The Arts in New York City

  Starring the young but cheeky Bailey Ryon, “Matilda the Musical” is a story that takes audience members back to their childhood years full of simple views of the world, terrifying first days of school, and that aching longing to grow up. However, Matilda Wormwood deviates from the norm of most children; she is a five-year-old bookworm, genius, and master of wit trapped in an unfair world. While most of her peers throughout the play claim – in voices too melodic and innocent to be construed as bratty – that “Mummy says I’m a miracle,” Matilda’s illiterate, television-crazy parents cite her as a reason for “population control.” However, Matilda does not let “a little thing like little stop [her].” In order to cope with her indifferent parents and former Olympic champion headmistress Miss Trunchbull, Matilda plays small tricks (“Sometimes you’ve got to be a little bit naughty!”), gets lost in books, and even develops super powers along the way. The library is her only escape, where she borrows advanced novels such as Crime and Punishment and creates captivating stories of her own, including exaggerations about her own life; for example, she tells the librarian the heartbreaking lie that her parents tell her they are “so proud of [her]…[she is] like winning the lottery.” One would expect this to be a musical for children and, indeed, many young ones littered the audience. However, due to the musical being two and a half hours, they could be heard rustling around impatiently, and some of the subject material contained very adult themes, murder being only one example. I found the musical to be a mix of appeals to the two audiences, the surface plot and effects giving children an easier view of the play, and the deeper themes and innuendos forming a different story for adults and parents.

The musical’s design is beautifully done, captivating the audience before the show even begins with its colorful air display. Set designer Rob Howell outdid himself here. An explosion of block letters containing the words “joy,” “beautiful,” “phenome,” and “child”, borders the stage. Much of the on-stage performance relies on words to establish setting; block letters are spaced throughout the scenes of the library shelves commanding “shush” and “silence,” in addition to a clock with the letters of “time” spaced around its face. A black sheet displaying the word “soot” replaces the fire in Matilda’s fireplace, and Matilda’s laughably stupid brother named Michael wears a sweatshirt reading “genius.” The most strategic use of letters and words is done in a scene which depicts the previously mentioned “miracle” children arriving at the school gates on their first day. Red lights and a long prison-cell-shaped shadow cast on the floor tells the audience that it is going to be a hellish experience.  Older students recite, through song, mythical horror stories of the evil Miss Trunchbull. As the stories unfold, glowing block letters of the alphabet are pushed in order through the open holes of the gates, and as each one is pushed out the older children emphasize that letter in a word of the song. All this is done while actors jump and climb the iron of the gates from letter to letter, furthering the imagery of prisoners in a cell. This was extremely creative, emphasizing the recurring theme of small letters (and people) forming big stories.

Craig Bierko plays the role of Miss Trunchbull. Though this gender-defying role could have been used merely to make a social statement, it effectively depicted Trunchbull’s true masculine character as the original author, Roald Dahl, intended. She was starkly contrasted to the fragile Miss Honey, who counters Miss Trunchbull’s animalistic view on rules and regulations with emotion and sympathy. Miss Honey, Matilda’s sweet and bookish schoolteacher always adorned in modest floral print dresses, is overcoming her own battle to stand up for herself. While Miss Trunchbull dreamily, yet cruelly, imagines a “perfect” world with no children, Miss Honey is inspired by Matilda to help this “miracle” and “joy” of a child (relating back to the words set up above the set), no matter what it takes.

