Mr. Hoffmann and Mr. Baum

 When people discuss the classic young female heroines of fantasy literature, they usually get down to three: Alice from Lewis Carroll's Alice stories, Dorothy Gale from the Oz books, and Wendy Darling from J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan. There's others who could make the cut (Betsy, Trot and Ozma could back up Dorothy), and some get ignored, whether for near obscurity (Anthea and Jane from E. Nesbitt's Five Children and It), and others are left out due to copyright concerns (Jane and Barbara Banks from the Mary Poppins stories, Susan and Lucy Pevensie from The Chronicles of Narnia), but there's one before Alice who routinely gets ignored: Marie Stahlbaum.

Marie is from E.T.A. Hoffmann's The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, originally published in 1816. Maybe Marie doesn't usually get lumped in because the story was originally written in German and all the others are written in English. Or perhaps as the story opens at Christmas, it gets considered a Christmas story while the others aren't necessarily tied to a holiday. And there's also the fact that the public at large is less familiar with the original text than they are a highly streamlined version of the story that gets adapted into countless ballet variations every year.

Wait, the original text gets ignored for a popular streamlined adaptation? Oz fans, we know the feeling.

Interestingly, there's several parallels with Oz. Alexander Volkov rewrote The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in Russian as The Wizard of the Emerald City, naming characters Baum hadn't and changing names. Similarly, Alexandre Dumas (yes, the Three Musketeers guy) rewrote Hoffmann's story in French as The History of a Nutcracker. The Nutcracker prince got the name Nathaniel (yes, Hoffmann didn't name the title characters, Baum also didn't name the Wizard until Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz), and Marie's family name was changed to Silberhaus. Dumas' version helped launch the story into wider consciousness and is the version the ballet was based on.

In the original production of the ballet, Marie's name was changed to Clara for the first time, carrying over into later adaptations of the story. I suspect it was to prevent any connection drawn to the daughter of librettist and choreographer Marius Petipa, the famous ballerina Marie Petipa. In Hoffmann's original story, Clara is the name of a doll Marie gets for Christmas. Some claim the name gets swapped between them, but I've only seen one adaptation of the Nutcracker have the doll named Marie when our heroine is named Clara. (Disney's recent takes on the story find ways to use both names.)

Regardless of the name, Marie (as I'll call her) is explicitly said in the original text to be only seven years old when the main action of the story takes place. This makes her the same age as Alice, and around the same age a lot of readers assume Dorothy is on her first adventure in Oz.

It is well known that Alice was named for Alice Liddell, a girl that Lewis Carroll was friendly with. It's also believed that Baum named Dorothy for his late niece, Dorothy Gage. Just like them, Marie and her brother Fritz were named for Marie and Fritz Hitzig, children of a dear friend of Hoffmann's, Julius Eduard Hitzig. It's believed that he expressed himself through the mysterious Godfather Drosselmeyer, who presents the the Stahlbaum children with an elaborate clockwork castle. In real life, Hoffmann created a cardboard castle for the Hitzigs while spending the holiday with them. Then the next year, he delighted them with his new story inspired by the festivities.

Similar to Baum, who tried to improve on The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (although it became his claim to fame), Hoffmann took to heart much of the criticism of The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, later producing The Strange Child. Both stories appear in his collections The Serapion Brothers, in which his stories are presented with a framing device of writers who share their stories with each other and critique them. (English translations of The Serapion Brothers, save print on demand affairs, are long out of print with publishers favoring new translations of selected Hoffmann stories. Luckily for us, we have Project Gutenberg to give us Alexander Ewing's serviceable if outdated translation.) Hoffmann has the other writers call out some of the story's weaknesses.

Lothair, the fictional writer who The Nutcracker and the Mouse King gets attributed to, declares: "I think it is a great mistake to suppose that clever, imaginative children—and it is only they who are in question here—should content themselves with the empty nonsense which is so often set before them under the name of Children's Tales. They want something much better; and it is surprising how much they see and appreciate which escapes a good, honest, well-informed papa."

