Hamilton Theatre Inc.’s production of Matilda is a joyous, edgy triumph
HTI’s production pivots on the towering performance of Ruby Tavares in the title role
It soars on the performance of Ruby Tavares in the title role.
If you’re at all familiar with the story of Matilda, you know she has — not to give anything away — special powers.
But not even Matilda could do what young Ruby Tavares does in this show — levitate a whole theatre on the sheer strength of her will and talent and spin it around on her finger.
Tavares, in the title role, is absolutely scintillating, from the moment she materializes on the stage, book in hand, weighed down yet unvanquishable, right to the final scenes, where she runs through a rainbow of change, from courage to forgiveness to a crossroads decision, all in the space of a few moments.
It’s not just Tavares’s exceptionally expressive face and eyes, it’s her voice, both in song and dialogue, in full and convincing command of an English accent, it’s her dancing and movement and it’s her unfaltering comfort with complexity of character.
If you’re not familiar with “Matilda,” by
Roald Dahl, it’s a study of what happens to people, especially to children, when they’re bullied, mistreated, misunderstood, devalued. It manages to be fun while looking pain in the face, allowing it to complicate our enjoyment, so that real issues aren’t complacently fluffed over. Matilda is born to parents who don’t want her. Her father, Mr. Wormwood, can’t seem to remember she’s a girl. Her mother hates that she reads.
She’s put in a school, Crunchem Elementary, run by a sadistic tyrant, Agatha Trunchbull. It’d be impossibly bleak except for Matilda’s prodigious gifts and — this is critical — the presence of just one person, Miss Honey, who appreciates her.
The difficulty with a performance as strong as Tavares’s is that it can throw off a production’s balance. But not here. There are so many other complementary strengths, the most important of which, I think, is Chantal Furtado as Miss Honey.
Her soaring singing voice is one of the pillars of the show, and Furtado uses it in league with her touching vulnerability and tentativeness as Miss Honey to mesh with Matilda’s wounded ferocity.
Together, with Matilda’s classmates, they slowly develop a bulwark of strength against the crushing power of the adult world, so ably represented, at once malevolent and comical, by Mr. and Mrs. Wormwood and by Miss Trunchbull.
Tristan Theberge, as Miss Trunchbull, is inspired. He (yes, it’s a man playing Miss Trunchbull), is a commanding physical presence with a face and voice full of personality, specific enough to raise the character beyond the cartoonish.
Ed Canning plays it to the comic hilt as Mr. Wormwood, Matilda’s father, more oblivious and self-absorbed than evil but SO much so that the results are, functionally, evil.
Canning, like Theberge, finds that fine vein between tension and laughter.
Nadia Mattar as Mrs. Wormwood radiates a very watchable physical energy and has some winning turns with Rudolpho, her dance partner, played by Luis Paredes.
Some of the best set spots in this ambitiously well put-together show are from the young actors, especially Jude Henderson as Bruce. There’s also Molly Pickles as Lavender; Giselle Magie and Philip Maldonado as the acrobat and escapologist; Zachary Giardine as Nigel and Sloane Threscher as Michael. And, of course, the ensemble dancing and singing.
The action and variable scenery are too big for this stage, barring a miracle of creativity, but director Dustin Jodway and his team provide that miracle, breaking the fourth wall a bit and using great economy of space and movement to fit everything in without it seeming cramped.
A splendid effort and joy to watch, with enough discomfort and thematic sophistication to give it edge.