Ding! Dong! The Witch is dead … or is she?
That’s one of the many circuitous mysteries that Wicked, the musical, attempts to solve as it guides us along a yellow brick road of good and evil, mayhem and magic, and ever-shifting allegiances.
Like its musical forebears The Wiz and The Wizard of Oz, Wicked is the story of a bewitching land inhabited by Glinda, the Munchkins, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion, among others – with one notable exception. There’s no Dorothy here. Everything that happens in Wicked, based on Gregory Maguire’s inventive 1995 bestseller of the same name, occurred before a certain Kansas farm girl, her dog Toto and their house blew into Oz and its environs.
The musical, with a score by Stephen Schwartz (Godspell), is in its eighth year on Broadway and, with this visit, flying through the Fox Theatre for a third time. There are seven productions worldwide including the Broadway production, two North American tours, a London production, Japanese- and German-language productions, and one in Australia. A Dutch version is due in November.
At its core, Wicked is a simple story of friendship, and of not necessarily judging a book by its cover. It’s also a Pandora’s box of what-is-its and whodunits.
As Glinda asks early on: “Are people born wicked or do they have wickedness thrust upon them?” That is the tricky proposition on which the character of Elphaba is balanced.
For her, a girl long shunned by her father and now mocked by new schoolmates, it’s not easy being green. Dee Roscioli, however, who wears Elphaba’s pointy black hat again in the Fox Theatre production, has had no such trouble fitting in. In fact, she’s played Elphaba in more performances than any other actress. She just doesn’t know how many that is.
“I really don’t want to know,” she says good-naturedly, during the show’s 10-week sitdown in Washington, D.C. “I’d rather just keep plugging away. It’s been a long time.”
She is the ninth of 11 women to date who have played Elphaba on Broadway, which she did after anchoring the Chicago production. A Pennsylvania native, she now splits her time between New York and the Windy City and has become a devoted fan of Chicago’s Bears and White Sox. Her portrayal of Elphaba is even highlighted in a Wikipedia page, which she finds funny and believes was created by a fan.
Roscioli first became aware of her ability to perform when she was 8 or 9. “I was obsessed with Annie, and I was running around the house singing, well, screaming, Annie. And my grandmother said, ‘You can really sing.’ And I said, ‘No, I can’t.’”
By the time she was 12, she had joined a nonprofit studio for performers in her hometown of Easton, Penn. At 16, she saw Cats on Broadway, her first-ever Broadway show.
“I fell in love instantly,” she says. “I had already known I wanted to be an actor, and it sealed the deal. I loved New York. I used to walk behind the group I was with so I could pretend that I was a real New Yorker.”
The first professional job she really wanted was the glamour cat Grizabella in —what else — Cats. She played the role in the national touring production that visited the Fox in 2002-2003. “I remember when they called and told me I got the job,” she says. “I said, ‘I’m the understudy?’ And they said, ‘No, we want you to do the role.’ I couldn’t really comprehend that.”
She did five auditions on her way to becoming Elphaba, first as the standby in Chicago, then as the full-time witch there and on Broadway. To prepare for the auditions she was given a packet that included the songs “Defying Gravity,” “I’m Not That Girl” and “The Wizard and I,” and a couple of scenes.
The lengthy process began with “Defying Gravity,” Roscioli says. “[This is] the hard part — the belty, upper register, key change section with the lyrics, ‘so if you care to find me, look to the western sky …’
“Then,” she says, with quiet triumph in her voice, “You go from there.”
For those who wonder, neither the green paint nor the flying are particularly nasty or difficult for Roscioli. The paint is water-based and comes off easily, she says. And flying has come a long way from the oxygen-depleting harnesses of Peter Pan’s early days.
Roscioli, who is new to taking a show from city to city, so far requires only two things to be happy on the road: a hotel room with good water pressure and a bathtub. Every performance ends with an Epsom salt bath so her muscles don’t seize up.
Ah theater, the glamorous life!
Wicked will haunt the Fox Theatre Sept. 14-Oct. 9.
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Kathy Janich is an Atlanta theater artist and freelance writer. She is Resources Manager at Atlanta’s Synchronicity Theatre. Visit www.synchrotheatre.com.