One could imagine Baum saying the same thing. In his introduction to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (a simple piece that is often overlooked when evaluating his work), he writes "every healthy youngster has a wholesome and instinctive love for stories fantastic, marvelous and manifestly unreal." Two years later in the piece "What Children Want," he wrote "Positively the child cannot be satisfied with inanities in its story books. It craves marvels – fairy tales, adventures, surprising and unreal occurrences; gorgeousness, color and kaleidoscopic succession of inspiring incident."

I would hesitate to claim that Baum read Hoffmann. To be sure, it wouldn't be impossible as English translations of Hoffmann were available. However, Hoffmann is one of the earliest writers of what became modern science fiction and gothic fantasy. In many of his fantasies, such as The Golden Pot, we find a person living a normal life when they happen to witness something wonderful. A serpent under a tree becomes a lovely woman, a tiny flea helps a young man see beyond the deceptions thrown in his way, a miner sees a fantastic underground kingdom, a little girl sees a damaged nutcracker's eyes sparkle, or a bedridden invalid interprets the goings on outside his window. In a similar vein, Baum made a common but terrifying Kansas cyclone become the gateway to an incredible adventure.

Hoffmann is known to have inspired writers Baum would almost certainly have read, such as Edgar Allen Poe and also Charles Dickens, who Baum claimed was a favorite. (In fact, some wonder if Dickens' nickname Boz was actually the inspiration for Baum's most famous creation.) So even if Baum didn't know Hoffmann directly, some inspiration passed along.

There are other similarities between Baum and Hoffmann. Given their lifespans, they both settled into the life of an author late in their lives, with Baum picking up on children's writing in the last 22 years of his life. Hoffmann began publishing his stories in his last decade of life. Both were fairly progressive in their views and enjoyed music and the stage, Baum writing many pieces for the stage in his life, and Hoffmann created the opera Undine and composing music on his own. And yet as varied and fascinating careers as both men had, both are remembered chiefly for a fantasy work for children they produced: The Nutcracker and the Mouse King and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. And both works inspired far more popular dramatic adaptations famous for their music: The Nutcracker ballet scored by Tchaikovsky and MGM's classic film The Wizard of Oz.

In fact if we may go further, both of these famous adaptations often under serve their heroines. Judy Garland's Dorothy is less headstrong than her literary counterpart, relying on her friends to rescue her from the Wicked Witch of the West when she's captured and her defeat of the Witch being a happy accident. Baum's Dorothy also accidentally kills the Witch, but in an act of defiance. Don't get me wrong, Judy is still a powerhouse of a performer in the film, but her character could have stood up to the Witch a little more.

In The Nutcracker ballet, Marie (or Clara, depending on the production) is largely passive until she happens to throw her shoe at the Mouse King. In Hoffmann, Marie only wishes throwing her shoe was the end of the Mouse King. Instead of immediately being whisked to a fairyland, she awakens in bed with a nasty cut in her arm and her parents chiding her for being careless. While she's recovering the Mouse King comes to her at night and demands her Christmas candy and then her sugar dolls in return for not destroying the Nutcracker. (And note, with German customs, her injury means she had to sit out most of her family's Christmas celebrations, so those are all she had left of her holiday.) She finally realizes the Nutcracker needs a new sword and manages to procure one from her brother, allowing the Nutcracker to finally defeat the Mouse King. The Nutcracker hails her as the reason for his victory.

Baum and Hoffmann, despite coming from different cultures and different times, seem to have nearly been on the same wavelength when it came to their sensibilities, writing of the mundane turning into the bizarre and fantastic, and even describing wondrous fantasy worlds.

So, if one is going to have Dorothy meet up with Alice and Wendy, perhaps they should also make room for a little German girl.

The Marvelous Land of Oz by the Toronto Civic Light Opera Company

 The Civic Light Opera Company has released their second unabridged audiobook, following from their first, reading L. Frank Baum's The Marvelous Land of Oz.

