The Postmodern Revision of the Fairy Tale in Musicals: Into the Woods, Wicked, Wonderland

Despite the continuous metamorphosis that the classical fairy tales have undergone throughout the centuries, they have proved able to maintain their distinctive traits, and have successfully survived socio-historical changes, thanks to their ability to renovate themselves and to adapt to new contexts. In particular, during postmodernism, the revision of the classical fairy tale has originated a wide range of works that have subverted its canonical narrative, to create new versions that re-explore its τόποι. This work explores the dynamics of this metamorphosis from a literary and from a memetic point of view, through an investigation that aims at outlining the role of the fairy tale within the relationship between man’s urge for self-narration and the performance of such urge. Starting from the classical fairy tales, this research takes into account literary works from the Victorian to the contemporary age, and explores the ways in which they represent a revision of their classical counterparts. In particular, the analysis of the Grimms’ collection, Carroll’s Alice books, Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and Maguire’s Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West acts as a solid theoretical background for the investigation on the musicals that stem from them; these are Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods, Stephen Schwartz’s Wicked, and Frank Wildhorn’s Wonderland. They bring onto the stage three postmodern versions of the classical tales that focus on the liaison between the fairy-tale genre and the exploration of the Self. By taking into account the intertextual, intermodal, and interpersonal exchanges enabled by these three revisions, this work explores the journey of the Self which, by reading fairy tales and being part of a musical performance, is guided along the process of becoming. Such process lies at the basis of identity-construction, and leads to a greater awareness of the Self, in our everlasting search for an answer to the Caterpillar’s question: “Who are you?”