Matilda: The Musical began awkwardly, a child’s birthday party with hurried pacing, off-time dancing, nearly-adequate diction in singing, and strange interspersing of song-and-dance numbers with theatrical events. However, by the curtain’s close, these minor irritations were corrected beautifully—I would have forgotten entirely about them, had I not been paying extremely close attention.
The musical (written by Dennis Kelly) is stationed in the Shubert Theatre and based on the best-selling book Matilda by Roald Dahl, with a deceptively simple premise: Matilda Wormwood (Bailey Ryon) is a prodigy, an avid reader, with cruel parents (Gabriel Ebert and Lesli Margherita) who scorn her mental talents and bully her consistently. Things complicate with the addition of Matilda’s new school, where a terrible headmistress, Agatha Trunchbull (Craig Bierko), terrifies the pupils—and the teachers—into obeying her every order, no matter how irrational. Both the novel and the musical have a strong focus on the idea that bullying is pathetic and that those who are thought of as “insignificant” to those who abuse power will often prevail in the face of great injustice, and a large part of that is illustrated through Matilda’s relationship to her parents and to her headmistress.
Early on in Act I, the collective “aw”s echoed through the audience as little Matilda stood up and matter-of-factly sang that her “mummy and daddy” said awful things about her and called her names. It was hard not to make the same noise when the other children in the opening song were singing that their parents said they were miracles, princesses, princes, soldiers, and ballerinas. Along that line of thought, there was a consistent usage of serious instances of child abuse as humor, and it was a little disturbing when the audience laughed at the verbal, psychological, and at some points, physical abuses. At the same time, the protagonist directly challenges the idea of slapstick humor applied in a situation where the abuser obviously wants to harm the victim with one phrase, consistent throughout the musical: “That’s not right!”
The phrase echoed in my mind while I was watching. While it sounded cliché when Matilda kept repeating that certain offenses committed by adults were unjust, the very fact that the scriptwriter kept having Matilda repeat that one line several times gave a certain grace, elegance, and validity to the musical: Matilda is our genius protagonist who has an impeccable moral code, regardless of if her parents have instilled values into her or not. The very fact that she condemns the behavior of her parents and the terrible Headmistress Trunchbull, who are all basically courtyard bullies, installs a solemnity to the idea of “slapstick” humor.
It didn’t work the whole time, however. The audience continued to laugh at things that, in any other context, would not have been funny in the slightest. At those moments, I found myself stony-faced. However, it makes sense when examined from the perspective of presentation: because most of the characters in the play are presented in a humorous manner, they do not have any form of validity, and as a result, the audience doesn’t take them seriously. It’s obvious that we shouldn’t pay any attention to Mr. Wormwood, Matilda’s father, when he says that “reading is stupid,” but it’s hard not to pay attention to the man (and Mrs. Wormwood, who also participates in the ridicule) when everything he does and says to Matilda hurts her.
One thing the musical did not manage to pull off too well was the incorporation of Matilda’s brother, Michael (Taylor Trensch), who is portrayed as a child with a mental illness in the musical. In the book, Michael is simply rude to Matilda—he doesn’t have a mental illness and it isn’t played for laughs. In the musical, Michael wears a hoodie that says “Genius” and is treated fondly like a pet by his parents most of the time. It almost seemed to be a mockery of children with mental illnesses, presented the way it was, and it was ultimately unnecessary. Likely, there would be some who would make the argument that it was necessary to show what Mr. and Mrs. Wormwood value, but it really wasn’t necessary because the Wormwoods make their values very clear through dialogue throughout the musical. In fact, Michael’s role could have been omitted entirely from the musical, potentially avoiding the causation of offense.
Despite its shortcomings in discreetly tackling the issue of mental illness–an issue that has been hotly debated–Matilda does not fail to inspire great emotion. As Matilda is an excellent storyteller, she begins to tell her local librarian, Mrs. Phelps (Karen Aldridge), a tale about an escapologist (Ben Thompson) and an acrobat (Samantha Sturm), whose lines Matilda narrates dramatically. While she narrates, her characters say the lines in unison with her, standing behind her as if they’re her shadows. At one point, the escapologist grows so enraged that his speech, previously subdued in volume, overtakes tiny Matilda’s voice and the character almost becomes an entity in and of himself. It’s truly an amazing moment when the escapologist’s voice booms through the small theater in such a furious tone—it gave me chills. I was terrified for whoever was the subject of his vengeance, and the audience was enraptured—terrified, but enraptured.
Matilda, at its heart, is a tale of triumph against those forces of evil, the bullies in the courtyard. As the tale grew near its heart, the entirety of the musical became progressively better in quality—musically, theatrically, in terms of dance—and it was so worth sitting through the cringe-worthy beginning. The point of Matilda, regardless of what I have mentioned, is not how well its singers enunciate, not how spot-on the timing is, not how awkwardly it began. The point of Matilda lies in an empowering story about a small girl who stood up to forces that seemed so much bigger and more powerful than she was, and even when she was ready to give up and submit to those forces, she got back up and took vengeance—not just for herself, but for all of those people who could not take care of themselves. In the end, if you’re willing to entertain the actors as they warm up throughout the musical, you will feel every beautiful, wonderful emotion the musical elicits. It’s not perfect, but then again, what is?
