Matilda Tour? — Page 2

I saw the matinee yesterday and "School Song" is still in the show.

I think there are a couple "problems," not exactly with the tour itself, but more with the atmosphere of the Ahmanson and the Ahmanson itself, that changed my view of the show, when I compared it to when I saw it on Broadway in April 2013.

First off, the audience, including myself, was just not as captured/involved by the show on tour, compared to when I saw it on Broadway. Truthfully it was expected for it being a Thursday matinee. BUT literally when I saw it on Broadway after every song there was a roaring applause, but this time on tour it was just muted claps, sometimes no claps, after every song. Secondly, the sound was horrible. Mind you I was sitting in the balcony, but that had never been a problem with me before, the sound in the balcony in the Ahmanson is usually qutie good. But this time the music overpowered the actors, especially Gabby Gutierrez. The loud music made her sound like a whisper. Also, the sound was not as crisp as it was on Broadway, so at times the actors lines became this jumbled mess, an example would be Gabby during her stories, her lines were somtimes incomprehensible, the echo effect did not help. 

However, on the positive side the tour was able to capture some of the magic from Broadway with the sets, the choreo, etc. The tour cast though is giving it their all, despite some sound problems, probably due to the microphone she was given, or something, Gabby Gutierrez was fantastic as Matilda. However, to me, it just wasn't as AMAZING as when I saw it on Broadway the first time. It was missing something, and I am still trying to figure out what it is. I think my expectations were just too high.

Updated On: 6/6/15 at 12:36 AM

The schedule for the girls in New York is not set very far in advance, and not made public. I would imagine that policy will remain on the road.

Yes...I would agree that even though I have seen Matilda numerous times in NY, the sound is still one of the weak components of the show. If you are not sitting close up (or know the dialogue/lyrics in advance), you are just not going to be able to hear some of the show....for any number of reasons...sound level, an echo effect, poor balance of music/dialogue.

I also find too much sound adjustments during the show...for example, someone is singing.... you can't hear them, all of a sudden they are really loud and then a few seconds later - the level is where it should be.

It's too bad that this seems to be carrying forward for the tour. You maybe could have blamed the Shubert Theater in part but not if the same issues are following this new production.

I don't think in any Matilda production anywhere the rotation of the girls is noted in advance. It's officially announced about one hour before curtain...and does not consistently follow a strict pattern.

I saw MATILDA in the West End in 2012, and though I enjoyed it, I never felt the need to revisit it once it came to Broadway. But, with the tour now at the Ahmanson, I decided to take another look last night.

In a word: DIRE. 

Another word: CHEAP.

And a third: UNINTELLIGIBLE.

The boring cardboard sets might be forgivable (although, nowadays, I expect touring productions to provide a physical production that is fairly equivalent to the Broadway or London original). The failure of almost the entire cast of children to enunciate is a far worse problem.

And yes, I do think it's a problem of not properly training the children and not with the sound at the Ahmanson. I've never had issues with the sound there before, and there was absolutely no problem understanding every single one of the adult characters. Whether singing or speaking (or screeching, in the case of Mrs. Wormwood), everything was crystal clear. But I was lucky to understand half the words coming out of many of the children's mouths.

Matilda was fine if she only had a line or two to speak. "I'm a girl!", for example, came out loud & clear. But, given longer stretches of dialogue, her delivery became rushed and her enunciation disappeared entirely. As a result, the Acrobat/Escape Artist story was reduced to incomprehensible gibberish -- which is a serious problem since it ends up being the point of the whole show.

Several of the child actors fared even worse than Matilda -- I barely understood a single word said by her newt-bearing, would-be "best friend" -- with only a few doing better.

And I'm only talking about DIALOGUE here. The choral singing was even worse, with most songs coming out as aural sludge. (I knew we were in for trouble from the first few lyrics of "Miracle" at the start of the show.) I spoke with a friend of mine at intermission, who was sitting several rows away from me in the center orchestra, and he also had the same complaints. If anything, he found it even worse than I did. (I also noticed quite a few vacated seats after intermission. NOT a good sign.)

