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| Matilda The Musical |
For children everywhere, there is that struggle to feel wanted. Sometimes it's literal truth, of wanting someone to care for you and respect your desires. Rarely does that feel truer than in Matilda The Musical, where a young bookworm is forced to live in a world that represses her intellectual fantasies in favor of mediocre consumerism. It's what makes the show one of the most delightful, essential new productions of the decade. Not only does it introduce the young audience to the world of theater, but gives them a songbook full of memorable, infectious tunes about finding a balance between being smart and naughty. The results are a colorful mishmash of wonder and antagonism, creating the perfect landscape for a joyful afternoon out at La Mirada Theater for Performing Arts that is sure to keep people of all audiences nodding along in enjoyment.
The show opens with an elaborate opening number called "Miracle," where Halloween is treated as a rationale for children being special. With a choir, predominantly of kids, going through a series of things they have been called (princess, prince, special guy, etc.), there is a sense of exclusion on the horizon. Matilda is not in this crowd. In the progression of the song, she technically hasn't been born yet. As kids yell for more cake and demand love, there is a sense that this show will have some antagonism among its young cast, that Matilda's outsider status will cause a fight among her peers, especially as she blooms from a comical birthing scene where her pregnant mother is disappointed to miss her dance contest. The Wormwoods are a vindictive family, and it feels like Matilda is doomed to be just as such. However, as she emerges from the back of the stage as everyone stands aside, she seems... small. Different, but small. Her mommy didn't say she was a miracle. Her daddy wanted a boy. It's the sense of longing that will run throughout the rest of the show. What the story will eventually suggest is not that she will fight with the kids, but fight for them instead.
The towering set full of sliding bookcases symbolizes a library that Matilda (Audrey Cymone) would be excited to call home. It's where she can tell stories to Mrs. Phelps (Constance Jewell Lopez) and be praised. It's where she can learn to become a better person. Meanwhile, Mr. Wormwood(Josh Adamson) spends a second act number dumping said books into a trashcan. She is desperate for parental approval but finds that the only way to be loved is to act like brother Michael (Erik Hall) and watch telly like a sloth flailed on a couch. The constant arguments and boredom cause her to rebel, which only sets her up for the most enjoyable part of the show: school.
Yes, school is presented as some prison or sanitarium. Students march to their desks in a militaristic fashion. There is a need for maturity, which even that is confused by Mrs. Trunchbull (Michael A. Shepperd): a former Olympian who has no use for literature in the classroom. The only shining star is the teacher, Miss Honey (Nicole Santiago) who fosters Matilda's gift. Still, what makes the classroom scenes the best in the show is how the young actors behave. In small exchanges/asides, they're given a chance to break free of their strictness and smile, laugh, or in one case create one of the greatest burping gags in Broadway history. There's anarchy lying underneath the surface, and it comes when the cast gets to have fun with their roles. It's an infectious plea for emotional bonding with the audience, and it only adds to the wonder of the show.
One of the greatest tools of any Roald Dahl story is the disregarding parent, the antagonist by which the rest of the story must overcome. Trunchbull is that. On top of a physique that is itself striking (Shepper plays her with more upper body mass), she towers over not only the child actors but Miss Honey as well. While they have been cast for their acting capabilities, the size factor makes the show even richer, creating a symbolism for how difficult it is to climb over these towering forces that will throw you by your pigtails if you misbehave. There is a need to beat something that is seen as taller than you, and it comes in the second act when the bullish nature begins to kick in through dodgeball and a melancholic number called "When I Grow Up," where a playground of children (most entering stage via slide) sing about how great life will be when they can have fun, like basic children kind of fun. It's the perfect metaphor for why a child needs to be naughty as well as smart.
It's a show that encourages children to enjoy their creative side, to know what the world is like out there. Even the way that the second act opens in a perfect and disarming version of this. Mr. Wormwood and Michael confront the audience to tell them not to read books before breaking into "All I Know (Telly)." As a whole, Adamson is a delightful folly as Matilda's father, whose British dandy personality makes him feel like the perfect schemer even as Matilda ruins his hair and glues a hat onto his head. It's all in good fun, and the show openly embraces the importance of being smart, even if the world feels like it punishes people for doing so. There are heartwarming allusions placed within the story to capture this better, and only make it feel more essential as a show that not only gets kids into the theater, but also not being ashamed to be smart.
The cast brings this show to life with dazzling sets and musical numbers that prove just how complex a narrative around kids can be. Matilda The Musical is a show that may sound a bit silly on paper, but which gets to the heart of why a child needs to live a three-dimensional life, and why they need someone to validate their interests in the process. Any early assumptions you'll have are likely wrong, as the show isn't about praising vindictive nature, but learning to use it in a productive manner. That's the heart of the show, and luckily it gets everything right as well. As far as shows with a large child cast, this is indeed a miracle of theater, managing to prove that if we stop and listen to them for long enough, their world can be just as exciting and full of wonder as ours. After all, they're still curious and have the ability to go places we can't. We might as well let them.
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