Being at a Broadway show on Opening Night is thrilling. But there's also something to be said about being at a Broadway show the day AFTER Opening Night. A scrappy show with mixed reviews has something to prove and the audience is right there with them -- hey, they already bought their tickets and what do those critics know anyway? (Think Les Miserables.) And a great show with great reviews? The theater staff is smiling, the cast is walking on air and the audience is pleased as punch because they're attending what has suddenly and unquestionably become the hottest ticket in town.
That was the buzz at Matilda the day after it opened. The energy in the audience was palpable even before the show began. And no wonder: walk into the Schubert and the first glimpse of the set by Rob Howell (who also did the costumes) brings a huge grin to your face. It's composed entirely of large wooden, Scrabble-like tiles with letters on them. They arch over the stage and spill out towards the balcony. Seven swings hang down from the rafters, each one with a brightly lit tile that together spells Matilda. After a minute, everyone realizes words are hidden in the jumble of letters ("escapologist," "read" and other show-related phrases) and people spent the rest of the time before the show and during the intermission spotting new ones.
Those tiles continue as building blocks throughout the show: a column of them indicates the home of Matilda's family, a huge jumble of tiles and books make up the local library where she finds refuge and so on. Her father (Gabriel Ebert) keeps referring to Matilda as a boy and only has time for her affably dim-witted brother Michael (Taylor Trensch). Her mother (the wonderfully named Lesli Margherita) resents Matilda because the child's birth prevented her from attending a ballroom competition with her dance instructor Rudolpho (Phillip Spaeth). And they're all horrifed by Matilda's bizarre habit of preferring books over the television.
Matilda takes refuge at the local library where she proves to be much more than just a bookworm. Matilda is a certifiable genius and a five-year-old with a highly developed sense of outrage. Most little children would yell out "That's not fair!" when it's time to go to bed. But Matilda saves her outrage for real injustice, like her father's habit of cheating clients at his car dealership. Matilda is soon pulling pranks to take her dad down a notch (like putting glue on the inside of his hat so it sticks to his head). Her naughty side finds a much more formidable target when Matilda heads to school. First grade teacher Miss Honey (the Shirley Jones-like Lauren Ward) takes an immediate shine to this remarkable pupil. But the headmistress Miss Trunchbull (Bertie Carvell) most decidedly does not. She's a martinet who punishes students left and right, whether they're guilty or not of any infraction.
When the always hungry student Bruce filches a piece of Miss Trunchbull's personal chocolate cake, she goes on the warpath and soon has a student in her sights for a terrible fate. it isn't Bruce, who feels bad but is too afraid to 'fess up. But when he delivers an earth-shaking burp, a purplish cloud of burpy, chocolatey goodness floats around the stage until it hits Trunchbull and she realizes who the real culprit is. Bruce is suddenly facing an entire, massive chocolate cake and Trunchbull orders him to eat every single crumb. Remarkably, he does, to the cheers of all the students. Not to be cheated, Trunchbull then insists he'll be punished even more. "That's not fair!" shouts out Matilda at the end of Act One and the war is on.
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