Alright, let's talk about Wicked Witch of the East
I am, among my friends, a known Wicked Witch of the East lover. I told them from day one that I didn't care about how good the movies were as long as I got an official recording of WWotE, and needless to say I am not super thrilled about what we ended up getting. It took a while and a few more listens for me to fully figure out why it annoys me as much as it does, but I think I'm finally ready to talk about it. Hold tight, this is gonna be a really long one.
Firstly, before I say anything else, the problem here is not changing the lyrics. As much as I love WWotE, I am well aware that there is some very problematic langue in the song and if all they had done is change the lyrics to make the song no longer ableist, I would not be making this post. The problem with the movie's WWotE is not that they had Nessa fly instead of walk or removing the line "this hideous chair on wheels" alright? Cool. No ableism allowed in the notes of this post.
With that in mind, what is the problem? Well, it's actually four different problems stacked up in a trench coat.
1. The removal of the first verse
The musicality of Wicked Witch of the East, the way it plays with reprise and patterns, is one of the most important parts of it. Nessa sings the opening verse, which is an original song. Then, after she magics the shoes Elphaba sings her few lines, which are musically both a call back to "The Wizard and I" and "Something Bad". Boq then enters and sings his verse, a direct reprise of his lines from "Dancing Through Life". Finally Nessa ends the song by launching into a second verse of WWotE, but this time with elements of "Dancing Through Life" mixed into the melody.
Now, I could go on a whole thing about how fun it is that we're using "Something Bad" to foreshadow what's about to happen or the repeated "Nessa, uh, Nessa" moment, but those are still in the movie so not relevant here. Instead what I want to focus on are the Nessa sections. These were the sections of the text we always knew were going to be changed, very specifically the first line of song is "All of my life I've depended on you, how do you think that feels? All of my life I've depended on you and this hideous chair on wheels" which is not great (but we will talk about it more later), so those were clearly not going to stick around. Which is fine, I'm open to them changing that.
The problem is that instead of changing the lines, they just ripped the whole first verse out and replaced it with an entirely different song. Like, it's not even close. Worse then that, it doesn't seem to have any connection to any of the other songs in Wicked. I've sat and listened to it probably a dozen times now, and I can't find any reference to the rest of the soundtrack anywhere in the first verse. Which is fine in the original because it connects to the final verse, but for some reason the movie didn't change that section literally at all. So what we're left with feels like three different songs awkwardly slapped together. Which, to some extent WWotE always was, Elphaba and Boq's lines do not fit with Nessa's, but by placing Nessa's verses on either side of them it created a sense of cohesion and closure to tie it all together. By making it so the first and second verses don't match they've entirely removed that cohesion.
Outside of musically though, there are also thematic problems with removing this verse without changing the rest of the song. The final verse of WWotE mixes the first verse with "Dancing Through Life", causing this idea of corruption over the hope that Nessa had that day and distorting it into something else entirely. Despite calling Boq "[her] love, [her] sweet, [her] brave him", any love she felt for him is long gone, replaced with obsession and desperation, just as Nessa herself is now unrecognizable from the girl she was at the Ozdust. But since the first verse isn't there, we don't know that the musical changes are references to her decline into becoming The Wicked Witch of the East. If they were determined to have a brand new song in the first verse that talks about how wonderful the memory of the Ozdust is, then the final verse should have been an inverse of that. It should have been musically the same as verse 1, but now talking about how that illusion has been shattered due to Boq's confession, how if Nessa can't go back to the way she felt that night, can't be lighter then air, then she will become The Wicked Witch of the East, ala No Good Deed. But instead we're still calling back to "Dancing Through Life" making the first verse feel completely disconnected.
2. Reordering Cue Lines
This is the one that just boggles my mind because I truly don't know why they did it.
WWotE is, as I mentioned, basically a series of reprises. It also might have the highest spoken words to sung lyric ratio in the musical, which is saying something. Wicked is a musical that loves to stop it's songs to do a little scene. Because of that, the dialogue is laid out in a very specific way to lead us through the song and connect all the different bits. The first part is as intact as can be expected with a new song tacked on, but once Boq enters things go weird in the movie.
