Theatrical Adaptation

Oz is a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there!

The other day in class, I believe it was Kirk who posed the question – Would you live in Oz? I, for one, would never live in the Oz that’s portrayed in the book and what I gather from the musical notes.


First, I think that Oz is a dictator in the book. He has no one’s welfare in his mind expect his own, and maybe his minions. He puts on airs of maybe trying to care, but he doesn’t. It seems like in the musical, he is kind of like a bumpkin. He just wants to care for someone, wants to love someone and someone to love him. It’s not that he’s malicious or intentionally a bad guy, he’s just ignorant.


I also think that Oz puts way to much focus on social status and class rank, as well as looks versus being a good or intelligent person. In the book, Galinda won’t date Boq because he’s below her in the class system. Upper class girls tend to room with upper class girls at Shiz, they also tend to hang out with each other and alienate other girls, like Elphaba. And of course, the fact that Elphaba is green and that isn’t classically beautiful or accepted is a theme throughout the novel.


I also think that Oz has kind of gone backward in time. Even in the Grimmerie, the costume designer for the musical Susan Hilferty said, “My research focused on the period in which Baum wrote the books, from the 1900 to about 1920…So I created a style I called “twisted Edwardian”. (Grimmerie, 119) The way young girls interact with young boys, like the meeting between Boq and Galinda in the park at Shiz; to the way husbands can act towards their wives; like Frex and Melena shows that women have obviously not been a part of the feminist movement.


Oz seems like a generally unpleasant place to actually live. It hasn’t caught up with where the rest of the world lives today. I think that this is part of its charm – it’s intentionally, I’m sure. I’m also very glad I’ll never have to live there.

posted by Anonymous @ 9:16 PM