I’ve been thinking a lot about Cynthia Erivo’s performance in Wicked versus Idina Menzel’s performance on the soundtrack.
I love Menzel’s performance. Everything about it. Her fierceness makes me feel… not alone.
In comparison, Erivo’s Elphaba sounds so much softer.
Menzel was performing for the stage where not only must her performance be seen from far away, but it also begins again, night after night, circumscribing the same arc from youthful optimism to outcast rebellion. Over and over, and I’ve listened to it over and over.
Clearly, there is a character arc that Elphaba follows, but after 18 years of treasuring the soundtrack, who she is at the end has maybe bled into how I see her at the beginning. I know who she will become, and so it doesn’t sound wrong when she’s already part way there.
The fierce — almost strident — quality of Menzel’s Elphaba is what I love about her, and I love hearing it even in the edges of “The Wizard and I.”
But Erivo’s Elphaba hasn’t discovered her own fierceness yet at that point. Her hope is more pure. More innocent.
I don’t like Erivo’s Elphaba better… partly because, at some level, I don’t think she’s really different. She simply hasn’t been touched by the full depth of the corruption of the world yet. And when she is, she starts to become who she has to… who she’s always been inside.
The seeds of who Elphaba is are inside her from the beginning. She will not fold on her principles because it’s easier or will give her things she wants. Her principles come first. And in both this world and Oz, that puts you in conflict with most of society.
I can’t wait to see how Erivo handles the second half. Part of me will always love Menzel’s uncompromising fierceness best…
But Erivo’s Elphaba has helped me remember that I, too, used to be softer before I knew the world better.
Erivo helped me rediscover part of myself.