Here is the order of events in the musical:
Elphaba finishes her lines and Nessa sits back down in her chair. She calls Boq in without giving Elphaba time to hide.
Boq sees Elphaba and tells her to stay away. When she says she won't hurt him Boq responds "you're lying, that's all you ever do. You and your sister, she's as wicked as you are." Elphaba asks what he's talking about and he says "I'm talking about my life" and launches into a little speech about Nessa taking away Munchkin rights.
At the end of Boq's little speech Nessa says "None of that matters anymore, look" and stands up. This prompts Boq to look over at Elphaba and asks if she did this for her, to which Elphaba nods and Nessa says she did it for both of them. Boq tells her "this changes everything" and start singing his verse.
Boq ends his verse with "I lost my heart to Glinda the moment I first saw her, you know that."
Nessa responds with "Lost your heart? We'll see about that! You think I'd let you leave me here flat! You'll lose your heart to me I tell you, if I have to, if I have to, magic spell you." Cue Nessa shrinking Boq's heart.
So, that all works really well and flows in a logical way. So, tell me, why did the movie change it to this:
Elphaba finishes singing her lines when Boq enters the room unannounced and sees Nessa flying. He sees Elphaba and acts scared, to which Elphaba promises she won't hurt him but before he can respond Nessa butts in to tell him "Elphaba just came to lift my spirits"
This prompts Boq to ask Elphaba if she did it to make Nessa happy and Nessa to respond that she "knows now anything is possible, for both of us". Boq hears this and decides to sing his verse about being in love with Glinda.
Boq still ends his verse with "I lost my heart to Glinda the moment I first saw her" and Nessa responds "Lost your heart, we'll see about that." and rolls towards him, but is stopped by Elphaba.
Elphaba tells Nessa to "let him go", and starts towards them but is stopped by Boq saying "Don't come any closer. You and your sister, she's as wicked as you are, keeping me here like a prisoner." But instead of launching into his mini speech about Munchkin rights when asked what he's talking about all he says is "I'm talking about my life, the little that's left of it"
Seemingly unprompted at all, Nessa angerly says "you're going to loose your heart to me I tell you, if I have to, I have to, magic spell you" but for some reason she doesn't sing the lines. She just says the words.
So okay, I know when I lay it all out like that it sounds nitpicky, but these are actually major changes that are part of why the scene doesn't flow the way it's supposed to anymore. Mainly because we're not actually giving the cue lines for the next parts of the song where they're supposed to go.
The most obvious one is the "I lost my heart to Ginda the moment I first saw her" not leading right into all of the "Lost your heart, we'll see about that" lines. I think what the movie is trying to do is imply that Boq calling Nessa wicked is what prompts her to shrink his heart rather then his comment about Glinda, but, at least to me, it reads more like Nessa wasn't listening to his little speech at all and has just been fixated on that one comment. Her repeating the line about loosing him loosing his heart feels entirely unprompted because we're not talking about it anymore we've moved on to the way bigger issue of Munchkin rights. (This is also going to contribute very heavily to the next point on the list too, so hold on to it).
The second issue is the way we play Boq's fear of Elphaba and Nessa. He sees Elphaba and acts scared for a second, but is reassured she's only there to make Nessa happy. Hopeful that in this new happy state Nessa will let him go, he sings his verse, but then acts scared of Elphaba all over again. It sort of, kind of, works in that Nessa does start to move towards him, and he can assume Elphaba will take her sisters side over his, but it still feels clunky and awkward in a way that the stage show doesn't. It's much smoother if we just allow the fear of Elphaba to all happen at once, have Nessa dismiss it, give Boq hope, then take Boq's hope away. I truly don't know why we changed this.