It's currently only on MP3CD, allowing for a much longer runtime than a traditional audio CD. The production runs for nearly four hours. Some more modern CD players can play MP3CDs (if you're not sure, check your manual or packaging, if you still have them), or you can play it on a home entertainment disc player, or play it on a computer with a disc drive or use the computer to copy the files to a device.

For my listen through, I used my home entertainment setup, popping it in my 4K disc player and playing it through my soundbar. (I did have to select the "music" profile on the soundbar's remote to make it sound fine.) Wound up playing it from beginning to end.

If you're not familiar with the second Oz book, it takes place largely inside the realm of Oz, no outside characters visit, Baum breaking away from the formula he established in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Our protagonist is a boy named Tip, who lives in the northern Gillikin Country of Oz with Mombi, an old woman who secretly practices magic. When Mombi brings Tip's creation Jack Pumpkinhead to life, she announces her plan to transform Tip into a statue, forcing him to take Jack and flee to the Emerald City. However, the Emerald City is being invaded by an all-female army, seeking to overthrow the Scarecrow. Tip, Jack, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman and more new characters embark on an adventure that leads them to discover startling secrets from Oz's history.

I want to commend Joe Cascone and company for continuity. It's quality narration by Joe Cascone, with a cast of performers hopping in to give their own interpretations of the characters. Cast members from the Wizard audiobook reprise their roles when available, and others pop up in new roles, for example, David Haines, the Cowardly Lion of the company of stage and audio, takes on Jack Pumpkinhead.

In addition, sound effects and classical music are used to enhance the experience. There were times that the sound effects sounded so realistic I had to check on my cat to make sure she wasn't causing some sort of mischief.

I was pleased and entertained by the new production. Some of the casting made the characters sound older than I would personally want them to be, but it was all right. I was particularly pleasantly surprised that Mickey Brown as Mombi didn't go for a cackling witch voice as many depictions often do. A lot of fans simply interpret Mombi as another witch like the Wicked Witches of the East and West, but I feel the character is more complicated than that, and making her sound like someone who could pass for an ordinary Gillikin woman plays into that.

Again, if you wanted a reading of chapter titles, the dedication and introduction, they aren't here, allowing you to immediately get immersed in the story. The way I was playing it, the track names popped up on my TV's screen.

So yes, I'd recommend this production.

Again, the CD is in a jewel case complete with a four-page booklet with some explanatory text about the story and images to illustrate the story. A cast list is in the tray card and photos of the cast are in the booklet.

The really cool announcement is that while you can buy a copy from an eBay listing, you can also buy it direct from Joe at his new website, which also offers the first one, copies of the Songs in the Key of Oz CD, the cast recording for his Wonderful Wizard of Oz musical and CD of him singing show tunes. Also teased is the upcoming audio book of Ozma of Oz and one for A Christmas Carol.

The Wicked Movies Have Begun Filming

Well, the title says it all. Film has begun rolling (metaphorically since most movies are shot on digital) on director John M. Chu's two-part film adaptation of the musical Wicked: The Untold Story of the Witches of Oz.

Along with the news, more casting of principal roles have been announced. I say this because with casting announcements, there's an inaccurate perception that the roles are cast as they're announced. They need time to make sure songs are arranged to bring out the best performances and costumes are ready to go. Rather, they get cast well ahead of time. Announcing them is part of the publicity for the film.

Jeff Goldblum has been confirmed as playing the Wizard in the movies. He should need no introduction, but if you're not familiar, he made his big break in David Cronenberg's remake of The Fly in 1986, then went on to feature in 1993's Jurassic Park and 1996's Independence Day. More recently, he's played the Grandmaster in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, appearing in 2017's Thor: Ragnarok. He also leads Disney+'s The World According to Jeff Goldblum and is commonly seen in commercials for Apartments.com.

In addition, Michelle Yeoh has been cast as Madame Morrible, the headmistress of Shiz University. The casting is unexpected but a welcome surprise. The Malaysian actress has featured in several roles in film and television over the years, more recently joining the Star Trek franchise in the first season of Star Trek: Discovery, playing two roles in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, and starring in this year's sci-fi hit Everything Everywhere All At Once.

