Question about a line in Matilda

[Islander_fan]

Posted: 8/10/14 at 4:12pm

I saw Matilda when it first came to Broadway. I know that they used the word escapologist instead of escape artist. Now, to be honest, I never heard the term escapologist before (and I am sure I wasn't the only one in the audience.) However, I was very quickly able to figure out what they were talking about without issue. However, one thing I did notice was that when I saw it again a couple of weeks ago, they changed escapologist to escape artist. Now, my feeling was that they did this because they thought American audiences might not understand what an escapologist is. But, if that was their line of thinking, why did they not alter the line from the get go rather than doing it later on in the show's run?

[dramamama611]

Posted: 8/10/14 at 4:22pm

They likely didn't realize it wasn't a term used here. No uncommon, even within a single country, terminology is different.

The West Side Story revival, had sections where the characters spoke mostly Spanish. Most American audiences didn't get it. They changed it.

[VotePeron]

Posted: 8/10/14 at 4:58pm

The creative team came to a week of performances last August I believe. Throughout the week they tightened the show and made book changes - there are quite a few minor changes that most people won't recognize. "Escape Artist" was one of those things.

[maxkko]

Posted: 8/10/14 at 5:06pm

Do you happen to know any of the other changes?

[VotePeron]

Posted: 8/10/14 at 5:12pm

Off the top of my head, I know they changed "hurling through the air" to "flying through the air." It's small things like that. I'm very interested to see what new changes come with the New Newtildas. The current Matilda's have been slowly but surely loosing their American-esque accents, so I'm curious to see if the new batch will be 50/50 like this group started out as.