3. Softening of Nessa
Listen, I love Nessarose Thropp. I might be one of the only people in the world who cares as much about Nessarose as I do Elphaba and Glinda. I'm not really sure what it is about her, but she is insanely compelling to me, almost as much as Elphaba (certainly more than Fiyero) and part of what I love about her is that she's a selfish fucking bitch who never grew out of being a spoiled brat. Even in Act 1, Nessa is not this perfect little angel everyone makes her out to be, the signs are always there they just haven't fully bloomed yet. It's the way she doesn't stand up for Elphaba because she's scared of her own alienation, the way she tells Elphaba she never wants to hear another bad word about Glinda because of exactly one (1) nice thing, the way Nessa leaves Elphaba on the platform instead of saying goodbye because shes' more concerned about her relationship with Boq. She's so insanely self centered, but no one ever calls her on it because they all assume she has a right to be. The world has already taken so much from her after all, the poor dear, so tragically beautiful, why surely she has a right to be a little selfish? The movie adds to this with moments like Nessa framing Elphaba's magic like something that has ruined her life or how she doesn't stay to help after the "Animals should be seen and not heard" incident, something she's not present for in the musical.
WWotE is supposed to be our big reveal moment, it pulls the curtain back and shows us blatantly how selfish and manipulative Nessa is. She's been stripping all of Munchkinland of their rights because she wants to keep one guy close to her. She's angry that Elphaba has never offered to use her magic to help her, compares herself, the Governor of Munchkinland directly to the Animals who are actively being oppressed and doesn't see the irony. This girl has no perspective outside of her own life, and only cares about other people in so far as they affect her. And the movie, despite giving us more examples of Nessa's selfishness in part 1, completely strips the song of all of it's teeth.
The first culprit is our stupid new first verse again. In the original song the whole first verse is about how angry Nessa is at Elphaba, she talks with disgust about the ways she's been ignored and wronged by the world despite being the most powerful person in Munchkinland. Nessa is being unreasonable, and that's the goddamn point. She's not Elphaba, she's not this poor misunderstood propaganda Wicked Witch, she is actually as evil as people make her out to be. So the movie changing it to be a sweet little song about how she just wants to be happy again like she was that day at the Ozdust? Yeah, that doesn't work. Nessa is still in the wrong, she's still selfish in that she's demanding Elphaba help her, but instead of deranged anger it comes off as sad little meow meow energy and is done in a way that's much easier to excuse.
Then there's the removal of Boq's little speech that I mentioned earlier. I suspect the reason it was removed was because we added the scene at the train station that showed that Nessa has been restricting their rights. Which would be fine, except it means we don't get Nessa's response. "None of that matters anymore". This woman created laws to oppress her entire population just to keep the man she loved near her, and when called out on it brushes it off like some trivial complaint because in her mind being able to walk will fix their whole relationship. Surely once Boq sees she can walk he will love her again and not care about any of that. It's such a small line, but cuts directly to the center of Nessarose. It doesn't matter that all of her people are suffering as long as she and her boyfriend are happy.
Also, this is a small thing, but it bugs me, in the musical Nessa calls Boq in to the room after the magic shoes bit, never even considering that Elphaba is also there. The fact that her sister, Oz's most wanted, might not want other people to know she's there never crosses her mind because she is not thinking about her. All she cares about is showing Boq she can walk as soon as possible. Where as in the movie Boq enters of his own accord, removing any of that guilt from Nessa.
4. The Conflict Between the Sisters
In my mind the core conflict between Elphaba and Nessa can be boiled down to the two lines that bookend WWotE. Nessa opens the song with "All of my life I've depended on you, how do you think that feels?" and Elphaba ends the it with "I've done everything I ever could for you. It's never been enough, and it never will be." This cuts directly to the heart of the messy, toxic, relationship the sisters have built. Neither one of them is wrong, neither one of them is right, they are both neglected children but the forms of neglect they suffered were so fundamentally different from each other that they can't see how the other was harmed by it.
