Fiyero Tigular
| Fiyero Tigular | |
|---|---|
| First appearance | Wicked (1995) |
| Last appearance | Wicked (1995) |
| Created by | Gregory Maguire |
| Portrayed by | Norbert Leo Butz Joey McIntyre David Ayers Others (see opposite) |
| Information | |
| Nickname | Yero |
| Species | Winkie |
| Gender | Male |
| Title | Prince |
| Occupation | Prince of the Arjiki Vinkus tribe |
| Spouse | Sarima (though he loved Elphaba) |
| Children | Irji, Manek, and Nor by Sarima; Liir by Elphaba |
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Fiyero Tiggular is a character in Gregory Maguire's novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, as well as in the Broadway musical Wicked, which is based on the novel. He is a Vinkus prince who attends Shiz University, and eventually falls in love with Elphaba (the Wicked Witch of the West). Between the two works, the character is portrayed somewhat differently.
Contrasts between portrayals of Fiyero
In the book, Fiyero is dark-skinned and covered with blue, diamond-shaped tattoos. He is unhappily married to a woman named Sarima and father to three children: Irji, Manek, and Nor. He meets an early demise when he is brutally murdered by The Wizard's secret police, presumably because he is affiliated with Elphaba, who is now a fugitive from The Wizard.
In the musical, the character has no tattoos (simply because the small designs did not translate well to the stage) and never married, but he is engaged (rather reluctantly) to Glinda. He is at first a careless, happy-go-lucky, kid who cares little about school. However, when he meets Elphaba, he begins to understand that there is more to life than having fun and never thinking. In the middle of his discovery, he is transformed unwittingly into the Scarecrow by Elphaba as she saves him from a very painful, and ultimately fatal demise, by the Wizard's Guards. He helps Elphaba stage her death and runs away with her out of Oz to start a new life. Fiyero is the vehicle that makes a successful conclusion possible, by helping Elphaba escape.
This is contradictory to the book, where he accidentally contributes to the Witch's downfall. He was worriedly waiting for Elphaba, who had disappeared, when he was attacked and murdered by the Gale Force. Fiyero's death affects Elphaba deeply, leaving her struck with grief. She is left haunted by a sense of guilt and failure that eventually drives her to seek out Fiyero's widow and children in the isolated Vinkus castle, Kiamo Ko. Unfortunately for Elphaba, Sarima refuses to even listen to her confession concerning her late husband. Sarima does, however, due to custom, allow Elphaba to stay semi-permanently in the castle with Liir, Elphaba's illegitimate son with Fiyero. Before her accidental death by Dorothy she eventually realizes that Fiyero might not have died, but rather was changed into something else (the Scarecrow). Getting excited knowing that he was headed her way, she eagerly sent out many of her "workers" to pull off the face of the Scarecrow, only to find that he was not Fiyero in disguise after all.
The character was played in original Broadway production by Norbert Leo Butz.
Notable actors besides Butz to play the role include Joey McIntyre, David Ayers, Sebastian Arcelus, Aaron Tveit, Andy Karl, Kristoffer Cusick, Clifton Hall, Richard H. Blake, Adam Garcia, Oliver Tompsett, Lee Mead, Derrick Williams, Adam Lambert, Taye Diggs, and Rob Mills. Upcoming actors include Tim Campbell.
Foreshadow or Prophecy
In the musical, Fiyero's English-language songs contain lyrical allusions to his future transformation into the scarecrow.
- "Dancing through Life" contains the terms and phrases 'brainless', 'knowing nothing', 'thoughtless', 'foolish', and 'mindless and careless'.
- He sings to Elphaba in "As Long as You're Mine" the phrases "Maybe I'm brainless, maybe I'm wise, but you've got me seeing through different eyes. Somehow I've fallen under your spell..."
- Fiyero's dancing has been choreographed to be very long limbed and angular like one of a scarecrow
- In the London production, actor Adam Garcia would strike a pose just before the dancing through life line, "life is fraughtless", in which his upper arms were straight out to his sides, forearms and head dangling down loosely, and legs together, clearly representing a scarecrow mounted on a frame - it is the pose in which Ray Bolger was first seen in 1939's The Wizard of Oz.
- In Act II of the musical, Glinda asks, "Fiyero, have you lost your mind?" when he has made a rather drastic change of action.
References
This article "Fiyero" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Fiyero. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.
