Synopsis
Without ruining anything, I shall summarise the story. The story is told from the perspective of Glinda the Good and Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West. The story takes place before, during and after the events of the Wizard of Oz. Let me warn you-- be prepared for a shock twist in the plot.
While high on entertainment and comic value, Wicked subtly challenges our preconceived notion of good and evil by asking us to reexamine our values. In fact, the key question asked at the beginning of the musical was if wicked people were born bad, or did events caused them to choose a path of evil. This will be the issue I will examine in this post.
Born evil, or made evil?
While the musical does not address this question directly, the events of the story seem to imply that events that happened in evil characters' life made them evil. For instance, Boq starts out good and eager to please Glinda, but a series of events twist him to be full of hate. Elphaba's sister Nessarose begins as good-natured, but through a series of betrayals and bad decisions, becomes more tyrannical than her father.
However, a little perspective is needed. Some of the characters such as Fiyero remained good although he suffered a hideous transformation. So maybe things aren't as simple as chance and individual choice as it seems.
Why do people do wicked things?
I believe that what lies within the human heart is a natural inclination to sin (i.e. disobey God, His laws and not do good). I would even go further to argue that as sin entered the world via one man (Romans 5:12-14), people are born with an innate desire to rebel against God. In fact, the Reformer Martin Luther knew this well. Examining his own life, he noted that a man is sinful "solely by impiety and incredulity of heart that he becomes guilty and a slave of sin, deserving condemnation, not by any outward sin or work" (Luther, 1520), based on his analysis of Romans 3:9-20.
In the Lutheran Ausburg Confession it notes that "all men who are born according to the course of nature are conceived and born in sin. That is, all men are full of evil lust and inclinations from their mothers’ wombs and are unable by nature to have true fear of God and true faith in God. Moreover, this inborn sickness and hereditary sin is truly sin and condemns to the eternal wrath of God all those who are not born again through Baptism and the Holy Spirit" (Tappert, 1959).
Solution
But as a Christian, I know it is not enough to let people realise their sinful nature. There is a solution. We just need to put our trust in Jesus (Romans 3:21-31) whose sacrifice on the cross and resurrection paid for all our sins-- past, present and future. God help us if we attempt to overcome evil by our own efforts.
I guess this is why Marxist and literary critic Terry Eagleton (2009) commented that Christianity is "more hopeful than liberal rationalism, with its unhinged belief that not only is the salvation of the human species possible but that, contrary to all we read in the newspapers, it has in principle already taken place. Not even the rose-tinted Trotskyist believes that."
Conclusion
Wicked is a good show and I recommend it to all. I give it 85/100. While I did not find any of the songs memorable, I did enjoy it. I also wished some parts of the story (such as Nessarose's tyranny) were elaborated.
References
Eagleton, T. (2009) Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate (2009)
Luther, M. (1520) The Freedom of A Christian
Tappert, T.G. (1959) The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church
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