Ethan Slater has been cast as Boq, one of the students at Shiz University who crushes on Galinda but ends up involved with Nessarose, Elphaba's sister. The role is highly changed from the Gregory Maguire novel in which he is the Munchkin farmer from the original Baum book, he just happened to have brushed shoulders with Glinda and the "wicked" witches back in the day. Slater received a Drama Desk award for his lead role in Spongebob Squarepants: The Broadway Musical, a role he later reprised for a filmed television version.

After these featured castings, a number of smaller roles were announced: wheelchair using actress Marissa Bode is making her feature film debut as Nessarose. Saturday Night Live cast member Bowen Yang and actress Bronwyn James are playing Pfanee and ShenShen, two Shiz classmates who are depicted as good friends with Galinda. Aaron Teoh will be playing Avaric, Fiyero's footman and driver. Colin Michael Carmichael will be playing Dr. Nikidik, the teacher who replaces Dr. Dillamond.

The most surprising casting is Keala Settle as Miss Coddle. The actress and singer featured as a bearded lady in 2017's The Greatest Showman, impressing audiences with her singing voice. The character is seemingly original to the film adaptation. Given her incredible pipes, it's suspected she'll be singing one of the new songs Stephen Schwartz has been penning for the film.

Still to be announced is who's playing Dr. Dillamond. Given that the character is a goat, it is entirely possible that the role will be played by a stand-in during principal photography and created with CG in post-production, to be voiced by a yet to be announced surprise star.

Other roles yet to be confirmed are Frex and Melena, Nessarose and Elphaba's parents. It's also hoped that original Broadway cast members of the musical—especially stars Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenowith—will be appearing in cameos.

While Wicked isn't every Oz fan's cup of tea, it's exciting to have a film project to look forward to, and I'm very interested to see John Chu's new incarnation of the story.

The Surprising State of Hollywood and Oz

 The latest bit of casting for the movie adaptation of Wicked is that Jonathan Bailey will be playing Fiyero in the two films.

Bridgerton Jonathan GIFfrom Bridgerton GIFs

 Bailey has been acting since he was seven years old on stage, film and television, most recently getting international attention in Netflix's hit show Bridgerton. He's experienced in musical theater, so if anything, he's overqualified for a major film adaptation of a Broadway musical hit.

There is one note about the role of Fiyero I want to presence. In Gregory Maguire's Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, the character is inspired by African tribes, described as having dark skin and tribal tattoos. In the original Broadway cast, Fiyero was played by a Caucasian actor, Norbert Leo Butz. The character's depiction was largely changed, making him a spoiled and self-absorbed member of a notable family in Oz.

To be fair to the musical, the character was played by men of color in different casts, notably Idina Menzel's then husband Taye Diggs. But still, largely, a role originally envisioned as a person of color was cast with a white person. While I've heard people dismiss the importance of the role, this is the very definition of what is called "whitewashing." I had hoped they might go with a person of color for the movie, but that's seemingly not going to be the case. It might not be as egregious as a culturally important character of color being whitewashed, but it's a missed opportunity, particularly as this two-part film adaptation might be the only version of the musical some people will get to see.

Before the Wicked movies come out, Universal, the studio behind them, might have even more importance to Oz fans.

Universal Pictures Logo GIFfrom Universal Pictures GIFs

Universal's TV arm is NBC, and they're both owned by Comcast, one of the big telecommunications companies in the United States. Without checking further credits, NBC/Universal control the rights to the movie adaptation of The Wiz, The Wiz Live! and the one-season TV series Emerald City. Universal is producing the Wicked films as they are a producer on the stage show, which for a movie studio, generally means that they get to make the movie adaptation. (It's not always the case, in fact Fox helped bankroll The Wiz but turned the movie rights over to Universal.) Universal Music Group, of course, released the original cast recording album for Wicked.