The theme of letters and words was taken to the next level as some parts of the musical’s plot were told through narration rather than acted out. For example, Matilda tells the overenthusiastic and slightly wacky librarian, played by Karen Aldridge, a heartbreaking story of a child whose loving parents were tricked and killed off by an evil aunt. Matilda later finds out that she didn’t make this story up (it’s a superpower thing), but that it is the life story of Miss Honey, whose aunt is none other than the formidable Miss Trunchbull. Matilda’s storytelling  scenes consists of the spotlight going dim on her and the light turning to the rest of the stage where the story is acted out behind her. This is accompanied by background music and noises, and character’s voices that overlap Matilda’s during dialogue. This shows how a story can transcend beyond words and come to life. The story was picked up every time Matilda made a visit to the library. I was on the edge of my seat each time the story was continued, waiting to find out what happened next in this small subplot; however, Matilda would suddenly stop at the worst possible time. The librarian would have a small panic attack about the cliffhanger, receiving many understanding laughs and frustrated groans from the audience. Matilda’s telling of the story ended with the fact that the young girl was left in the hands of her horrible aunt; however, once it is found out that the story is real, it intertwines with the bigger picture and is carried on to a happy ending as Matilda uses her superpowers to pretend to be Miss Honey’s father’s ghost, drives Miss Trunchbull out of town, and is adopted by the sweet schoolteacher.

“Matilda” centers heavily around the idea of children coping with the realization that life is not fair. These children are thrust into the real world, where their parents cannot protect them, a terrifying experience to which that many of us, young and old, can relate. The most striking number that stayed with me days after I attended Matilda was Tim Minchin’s “When I Grow Up,” performed on several dangling swing sets. The “miracle” schoolchildren, each with their own unique personality to define them despite the similarity of their gray uniforms, wistfully sing about waking up late, watching cartoons, lying in the sun, and eating candy all day when they’re taller and grown up. They jump onto the swings with their bodies flat, soaring forward with outstretched arms as if to grasp that future. The children’s sweet, simple voices echoed the dreams of the younger viewers, while bringing the older audience back to a nostalgic place where the future was full of possibility. However, soon Miss Honey sits on a swing and continues the song, revealing that sometimes we grow up and don’t become invincible, or even have ourselves figured out. Matilda then arrives and sings the chorus of an earlier solo, saying that you do not have to just accept the unfair things in life, but can and must do something about them. Indeed, the play itself does not end on a dark note: though the kids are only “revolting children” according to the grown-ups, they perform a play on words by “revolting.” They stand on their school desks in the final scene, once Miss Trunchbull is thrown out of town, and find their freedom, shouting “We are revolting children!” Soloists belt out soulfully strong notes while rhythmically clapping their hands and pumping their fists in the air to form a defiant beat that encourages the audience’s participation.

The musical is a bit modernized with its heavy involvement of Russians, a hot topic in America these days. This element and plot twist was not in either the original book by Roald Dahl or 1996 movie. Matilda’s father works for a car business where he scams people for a living. His subjects at this particular time are Russians, and all throughout the play subtle comments mock both the people and their language. The loud Mrs. Wormwood, accurately dressed in a gaudy outfit complete with neon pink fishnet stockings, at one point screams that she saw on the “telly” once that Russians are nocturnal. It turns out that Mr. Wormwood has been trying to fool not your ordinary Ruskies, but the Russian mob, the leader of which gives Matilda the option to punish her father Russian mafia style, as he is impressed by her intellect and knowledge of his language (which she learned in order to read the original versions of Dostoevsky novels). In a great act of kindness that accentuates her spunky yet kind character, Matilda says no, because Mr. Wormwood is her father, although he is “very stupid.” One could hear the collective sigh of parents who didn’t have to deal with covering their children’s eyes from a murder scene. Many of the jokes in this scene were plays on words in the Russian language. The mob leader says “Matilda,” and his cronies, hearing the “da” sound – which means “yes” in Russian – jump up to kill Mr. Wormwood. Things like this tend to go over the heads of the children this show supposedly targets, but creates a hysterical addition for the adults!

Overall, “Matilda the Musical” appeals to and can be understood by all ages, and I believe it should be advertised as so. Though there were simpler aspects appealing to children such as green “lasers” shooting out across the air of the theater, balloons, and trampolines, there were also much deeper and somewhat darker connections, messages, and jokes that could teach even a college student a lesson or two. It
was, indeed, a miracle.