You’ve got to highlight what you’ve got! Even if what you’ve got is not a lot! You’ve got to be LOUD! And they are definitely loud! Loud with their lighting, loud with their costumes, and loud with their singing! Who’s being loud? Scottfield Theatre Company with their current production of Matilda. And even if what they’ve got is not a lot (of stage space) they don’t let a little thing like little stop them! Roald Dahl would be proud that their Matilda is living up to its literary darkness and panto-skewed roots. Directed by Lauren Spencer-Harris with Musical Direction by Benny Griese and Choreography by Beck Titelman, this show ticks all the boxes— good time at the theatre, energetic evening out, and just a little bit naughty!
When you’re working with limited stage space you’ve got to think outside the box. And Director Lauren Spencer-Harris, who doubles up as the show’s Scenic Designer alongside Dan Morelli, thinks outside the box, outside the book, outside of it all. The ‘scrim’ across the stage’s back wall is comprised completely of book pages (there’s one moment during “Quiet” where you can see this in its glorious entirety but the rest of the time it looks like crinkly crepe paper) and the sides of the stage are flanked with alphabet blocks stacked up with books. (The letters in the two side columns have a hidden meaning, can you spell it out?) But the most impressive feature of Spencer-Harris and Morelli’s set are the bigger alphabet-blocks. Not because you expect them during “School Song” (and that’s ironically the one place where they don’t get used) but because they are literally used to spell out the set. When the scene shifts into the Wormwood living room, the ensemble shift four of the blocks together and literally spell out ‘S-O-F-A’. Same with Matilda’s bedroom, where three blocks become her ‘B-E-D’. And when Ms. Honey sings her first solo, “Pathetic”, you guessed it, the blocks line up across the back of the stage and spell that out too. If there’s one minor missed opportunity or two with these versatile blocks is the chance to spell out ‘S-H-E-D’ when Miss Honey and Matilda are in her tiny shed (since the blocks are there creating a double-stacked wall of sorts) and perhaps “L-I-B-R-A-R-Y” whenever Matilda is there. Otherwise this is an astute and very clever way of handling the limited stage space. The letter-blocks double up as the desks/chairs for the students in the classroom and generally get shunted out of the way whenever larger choreographed numbers overtake the stage.
The show’s lighting, conceived by Patrick Yarrington, is LOUD. Rainbow bright and very, very loud. You get all sorts of colors happening in this show (Yarrington must be inhaling the vapors of a nearby production of Joseph…) but it’s totally spot on and really works with all of the things happening on stage, particularly when they’re blinking in time with the music. One of the most striking moments of Yarrington’s lighting design comes during “Quiet.” Yarrington employees the use of black-and-white-shadow play, where the cues he designs creates this shadowy atmosphere, almost like a black-and-white film happening in the background while Matilda sings in the foreground. It’s very striking. Yarrington also works with Lily Morelli to do some projection design for the production. This involves feeding images of the cast members into four fixed “photo frames” that get brought onto the stage during “When I Grow Up” and it’s a very nostalgic and touching moment.
The photo-frames featuring real pictures of the cast members when they were infants and toddlers is just one of the creative treasures that Director Lauren Spencer-Harris has crafted to make this production unique. Instead of huge swings and slides (that would never fit on the stage in question) Spencer-Harris transforms this song to be reflective and nostalgic with her use of the projection pictures. The same can be said for the dancing parade of TV-icon-characters that make their way onto the stage during “All I Know”, which is a song about ‘telly.’ You get a dancing, link-armed line of Urkel, Rainbow Brite, Sofia from The Golden Girls, and quite a few iconic others. It’s a really clever way to make that moment shine. Spencer-Harris makes it rain pages from the sky when Matilda goes to execute her ultimate magic— having the kids gather up the pages and read the threatening message to the Trunchbull (instead of the traditional ‘magical-chalk-on-the-blackboard’) and the effect is quite impressive. Lots of little low-key magical substitutes work their way into this production and the production still zings with that theatrical electricity that one expects from a production like Matilda.
Musically the production is wild. (Sound Designer Scott Harclerode has some issues keeping the music tracks from overbearing the kids once or twice during the production but for the most part the microphone system is surprisingly in-balance, a rarity for the Opera House Sound System on the whole.) Musical Director Benny Griese has worked some musical magic to make just five ‘big kids’ sound like a whole school’s worth of children chanting and singing at the younger kids, full-on ready to terrify them during “School Song.” And the opening number, “Miracle”— which again features some of Spencer-Harris’ clever ingenuity as ‘families’ are frozen in portrait frames as if to imply in pictures anyone can be the perfect happy family— is well blended and balanced. This number in particular (alongside “Revolting” and “Bruce” are a series of ‘sing-overs’ where there are lots of musical parts, different lyrics, lines, and chords going all at once) is one of the more vexing and complicated in Tim Minchin’s score but Griese gets a good handle on it so that it doesn’t just become a jumble of words and music notes.