Elphaba's neglect is obvious, it is a definitive plot point told to us over and over throughout the show. Their father blatantly preferred Nessa, he blames Elphaba for their mother's death and Nessa being born disabled, and as such has put the burden of care on to Elphaba. He taught her from the moment Nessa was born that it was her responsibility to look after her sister. And Elphaba did. She did her duty as she saw it, bent over backwards to make Nessa happy, because in some ways she also blames herself, and in a much bigger way because she does deeply love her little sister. But it's impossible to be in a situation like that and not grow resentful, especially when even after their father is dead Nessa continues to push and ask for more and blame her for all of her problems. In Elphaba's eyes she has spent her whole life giving Nessa everything, and Nessa has never even said thank you. And now Nessa's selfishness has done something horrific which Elphaba desperately scrambled to try and fix, and instead of thanking her Nessa is still asking for more. So Elphaba has finally had enough. She's done. And she leaves.
Nessa on the other hand, was doted on, both as a child and as a young adult. She was spoiled rotten by their father, but she had the beauty and charm to hide that fact from most people. However, in the dotting their father also cemented the idea in her head that she is incapable of taking care of herself, constantly telling other people (usually Elphaba) to take care of things for her. He treats her like a fragile doll that might break at any moment, never giving her the tools she needs to become independent or grow up. This fostered a feeling of resentment inside of Nessa, one that boils over when the one person she thinks is still supposed to be helping her disappears into thin air. In Nessa's eyes Elphaba has always had the freedom and independence that Nessa herself craves, she's never had to depend on anybody. Of course, Nessa could go out and do all the things Elphaba is doing, but because of how she was raised she doesn't believe most of it is possible for her. She needs someone to help her, and her sister decided to run off and worry about Animals she's never even met instead of being that person. And from Nessa's point of view Elphaba has the power to help her break that dependence and is simply not using it.
The tragedy of the Thropp sisters is that their father failed both of them, but he did it in such different ways that neither girl is capable of realizing the other's problems. I'm not saying it's a fair fight, Nessa is far more in the wrong than Elphaba is, but that doesn't change the fact that Elphaba still fails to understand where Nessa is actually coming form.
I bring all of this up because the movie cuts Nessa's line and doesn't replace it with anything. I thought when we had the scene with Nessa and Boq and she mentioned that he was the only one who came to see her after their father died that was what we were replacing it with. We were going to make Nessa's resentment more about Elphaba leaving her alone in a moment of emotional turmoil then about her dependence on her, but that literally never comes up again. They try to do something with Nessa's comment about Elphaba helping the animals, having Elphaba reply with "you never wanted my help" and Nessa "I do now" but that feels weak and ends up also undercutting Elphaba's comment at the end about always doing everything she could for Nessa.
As it stands we're left with no clear reason why Nessa is so angry with Elphaba. It feels like they went from being fairly close in movie one (they study together, they speak in unison at times, Elphaba is willing to hear Glinda out simply because she was kind to Nessa), to angry with each other over functionally nothing. The most I get out of it is that Nessa really is just angry that Elphaba never used the magic book to get Boq to fall in love with her and that's just... so boring compared to how complex this dynamic is supposed to be.
Conclusion
So, anyway, movie version of Wicked Witch of the East bad.
Again, I need to be so clear that I was not opposed to them changing the lyrics around to be less ableist (I do think there's a valid read of it being Nessa's internalized ableism rather then the text itself being ableist, but I'm not disabled and so won't speak on that further). But this just wasn't the same song, and in the ways they changed it they removed so much of what makes Nessa a compelling character. This is doubly disappointing given how much I loved what they did with Nessa and Boq in part one.
The full title of the musical is Wicked: The Untold Story of the Witches of Oz, and I think a lot of people forget that that includes Nessa. She's a Witch of Oz, just as much as Elphaba and Glinda are, and this is the one moment in the show where we get to see her story. It's rockier than Elphaba's, she truly is a Wicked Witch, but that doesn't make it less compelling or less worth being told.
But it's fine, whatever. I've been listening to the crunchy live recorded audio for 15 years, I guess I'll just keep doing that.
