It’s magical, it’s musical, it’s Matilda, a precocious-plus little girl, disdained by her parents and tortured by her headmistress. Dennis Kelly’s adaptation of Roald Dahl’s (“Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”) popular 1988 novel for children captivates Broadway audiences in a Royal Shakespeare Company production just as it has thrilled London theater-goers. The 2012-2013 musical theater season is finally percolating.
Director Matthew Warchus (God of Carnage) lets fast-paced theatricality and cartoonishly quirky personalities inhabit Dahl’s world of children facing the inequities of life and adults. At the Shubert Theater, Warchus envelopes the Matilda story in a magical staging, but this is magic with a sharp edge; let’s note that Matilda is not for children of all ages. Far from a Crayola circus with bright songs and a parade of the animals, it is a dark arena menaced by a headmistress from hell and Matilda’s contemptuous parents.
But don’t feel sorry for Matilda, played the night I attended by intensely serious Milly Shapiro. Matilda is not the sweetest five-year-old in the neighborhood, and Shapiro (one of four girls alternating the part) is utterly persuasive, focused firmly on her deadpan characterization. She is a wily urchin, ready to pull out all stops to protect herself. With a mischievous bent for revenge, she convinces herself to, “just grin and bear it,” as she pours super-glue in her father’s hat. In a clinch, she can also draw on her telekinetic talents.
Obsessed with reading, Matilda races through “Jane Eyre” and “Crime and Punishment,” but she was born to parents who disdain books and prefer their doltish, telly-addicted son, Michael (Taylor Trensch). Matilda’s flashy, self-involved mother (Lesli Margherita) is an aspiring dancer. Her father (Gabriel Ebert), is an obnoxious used-car salesman. Fortunately, Matilda finds encouragement reading her original stories to librarian, Mrs. Phelps (Karen Aldrich).
The girl is finally sent away to Crunchem Hall headed by principal Agatha Trunchbull. Miss Trunchbull, a sadistic former Olympic hammer thrower, is played by Bertie Carvel with malicious glee, calling the children “maggots” and touting the philosophy – “to teach a child, you must first break him.” Wearing an Olympic sweatshirt and a bun stuck on the back of his head, Carvel’s drag characterization is a frightful sight on many levels and a star turn for Carvel. Coping with all this gives us reason to root for Matilda who gains the support of Miss Honey, a teacher with a heart as sweet as her name. As Miss Honey, Lauren Ward adds the necessary warmth to the story and has a chance to display her lovely soprano voice with an optimistic pop song, “My House.” This irreverent storyline offers the good fortune of a score by Tim Minchin that may not leave you humming but shadows the story with offbeat sensitivity, sharp rhythms and humorously tangled lyrics. Lanky and limber, Ebert is a crowd-pleaser in his delivery of “Telly,” with pure musical-hall style. In Matilda’s rendition of “Quiet,” she reflects on “the sound that you hear what’s in your heart” tuning out the clamor around you. It is a poignant message in the midst of the melee. Rhythmic group segments include the smart lyrics of “The Smell of Rebellion” picked up to double-time, and the finale, a smokin’-hot, “Revolting Children.”
Unfortunately, the sound system by Simon Baker is over-miked and many of the layered lyrics performed by this largely American cast with British accents are incomprehensible. A lyric like, “This headmistress/Finds this foul odifer-ous-ness/Wholly olfactorily insulting,” sung by Miss Trumbull, is too witty to be as muddled as it is here.
In non-stop animation, choreographer Peter Darling (Billy Elliot) swings children over the audience to the lilting, “When I Grow Up” and launches everyone into gymnastics mode. Rob Howell’s costumes are delicious, and his set design is a tumble of “Scrabble” tiles that adjust and readjust into spaces, all fantasized by Hugh Vanstone’s lighting. The theater aisles are busy with cast members racing on and off the stage.
Don’t bring little children, but this free-wheeling theatrical tale with a moral tucked inside, Matilda: The Musical is a winner for young and old.
