to inquire how the newly introduced teen fantasy responds to them. Unlike His Dark Materials, which opted for more robust staging, magical elements of Wicked are brought to life via music, and the chapter argues that this Broadway megahit musicalised the genre ‘for good.’