Power & Pain

“Wicked” star Cynthia Erivo brings a nuanced understanding to the role of Elphaba

By Brittani Samuel
Artwork by Lara Apponyi

“The Wizard of Oz” is so timeless that many of us can’t recall our first encounter with it. Whether it was L. Frank Baum’s popularized novel, the famed 1939 Technicolor film, the fantastic musical adaptation “The Wiz” or another iteration, Dorothy’s adventures in Oz have always felt ubiquitous. But not “Wicked.” 

The 2003 Broadway debut of Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman’s musical launched a cultural frenzy. Theater tots of that era know there was a marked difference before “Wicked” and after. The show explores the friendship of Ozian witches Glinda and Elphaba long before Dorothy touched ruby red shoes down on the yellow brick road. My first encounter with the material remains crystal clear. A middle-school friend introduced me to it a few years after its debut. Her bedroom was a shrine to all sorts of play that never appealed to me—pale American Girl dolls I found menacing and robotic Sims characters I found dystopian. The incessant looping of the “Wicked” soundtrack was a relief in comparison. 

I was a gap-toothed Black girl sitting awkwardly amid all this Stephen Schwartz serenading. (Even then—long before I became a professional theater critic—I had notes on his score.) But I didn’t mind. I was happy for my friend, a tiny-framed white girl who revered original principal cast members Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel like the Greeks did Achilles and Agamemnon. She found immense joy in a musical that felt decidedly not for girls like me. Back then, “Wicked” was three colors: pink, green and white.

Until Cynthia Erivo. 

No. I did something when I was very, very young, and I can’t even remember the Erivo’s turn as Elphaba in the record-shattering “Wicked” is monumental—a career highlight as life-altering as a trip to the Emerald City. Born in Stockwell, London, to Nigerian immigrant parents, Erivo was raised alongside her sister by their mother, Edith. Many professional experiences make a life, particularly an artist’s life, but her highlights include training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, a West End debut in “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg” and a fabulous stint as Deloris Van Cartier in the U.K. tour of “Sister Act.” All these factors built up to her star-making turn as Celie in the 2013 John Doyle-directed production of “The Color Purple.”

Naturally, other gigs and television appearances were woven throughout these stepping stones—her blip appearance in Michaela Coel’s bawdy “Chewing Gum” is gold—but Celie catapulted Erivo into a new stratosphere. 

Doyle’s spellbinding, strong-hearted and minimalist production transferred to Broadway in 2015. I was 18 years old by then, helplessly enamored with live theater. I remember every breath of that performance: the way Erivo as Celie cradled fabric and mimicked soothing a baby, her exact foot-stomp in the number “I’m Here” that felt like an earthquake, the divine voice that blanketed the audience in raw, unfiltered emotion. The show earned Erivo a Tony and, with her fellow cast members, a Grammy and a Daytime Emmy—a trifecta of accolades that only hinted at what was to come.

“The Color Purple” introduced me to Erivo’s greatest artistic gift: her ability to balance sheer vulnerability with towering strength. The two are always tangoing in her performances. She’s played characters who endure profound pain and emerge roaring with power—Celie, of course, but also Harriet Tubman in Kasi Lemmons’ “Harriet” and Aretha Franklin in “Genius: Aretha.” It’s this same emotional alchemy she brings to the not-so-wicked witch.

Elphaba is an Everest of a role. Contrary to some misleading reporting, Erivo is not the first Black woman to play it. Alexia Khadime performed it full-time on the West End, and actors like Saycon Sengbloh, Brandi Chavonne Massey, Lilli Cooper and Emmy Raver-Lampman have all cloaked their brown skin with green paint as Broadway standbys, understudies and in touring productions. They’ve joined the union of actors intimately familiar with the grueling vocal and emotional effort the role demands. There’s also so much going on in Holzman’s book, loosely inspired by the ingenious Gregory Maguire’s 1995 novel “Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West.” Her narrative critiques censorship and social hierarchies, warns against fascism and exposes the hollowness of ruling-class authority. All this, wrapped around a story about skin.

Like the women before her, Erivo brings a nuanced understanding of these pressures and contradictions—not just as a fan of the show’s ambitions but also through lived experience. Elphaba is mighty and tender, hyper-visible yet completely unseen, unloved yet bursting with it. I’ve known many kinds of women to relate to these burdens, but I’ve known every Black woman to carry them.

Audre Lorde once said, “Difference is that raw and powerful connection from which our personal power is forged.” Erivo embodies Lorde’s truth. There is personal power in her stylized nails, twinkling ear and nose piercings and tattoos that are always proudly displayed on red carpets and magazines. She wears these adornments like armor—defense against a world, particularly in Hollywood’s superficial ecosystem, eager to box in a queer, bald lynx of a woman like Erivo.

The internet is flooded with people marveling at her performance—not just because it’s so thrilling and singable but because it harnesses a power women are rarely invited to tap into. It doesn’t hurt that Erivo’s voice is like a tonally uninhibited trumpet—piercing, rousing, and so otherworldly, it’s no wonder she’s gone airborne. It’s a rare talent that, like Elphaba’s, cannot be denied. Critics and awarding bodies have also taken notice. Wicked has made Erivo a nominee for the Golden Globe and SAG awards and a leading contender for every other major honor, including an Oscar, which would cement her EGOT status.

Yet beyond the starry accolades, her impact over the last year is seismic. And it’s a shift many of us hope reverberates across stages and screens for generations to come. The widespread embrace of a Black-under-the-green Elphaba is not just a sign of a director or a studio’s betterment but a sign of an audience’s evolution. And to think, with part two of the musical movie, “Wicked: For Good,” on the horizon, Erivo’s journey on our screens and in our hearts is not over yet. Truly, good news.