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Interview with ‘Wicked’ librettist Winnie Holzman, Part 3

By Michael Barnes | Friday, July 24, 2009, 01:39 PM

For Parts 1 & 2 of the ‘Wicked’ interview with Winnie Holzman, see postings below …

You said in a previous interview that you’re not interested in good role models as characters. What did you mean by that?

I meant that ‘in quotes,’ not literally. There’s a pressure you feel when you are writing for television, writing teenage characters. This was probably back when I was writing ‘My So-Called Life.’ Sometimes people, especially on TV, communicating so strongly to country, people believe a character must be exemplary, perfect, an example of how people should behave — this was a long time ago, sometimes now what they are doing with teenage characters on TV can only be called ‘bad’ — but back then I was talking about imperfect characters. When they make terrible mistakes you see them struggle to become better, that’s more interesting and more real-life anyway.

That leads directly into my next question: Is it possible we all see ourselves as Galinda - consciously kind, but wanting to be more effective - and Elphaba - striving for knowledge, wisdom, but not fitting in - at different times in our lives?

Well yeah. One of things about the characters: They would like to be each other, on some level. That’s one reason they become friends. Elphaba would like to be beloved. Galinda would like to be brave enough to go her own way. That happens when we find friends — even in marriages, I think — we become friends with someone we would like to be more like. And that brings us back to your original question: One of the appeals of the show, even to men, even to straight men, is they can see themselves in the choices Elphaba and Galinda make. It’s not a prefect friendshp, they have terrible fights, they betray each other, they make mistakes. But, if you think in your own life, you might have fought with a friend, even hated that person, but you are so grateful that you knew them. We all want that from our friendships.