Oz's green radical, set to music

How did the Witch of the West get to be so wicked?

Gregory Maguire pondered that, and came up with a fascinating back story for the "Wizard of Oz" villainess in his best-selling novel, "Wicked."

Some of his revelations can also, more or less, be gleaned from the wildly popular Broadway musical "Wicked," which blew into Seattle's Paramount Theatre last week for a two-week run that's nearly sold out.

Broadway's "Wicked," written by Winnie Holzman with a score by Stephen Schwartz, boils it down to a sweeter, more simplistic story of feisty girl power.

For the highly enjoyable first three-quarters of the show, even those missing the novel's complexity can comprehend why this musical is such a hit.

It endears us to a pair of appealing, odd-couple heroines — the perky, steel-cupcake Glinda and the gifted, yearning misfit Elphaba. Two very talented Northwest natives fill these lead roles splendidly at the Paramount, after tackling them on Broadway: Bellevue-bred Megan Hilty, and Portland-reared Shoshana Bean.

Hilty's hilariously frivolous Glinda and Bean's acerbic, Kermit-colored Elphaba meet as students at an Oz prep school led by a wily witchcraft expert, Madam Morrible (an excellent Alma Cuervo).

Reluctant, sparring roomies at first, the girls work through their prejudices to become close friends. That bond is tested, though, when they fall for same the same cute boy, Fiyero. He's played with offhand charm by Sebastian Arcelus, who gets to sing "Dancing Through Life," a clever ode to shallowness.

Up to this point, Joe Mantello's staging of "Wicked" is busy and vibrant. And the show's energetic plot has a lot of hooks for adolescents: hocus-pocus sorcery, a teen love triangle and clear messages about animal rights, beauty being in the eye of the beholder, and the need to sometimes defy authority — even if it means being unfairly branded as wicked.

"Wicked" also meshes with the craze for all things "Harry Potter" and the popularity of many other fantasy-lit series captivating young readers.

Alternate worlds rock right now (hey, what's so great about reality?), and "Wicked" beams you into one: the enchanted land of Oz, but markedly different from the beloved MGM movie's Oz.

But there are some similarities: There's a trickster Wizard, a munchkin or two, flying monkeys and, when apt, a trippy Kelly-green color scheme.

Susan Hilferty's marvelously fanciful costumes, Eugene Lee's imposing sets and Kenneth Posner's sparkly, smoky lighting effects bring all this off in style. And Holzman's clever, snappy dialogue, mated with Schwartz's gleaming pop power ballads ("Defying Gravity," "For Good") make Glinda and Elphaba so contemporary, they could pass at times as gal-pals in a Hilary Duff or Lindsay Lohan movie.

That eager accessibility becomes problematic when a political crisis in Oz ensues. Glinda, unsurprisingly, becomes a conservative cheerleader who defends Oz's discriminatory status quo. Elphaba is the radical who defies it, and turns into Oz's arch enemy.

But around this point, Holzman's book goes off the tracks, veering sharply away from Maguire's story. The musical then works overtime to force a sentimental, win-win ending that feels false.

It's a regrettable cop-out — if a commercially savvy one. So consider this: If you enjoy the musical but don't know the novel, give the novel a read. It provides a far less romanticized understanding of the not-so-wicked Witch of the West.