What a ride! This one was nothing short of magical! It was theatre as I believe it should be—accessible, fun, interactive, beautiful, and moral without being preachy. The actor Marc knows absolutely killed it with the two personas, and he just seemed so deeply comfortable on that stage. The leading lady played young without playing stupid or fetishizing herself by focusing her Matilda on real intentions truthfully pursued through the methods available in the world. She just happened to live in a world where she had an audience she could ask for help and birds she could fly away on.
I have to touch on the technical elements here-oh my lord! I have every intention of stealing the effect of the stars—they hung a net with LED lights on a dark stage, and it gave the impression that Matilda was in a completely different world. Because the LEDs were in a net and not just on the back wall, Matilda seemed to be walking among the stars instead of looking up at them. I was also enchanted by the lights inside the ring master esc. character’s umbrella. It was just a couple of light up rods inside an umbrella, but it made it look like the character was glowing in the dark. The simplest technical elements were the ones that I fell in love with the most, because they didn’t feel like technical feats. They felt like straight up magic.
I also need to give a shout out to the moment where a bird flew over the audience. It was just a remote control cut out of a bird with Matilda on top of it circling the top of the theatre, but it made me feel like I was five years old again! Something about taking an element off the stage that “shouldn’t” be able to leave the stage just thrilled me. It was made even more effective by the fact that they didn’t try to hide that it was an effect—we all knew that the actress wasn’t flying above us, and she even appeared onstage with the cutout of herself at the end. But we didn’t care. A strong enough world had been created that the audience as a whole made the active decision to play along with the magic of the effects. The unity in deciding to suspend reality and give in to joy made the show magical for adults as well as children, because we could feel the power of the unity the same way the kids felt the power of the story.
I have to touch on the technical elements here-oh my lord! I have every intention of stealing the effect of the stars—they hung a net with LED lights on a dark stage, and it gave the impression that Matilda was in a completely different world. Because the LEDs were in a net and not just on the back wall, Matilda seemed to be walking among the stars instead of looking up at them. I was also enchanted by the lights inside the ring master esc. character’s umbrella. It was just a couple of light up rods inside an umbrella, but it made it look like the character was glowing in the dark. The simplest technical elements were the ones that I fell in love with the most, because they didn’t feel like technical feats. They felt like straight up magic.
I also need to give a shout out to the moment where a bird flew over the audience. It was just a remote control cut out of a bird with Matilda on top of it circling the top of the theatre, but it made me feel like I was five years old again! Something about taking an element off the stage that “shouldn’t” be able to leave the stage just thrilled me. It was made even more effective by the fact that they didn’t try to hide that it was an effect—we all knew that the actress wasn’t flying above us, and she even appeared onstage with the cutout of herself at the end. But we didn’t care. A strong enough world had been created that the audience as a whole made the active decision to play along with the magic of the effects. The unity in deciding to suspend reality and give in to joy made the show magical for adults as well as children, because we could feel the power of the unity the same way the kids felt the power of the story.
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