I really hate to slam something so bad. But if they're going to sell this as "The #1 Show of the Year" and charge prices accordingly, then I think the audience deserves better than this incoherent, cut-rate production. 

Updated On: 6/6/15 at 01:20 PM

"Sorry to hear you had a similar experience... What did you think of Ryness and the other adults? Choreography, etc.? Curious to hear your thoughts on the other performances and pacing."

Well, I saw Bertie Carvel as Trunchbull and Ryness is no match. He's missing some ineffable combination of the monstrous & the ridiculous, the funny-yet-scary. However, for people who have nothing to compare him to, I think he'd be effective enough. He certainly received the most applause at the curtain call. 

Jennifer Blood (Miss Honey), Quinn Mattfeld (Mr. Wormwood), and Ora Jones (Mrs. Phelps) were all very good.  I guess Cassie Silva was also good as Mrs. Wormwood, though I can't stand the character as written.

Pacing seemed awful, but that could be a function of the incomprehensibility of so much of the dialogue & so many of the songs. After all, when you can't understand most of what Matilda is saying in her stories about the Acrobat & the Escape Artist, those scenes go on foreverrrrrrrrrr. You just want them to be over, so you can move on to a scene that you can hopefully understand. (If the next scene is in the school, however, you're probably doomed.)

The first act, especially, seemed to go on & on & on. I think it clocked in at nearly an hour and a half, but don't quote me on that. Maybe it just seemed that long...

I can count on one hand the number of times I've bailed on a show during the break, but I got perilously close on this one.

Added note: I just got off the phone with another friend (an Ahmanson season ticket holder) who saw the show on Thursday. A different Matilda, but all the same problems. And since he wasn't familiar with the music and hadn't seen the show before, he was completely lost for large parts of the plot. He did, however, really enjoy Bryce as Trunchbull.

Updated On: 6/6/15 at 04:07 PM

I am sad that such a great show seems to have a bad touring production in comparison to the Broadway production. I saw Matilda again last Sunday and I was worried that I wouldn't enjoy it as much the second time around. However, I think, with the exception of Trunchbull, (I saw the understudy as Sieber was out), it was even better this time around than the time I saw it more than a year ago. Sad that the tour isn't as good.

The comments on the gold star site have also been mixed . With everyone complaining about the sound and not being able to understand.   

Saw it last night and had been looking forward to this for a long time. I enjoyed it, but didn't leave the theater blown away.

Like most people here, I could barely understand half the words that were being spoken or sung onstage, which is a shame. For when I could actually understand the lyrics, I thought they were quite clever and well written. I saw Gabby Gutierrez as Matilda and even though she was good and likable, her accent was a mess, I could barely make out what she was saying, and by the end of the show she was visibly tired. Same thing goes for the other kids, terrible enunciation whether singing or speaking.

Others on this board had similar complaints about the sound and comprehension when the show started on Broadway. In the course of the conversation, a number of posters who had seen the show in London - I haven't - complained of audibility issues. So it ain't just over here in the good ole US of...

As far as the accents being a mess, the accent for the Matilda's was changed by the producers after the first group of girls to make it more "American." To me, it sounds Irish. Though as no-one in the audience knows any of this, of course they can sound "a mess." Especially as the rest of the cast still have British accents.  

"And people were mad that Kinky Boots won best musical..."

Not really.  It was one against the other with both shows being mediocre at best.  The Kinky tour however is of much higher caliber than the Matilda one.

^THIS! Is actually support this type of change. I think maybe miss trunchbull could keep the accent, because it would make her sound more villainous. And if the producers don't want to get rid of the accents completely they should just teach the kiddos better. Like don't be lazy.

If we're comparing musicals, the accent use is infinitely better in Matilda than in Kinky Boots. I coach accents part time and those in KB were dreadful. Having caught some of the Matilda's over the two years the show has run, I think it's more down to who you see on the day than a steady decline of the quality of the training. 

I am professionally surprised at how good the training of the girls is. It isn't easy to get most adults to use an accent consistently let alone 9 year old girls. 

I just don't understand why they don't cut the accents all together.

I'm curious about this too. Do we know anything about how the producers went about making this decision? (Is it maybe partly because of School Song and its alphabet puns?)