The chaos of choreographed movements, particularly in “Miracle” is really enthralling. Becky Titelman keeps the performers moving all throughout the production, utilizing featured dancers during “Loud” (a great place to showcase some of what the ensemble can really do when it comes to fancy rhythmic movements.) There’s also a great deal of stomping and bouncing for “Revolting Children”, as expected— the song is literally about the children overthrowing the evil Trunchbull. And the calisthenics featured during “The Smell of Rebellion” look exhausting, which really drives home the message of that number. There’s an unexpected moment of awe-spiring, breathtaking beauty that happens in the show’s choreography too. Charlotte Evans, the young actress playing Lavender, has choreographed a full, interpretive ballet that she performs solo (somewhat in the background? The staging of both Matilda and Miss Honey for this number could have been different in a way that allowed the focus to be on the sensational Miss Evans just a bit more but it’s easy to understand how Spencer-Harris wanted some of the focus to remain on the performer actually singing the song) during “My House.” Evans is an exceptional dancer and showcases a level of professional talent in this number that even if it seems to comes out of nowhere (having seen Matilda numerous times now, I’ve never encountered a memory-inspired, interpretive ballet anywhere in the production let alone at this moment) really fits the beauty of the musical number and is phenomenal showcase of what she can do as a dancer (because the character she’s bringing to life is a spoiled-rotten, tantrum-throwing prat!)
The ensemble works tirelessly to maintain the energy that charges this show from start to finish. While it isn’t a high-octane roll-around like Hairspray or The Prom, there’s this pendulous momentum that once its set in motion just keeps swinging, harder and faster right until you reach the show’s conclusion and a great deal of that is rolling on the ensemble. Brett Conway, Ava Gonzalez, Emily John, Lillian Morelli, and Haley Neal make up the ‘Big Kids’ who are featured in “School Song” as the terrorizing forces that drive that number home for the ‘incoming young students’ of Crunchem Hall. In addition to those five, Derek Cooper, Sam Jednorski, and Liz Marion join the ensemble (though all three of those additions double-up as titled-cameo style characters.) Noteworthy performers are coming from Brett Conway for miles— he shows up first at the ‘photographer’ in the opening number, is arguably one of the more bully-riffic kids among the ‘big kids’ and he even shows up late in the show as Sergei (in this production the leader of the Bulgarian Mafia…the original Broadway and West End production featured them as members of the Russian Mafia.) He’s hilarious, with great timing and great expressions, keep your eye on him.
Another performer to keep your eyes on is Sam Jednorski. While she plays The Acrobat, which actually gives you a chance to hear her lovely voice during some moments of “The Acrobat’s Tale”, you get to see her play a whole host of other quirky characters (including Wonder Woman during the TV-character-montage) but her most hilarious is as ‘the nurse’ during the secondary scene where Mrs. Wormwood discovers she’s pregnant. Watch all of Jednorski’s antics and shenanigans as she helps delivery Baby Matilda; it’s wild. Jednorski also gets to showcase her dancing capabilities as the Acrobat, twirling and spinning whenever Matilda is telling her tale. Partnered up against the comedically incomparable Derek Cooper, who plays the Escapologist, and Rudolpho among other ensemble bits, Jednorski has lovely moments just standing on stage as one half of this fictitious duo too.
Derek Cooper will have you bust a gut. He’s arguably one of the funniest things in this production of Matilda, and that’s a tall order considering how many laughable moments there are that truly tickle the funny bone, particularly if you have a dark sense of humor. He plays a strait-laced Escapologist with a really wonderous voice, particularly when singing any part of his tale. But when he’s playing Rudolpho, good grief hold onto your gut because you might just bust it laughing at him. Flamboyant, outrageous, and hysterical, you get a mine of comic gold when it comes to Cooper in this role. And keep your eyes for him in the opening number, “Miracle”, where he’s one of the ‘perfect parents in portrait’ and all of the shenanigans between him and Charlotte Evans, his perfect little ‘miracle daughter’ the nonsense between the two of them is hilarious.
Liz Marion is among those playing up the panto-origins of Roald Dahl’s Matilda. Screaming and shrieking her head off, doing a cross-stage-wailing-flee for comic effect in the role of Mrs. Phelps, Marion adapts to playing the librarian with ease. Marion also doubles up as the Doctor during the ‘birthing’ scene and you get a good sampling of her more-than-capable voice there too. The campy, over-the-top nature that she imbues to the Mrs. Phelps characters adds some comic relief to the dark and twisty tale that Matilda is telling, which helps keeps a balance to this ominous story. And her outfits are on-brand for the show as a whole: loud. (Shout out to the costume coordinators involved with the production— Shannon and Rebecca Ragan.)