If you've been paying attention to elsewhere in Hollywood, you probably know about the shakeup over at Warner Brothers as they're merged with Discovery, cancelling movies and shows in various stages of production, pulling titles from HBO Max, which they plan to merge with the Discovery+ platform in time.

Warner Brothers had bought up and has basically absorbed Turner Entertainment, who had bought up MGM's catalog of movies, which included MGM's The Wizard of Oz. Under their ownership, Warner Brothers has only made a few spinoffs from the property, notably the two Tom and Jerry crossover movies and the animated series Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz. There have recently been two new film adaptations of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz announced from Warner Brothers, Nicole Cassell's film version with WB subsidiary New Line Cinema, and more recently, Kenya Barris writing and directing a new adaptation that's been buzzed as a remake/reimagining of the MGM film, set with Warner Brothers proper. There's also been an animated adaptation of Toto: The Dog-Gone Amazing Story of the Wizard of Oz announced, but it's been a long time since we've heard any news. Given the track record Warner Brothers has had, if any of these project are actually made, it'll be a surprise.

 So, why am I talking about Warner Brothers?

It's not publicly confirmed, and not expected to be as investors wouldn't want to hear this news, but the current state of Warner Brothers has been assessed by analysts as getting ready for yet another merger, expected to occur in the next couple of years. And who's most likely going to grab up WB?

Comcast/NBC/Universal.

Mergers haven't been great as this means redundancies and people lose jobs. In recent history, we have the merger of Disney and what was then 20th Century Fox to look back to. However, the changing landscape of the entertainment industry seems to be requiring consolidation as Warner Brothers is trying to eliminate a lot of debt. A little hint seems to be Disney poised to buy out Universal's shares of Hulu, which would help with clearing the merger as Universal would have less of a presence in the streaming market with just their platform Peacock, so buying up Warner Brothers/Discovery with their own services will be less of an issue.

But if this does happen, that would mean that before it goes public domain, the MGM film The Wizard of Oz will be controlled by Universal, the same studio who already has a handful of other notable Oz properties. It would likely be too late to affect production of the Wicked films so they could have visuals clearly meant to evoke the MGM film. It would also unite the Rankin-Bass catalog of Christmas specials which were split between the two studios, including The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus, which Universal also distributes another animated adaptation of.

A big plus for theme park goers, however, could be the introduction of Oz properties to Universal's parks.A Warner Brothers park in Australia is going to be adding an Oz-themed area, but in major theme parks in the United States, Oz is absent. But with Universal also seemingly set to be finally losing their licenses to Marvel properties in parks and on screen, they will be needing to re-theme rides and attractions and there's always new attractions that get brought in. Could Oz help fill some gaps? We'll see.

As of yet, this is all speculation, but it's based on speculation by analysts in the industry. If this pans out, that means Universal will become a very important studio for Oz fans.

Two Wicked movies on the way!

Director Jon M. Chu gives us a major update on the film adaptation of the Wicked musical.

He claims that they don't want to damage the property by trimming it down by cutting songs or deleting scenes and have instead opted to expand the adaptation into two films.

Fans are skeptical. Wicked runs at a good pace, so why would a film version need to be much longer? The songs, admittedly, are mostly indispensable. Sure, there's some you could delete and write around, but if you were going to do that, why are you making a musical? And there's always the cynical outlook that by splitting it into two films, the studio hopes to double their profits, especially with a built in audience.

Personally, I'm hoping to see the film version be a very different beast than the musical. In my opinion, the dialogue might be the weakest point of the show, so doing an overhaul for film could be a big improvement.

There's elements from the Gregory Maguire novel that could come back. I doubt we'll get some of the more mature scenes added in, but maybe we'll get more details like Fiyero being a person of color and his tattoos.

Ariana Grande has confirmed she's reading the original Baum Oz books to prepare for the role of Glinda. Could it be that they want to have her grow into a character more like Baum's original? Are we going to see Easter eggs for the original series? We'll see.

As of yet, there are no further castings announced. I'm sure some roles have been cast, they're just not ready to announce them. They have confirmed, however, that the films are intended to release during the Christmas season in 2024 and 2025.