Depraved writer Gregory Maguire on the actual that means of the story that captivated the world

Earlier than it was a Hollywood blockbuster it was a megahit musical, and earlier than that it was a 1995 novel. Writer Gregory Maguire tells the BBC in regards to the inspiration behind Depraved.

When writer Gregory Maguire was a toddler, he and his siblings would recurrently act out scenes from the traditional 1939 movie, The Wizard of Oz. They’d even change the story and its views, simply to maintain themselves entertained. “The fabric was so malleable that you could possibly change it and it could nonetheless be recognisable,” Maguire tells the BBC. Little did he know that these childhood video games would sooner or later feed into his life-changing novel, Depraved: The Life and Occasions of The Depraved Witch of the West.

Spoiler alert: This text accommodates spoilers for the plot of Depraved. 

By the early Nineties, Maguire was a well-respected kids’s writer, who had obtained “good evaluations, however no huge gross sales”, he says. After working as a professor on the Simmons Faculty Middle for the Research of Kids’s Literature in Boston, after which co-founding the non-profit instructional charity, Kids’s Literature New England, Maguire needed to have a go at writing for adults. “I believed that I needed to throw every little thing that I cared about into this e book, as a result of I’d by no means write one other one,” he says.

Maguire knew that the subject he needed to discover within the novel was the character of evil. Particularly, what does being “evil” imply? Are we simply characterising sure varieties of behaviour? Are we assessing the decay and corruption of somebody’s ethical fibre? Maguire knew that if he was going to get readers on facet, he’d must weave the topic into “an arresting plot that may interact a whole lot of hundreds of individuals world wide”, he says.

That is when Maguire thought again to The Wizard of Oz. Particularly, Margaret Hamilton’s portrayal of the Depraved Witch of the West, and her transient interactions with Glinda, performed by Billie Burke, in direction of the beginning of the Victor Fleming movie. “I believed to myself, ‘They know one another. They’ve crossed paths earlier than. They went to high school collectively!'” Creating this state of affairs in his head provoked Maguire to chuckle out loud. “I believed that was so humorous. As a result of it was such a good suggestion.”

Maguire’s assumption proved to be proper. Depraved’s revisionist exploration of each L Frank Baum’s 1900 kids’s novel The Great Wizard of Ozand the 1939 movie adaptation takes an in depth take a look at the lifetime of the Depraved Witch of the West. Maguire named her Elphaba, which is a play on the initials of the unique writer. Within the e book, we see the the reason why Elphaba is taken into account evil, as societal perceptions and circumstances power her to behave in methods which can be deemed villainous.

Born with inexperienced pores and skin, she is recurrently pointed at and laughed at. This prejudice makes her really feel a lot like an outcast that she ostracises herself from different folks. After discovering that the nation’s sentient, talking animals are being locked up, Elphaba approaches Ozand asks him for assist. However Ozdismisses her issues, as he desires the folks to unite within the perception that the speaking animals are their widespread enemy. Elphaba goes into hiding, and joins an underground group to attempt to shield the animals. Ozthen makes use of propaganda to inform the remainder of the nation that Elphaba is evil, despite the fact that she’s preventing for justice and to guard the weak. She then reacts with rightful rage in opposition to the demise of her sister, and Glinda giving her household’s footwear away to Dorothy.

Whereas it wasn’t a bestseller when it was launched in 1995, the e book was a word-of-mouth hit, says Maguire. “Yearly it could promote greater than the yr earlier than. It was the real definition of a sleeper hit.” Stephen Schwartz’s choice to adapt the e book right into a musical made it much more standard. The musical model of Elphaba is extra misunderstood and kinder than the more and more darkish and bitter model within the e book. Depraved has been taking part in in New York since 30 October 2003, making it the fourth-longest-running Broadway present of all time.

Such success meant a Hollywood adaptation was inevitable. However very similar to the musical, Depraved the movie (half one), deviates from the e book in a number of methods, maybe to make it extra accessible for mainstream audiences. Quite than being fully Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo)’s story, we see Glinda (Ariana Grande)’s perspective, too, because the story revolves far more round their friendship. The movie unfolds at Shiz College within the Land of Oz, the place Elphaba and Glinda are pressured to share a room. Whereas they begin off hating one another, they rapidly develop into pals, and so they each fall for a similar good-looking prince (Jonathan Bailey). However as they proceed their research, they uncover the sinister plot unfolding within the Land Of Oz, which is forcing the nation’s speaking animals to enter hiding.

Dana Fox, who co-wrote the movie with Winnie Holzman, says a part of Depraved’s success is right down to how Maguire twisted the expectations of the viewers. Earlier than the e book, everybody would insist, “The inexperienced witch is evil. Everyone knows she’s dangerous. However in case you ask an individual why she is evil, they can not reply,” Fox tells the BBC. “The brilliance of Maguire’s e book is that he interrogated that very query.” 

Whereas Maguire was considering these themes and his potential story for Depraved, an incident occurred that made him assume extra deeply in regards to the nature of evil. On 12 February 1993, two-year-old James Bulger was murdered by two 10-year-olds in Merseyside, England. As Maguire watched experiences of this tragedy unfold on tv, folks on programmes and over dinner would focus on the horrible crime these boys had dedicated. It made Maguire, who was residing in London on the time, surprise, “The place did the choice to do what they did come from? The place did that capability for evil come from?” Because the homicide continued to be analysed, and mental discussions continued about whether or not “sociological, biochemical, or religious causes had been in charge”, says Maguire, he realised that the atrocity fed into “every little thing he had been contemplating” about Depraved. “That unhappy, unhappy occasion proved to be a catalyst for me to push ahead,” says Maguire.

Shortly after the e book was launched, Maguire discovered that the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer John Updike had quoted from it in an essay he wrote as regards to evil, he says. “The one line he quoted from Depraved within the article, which sums all of this up, is, ‘It’s the nature of evil to be secret’. In a 406-page novel, he had discovered the one sentence that was essentially the most coherent and complete conclusion I had drawn up.”

Maguire insists that he by no means got here up with a “unified idea” relating to evil. He believes self-loathing is one factor, because the “organic crucial to outlive and never harm ourselves is so robust that if we hate ourselves sufficient we stab the world as a substitute of ourselves”. One of the best summation he is ever learn relating to evil was written by Graham Greene in his novel The Energy and the Glory. “He wrote that the majority evil is solely a failure of creativeness.” Greene was writing about how fascism arises “as a result of folks cannot think about what it is wish to be anyone else,” says Maguire. In Depraved, Maguire exhibits the Wizard utilizing populism and propaganda to maintain management of Oz, weaponising these instruments in opposition to animals who’re totally different and Elphaba as a result of she disagrees with him. 

For Fox, Depraved continues to be related as a result of “sure individuals are nonetheless othered in our society, or made to be the dangerous guys so different folks can acquire energy”. And Depraved’s continued resonance is centred on Elphaba’s narrative, as she strikes from feeling like she would not belong and never eager to have inexperienced pores and skin in direction of self-acceptance and self-love. “You do not have to have inexperienced pores and skin to know what that appears like. All people has felt that means about themselves in life,” says Fox. “There’s somewhat Elphaba inside all of us. There’s somewhat Glinda inside all of us. Empathising so profoundly with these characters is why folks have cherished this present and story for thus lengthy.”

Depraved is launched within the UK and US on 22 November.