As for the children in Miss Honey’s class— Maxton Folmer as Bruce, Charlotte Evans as Lavender, Olivia Huth as Amanda, Kyle Perry as Nigel, Zoe Stoltzfus as Erica, London Blankenship as Alice, Ellie Lyons as Hortensia— they really give it their energetic all during “Revolting Children” and the scene that leads up to that bombastic number. Folmer as Bruce in particular does a lot of great bellowing and gets that number under way in addition to showing up fully triumphant with a face full of cake during his eponymous number. Kyle Perry, who plays Nigel, has an astonishingly loud voice, particularly when running in fleeing from the Trunchbull, but the best part about Perry being on stage is when he’s playing a mini–Bulgarian Gangster near the show’s conclusion. It’s hilarious watching him “rough-up” Mr. Wormwood, who is easily three times his size! And you simply won’t be able to take your eyes off of the shrieking, tantrum-throwing, stomp-busting Charlotte Evans as Lavender. She grabs your attention during “Miracle” and you’re waiting for her to break the stage the way she furiously jumps down and throws her whole body into that tantrum. She’s a hoot! And while he’s not exactly in Matilda’s class, Ethan Folmer does play Matilda’s older brother. Who gets about two words in this production— “Backwards!” and “Telly!” which he shouts frequently and has the audience chuckling at his antics as well.
As for the Wormwoods, Mr. and Mrs. are in a competition for who is the more revolting specimen. (Nobody remembers Danny DeVito and Rhea Pearlman, but Adam Biemiller and Tammy Oppel have hints of those iconic ‘role-originators’ in their performances as well.) You’ve got Tammy Oppel as Mrs. Wormword and her accent is spot-on (actually most people in this production maintain and sustain a convincing British sound while both talking and speaking but Oppel and Biemiller get extra kudos because they’ve got the cockney-working-class thing going for them in spades.) but she’s over-the-top eccentrically a riot. Screaming and barking at Matilda and Mr. Wormwood and then belting it out during “Loud” whilst dancing with Rudolpho, Oppel is nailing the role and will have everyone rolling in the aisles with her outrageous body language and accent. Biemiller is the epitome of a sleazy, weaselly, slimy cheat. A total creep! And he balances that with the comedy that’s written into the role. You get a nice patter-sing-song rendition of “All I Learned” at the top of the show and Biemiller’s fourth-wall breaking interaction is really engaging and humorous.
Sweet and syrupy and hardly pathetic, Jordan Burch has all the maternal nurturing one could hope for in her portrayal of Miss Honey. There are even moments when you can see Burch starting to break out— like she’s almost discovered the character’s backbone— and it’s refreshing to see the character have those moments of ‘almost-spine.’ Burch has a voice that is well suited for the songs that Miss Honey sings, though at times you can really hear that energetic belt desperate to push its way through, which again gives life to that more-courageous-less-pathetic person that Miss Honey wants to be. When she sings “This Little Girl” you can hear genuine concern in her voice. And the way she worries through “Pathetic” is anything but the song’s namesake.
Adam Kurek is slaying it as Agatha Trunchbull. Really digging into the grit of the revolting character, Kurek drives the character to be as Roald Dahl intended— the stuff of nightmares. But there’s also that comic edge to Kurek’s performance, though you only get glimpses of it— like when his high-jumps have his knees practically at the ceiling when he’s fleeing screaming ‘newt in my knickers’. The overriding ferocity with which Kurek imbues Agatha Trunchbull is excellent; she terrifies the children, even Matilda has a moment where she shrinks back from Trunchbull. And you get a really impressively smooth vocal sound from Kurek when singing “The Hammer”, which is the more humorous of his two solo features. “The Smell of Rebellion” showcases Kurek’s jazzier slide-vocals and really puts all that extra villainy in focus for everyone to enjoy.
This little girl— Sophia Libertini— is precocious and precious all in one as the titular character of this musical. Vocals she’s got in spades and plucky character she’s got for miles. But the sense of presence on stage, the balance of knowing when to play up a moment verses when to respond and react, even with silence or quiet expressions, is what sets her apart. Libertini is bringing her own forceful energy to the character of Matilda and it fits perfectly into this clever and creative production that Lauren Spencer-Harris and Scottfield Theatre Company has set down. Her storytelling voice is engaging and enthralling— I’ve heard that acrobat story a dozen times and I still found myself hanging on her every word. It’s like hearing it for the first time when Libertini tells it. “Naughty” is such a fun song and Libertini makes sure the audience feels it, her indefatigable energy and exuberance in shouting out the injustices of her world really carry strongly in this number. And you get a real treat with her performance of “Quiet”, where Libertini gets to showcase her vocal versatility and more than capable range.
Even when you’re little you can do a lot and Scottfield Theatre Company doesn’t let a little thing like little stop them— they’re proudly putting on Matilda and doing an impressive job with it. Don’t write your story— without a set of tickets to their production of Matilda— or we’ll all call you revolting!
Running Time: Approximately 2 hours and 40 minutes with one intermission
Matilda plays through August 20th 2023 with Scottfield Theatre Company currently in residence at the Cultural Center at The Havre de Grace Opera House— 121 N. Union Street in historic downtown Havre de Grace, MD. For tickets call the box office at 667-225-8433 or purchase them online.
