Courtesy of The Croswell Opera Home/Ashlee Sayles and Lad Strayer
Seven years faraway from its first look on the Croswell stage, the creativeness of Roald Dahl comes roaring again to life in “Matilda: The Musical,” a pleasant, charming and spirited reimagining of the beloved kids’s e-book and its much more iconic 1996 movie adaptation.
Among the many seemingly limitless parade of musicals tailored from books and films, “Matilda” stays one of many uncommon examples that truly justifies the transition to the stage. It by no means feels as commercially engineered or dramatically inconsequential as one thing like “Mrs. Doubtfire” or, worse, “Again to the Future.” Dennis Kelly’s e-book and Tim Minchin’s music and lyrics perceive that the attraction of Dahl’s story was by no means merely its recognizable characters or mischievous set items. There’s a real streak of rise up operating by way of it, a celebration of youngsters who refuse to simply accept that the adults controlling their lives should robotically know higher.
That makes “Matilda” particularly fertile floor for the Croswell, which has assembled an array of gifted younger performers to convey this unusual little world to life. Main them is the fierce Alayna Brazzil as Matilda Wormwood, who, at simply 13 years previous, delivers an absolute triumph of a efficiency. She’s surrounded by an organization that understands precisely how a lot camp, eccentricity and managed chaos the fabric requires with out permitting all that theatricality to swallow the guts beneath it.
Main this brigade of “revolting kids” is director Brian Hissong, who has assembled an distinctive artistic group that features choreographer Jodi Hissong and music director Josh Glover, together with Pam Krage’s colourful costumes and Terrence Hissong’s buoyant scenic design. Collectively, they provide this model of “Matilda” its personal distinct aptitude, cultivating a playground that encourages exploration with out shedding sight of the story being advised inside it. That visible playfulness turns into an extension of Matilda herself, a baby who discovers that the qualities making her completely different are exactly those value embracing. Generally, because the music reminds us, it’s important to be just a little “Naughty.”
Most of us know the story. Matilda (Brazzil) is a vibrant, terribly gifted 5-year-old who can devour every thing from “Crime and Punishment” to “The Lord of the Rings” in a single weekend. Sadly, she has been born into the Wormwood family, the place mental curiosity is non-existent. Her dad and mom are so uninterested of their daughter that they persist in treating Matilda because the boy they apparently wished within the first place.
Ashley Fox and Emma Skaggs have a ball as Mr. and Mrs. Wormwood, discovering simply the appropriate combination of posh absurdity and slimy self-absorption. Their performances have sufficient cartoonish edge to suit comfortably inside Dahl’s heightened universe with out turning the Wormwoods into full caricatures. Eli Fox equally will get loads of mileage out of the droll, dim-witted power of their son Michael, whose existence solely additional illustrates the spectacularly warped priorities of this household.
The Wormwoods can’t comprehend why their daughter would reasonably bury herself in books than sit in entrance of the “telly,” however studying is Matilda’s escape from a world decided to underestimate her. That creativeness spills over into the frilly tales she tells native librarian Mrs. Phelps, performed with infectious enthusiasm by a implausible Leigh Jewett, and finally turns into a part of the identical intuition that drives Matilda to guard her classmates.
These classmates desperately want the assistance as soon as the frothing Agatha Trunchbull bulldozes onto the scene with Jeffrey King attacking the function in full drag and by no means lacking a possibility to crank the mustache-twirling villainy as much as eleven.
It will be straightforward for a personality this huge to grow to be exhausting, however King understands the joke and, extra importantly, the rhythm of it. He relishes Trunchbull’s dialogue and physicality, discovering a speedy comedian momentum that retains the character shifting reasonably than merely counting on the costume or spectacle to generate laughs. It is a lady who proudly declares “Kids are Maggots” and appears genuinely offended by the continued existence of anybody beneath the age of 18. King makes her a splendidly grotesque literary monster, the form of villain kids can concern whereas everybody else howls on the sheer ridiculousness of her cruelty.
If Trunchbull represents probably the most exaggerated ugliness of maturity, Becca Nowak’s Miss Honey provides its essential counterweight. Nowak provides the character a delicate heat that gives among the manufacturing’s uncommon pockets of calm, finally turning into Matilda’s biggest advocate within the classroom. There’s a simple camaraderie between Nowak and Brazzil that makes their relationship really feel earned, and people quieter scenes grow to be more and more vital because the manufacturing piles on the chaos round them.
There’s the traditional chocolate-cake sequence, wherein Bruce, splendidly performed by Landon Miller, is pressured to devour an unlimited portion of cake or face the Chokey. There’s Trunchbull sending Amanda Thripp (Norah Stukey) airborne by her pigtails, a chunk of theatrical trickery that the Croswell is greater than geared up to tug off. Mitchell LaRoy will get a scene-stealing flip, Genesis Mutatu is downright lovable as Matilda’s finest pal Lavender, and Nathan Glover practically walks away with each second he will get because the spectacularly ridiculous Rudolpho.
The result’s one thing of a humiliation of riches. This 2026 incarnation of “Matilda: The Musical” hardly ever sits nonetheless, powered by the form of rollicking power that may solely come from a younger ensemble seemingly incapable of operating out of it. The children tumble, leap and hurl themselves across the stage with large confidence, and Jodi Hissong’s choreography properly harnesses that youthful restlessness reasonably than attempting to include it. When the manufacturing reaches “Revolting Kids,” nonetheless an absolute banger of a showstopper, all that pent-up power lastly explodes. It’s the form of quantity that makes you need to arise and be a part of the revolution out of sheer solidarity.
If there’s a downside to all this abundance, it’s that “Matilda” can often grow to be a sufferer of its personal enthusiasm. Kelly and Minchin pack the present with so many characters, narrative detours, heightened performances and densely worded musical numbers that its emotional throughline can briefly get buried beneath the spectacle. The Croswell’s manufacturing throws itself into that maximalism wholeheartedly, typically shifting so rapidly from one eccentricity to a different that the quieter items of Matilda’s story need to battle for respiratory room. However when Hissong permits the manufacturing to settle and deal with the lonely little lady at its heart, the rationale all this insanity issues comes sharply again into view.
Which brings every thing again to Brazzil.
Matilda is a monumental function inside an enormous manufacturing, requiring an unlimited quantity of singing, dancing, comedian timing and emotional dexterity from a younger performer who additionally has to stay the regular heart of a world populated nearly completely by folks behaving like lunatics. Brazzil by no means seems intimidated by the project. There’s a confidence to her stage presence that can’t merely be manufactured, however what makes the efficiency work is that she doesn’t mistake confidence for precociousness. Her Matilda will be intelligent, defiant and mischievous whereas nonetheless feeling unmistakably like a child looking for someplace she belongs.
That distinction is vital as a result of beneath the telekinetic powers, chocolate muffins, flying kids and larger-than-life villains, “Matilda” stays a narrative concerning the second a baby realizes she doesn’t have to simply accept the story different folks have written for her. Being small doesn’t imply being powerless. Being completely different doesn’t imply being improper. Generally altering your circumstances requires being courageous sufficient to misbehave.
Seven years after “Matilda” first introduced its specific model of mischief to the Croswell, the fabric has misplaced none of its magic. With Brazzil main an exuberant firm of younger performers who meet the appreciable calls for of the present head-on, this “Matilda: The Musical” is massive, boisterous and unapologetically peculiar.
MATILDA: THE MUSICAL continues by way of Sunday, August sixteenth at The Croswell Opera Home. You should purchase tickets right here.
