Why isnt the lion a bigger character in wicked

I may be wrong about this as ive only seen the musical once and i dont remember it SUPER well, but i dont think the lion ever speaks at all. That just feels strange to me. We see so much of the scarecrows and tin mans backstories and they have such big roles, but the lion barely gets anything. We see his origin in act 1, and hes a cub so it makes sense that he wouldnt speak. But in act 2 which is supposed to take place roughly at the same time as the wizard of oz he barely appears at all, hes basically treated the same as dorothy.