Review - The Big Knife & Matilda

Theatre writers who were lured to that other coast by Hollywood greenbacks have been known to express their disillusionment with the film industry via the Broadway stage. George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart based their comedy Once In A Lifetime on their maddening movie studio experiences as did Betty Comden and Adolph Green with the musical Fade Out - Fade In.

But Clifford Odets' more lethal contribution to the genre was the tense and colorful 1948 drama The Big Knife. Group Theater veteran John Garfield starred in the original Broadway production which hit the screen in a film noir adaptation penned by James Poe.

The play returns to its old-school theatrical roots in a terrific new staging by Doug Hughes that features a strong ensemble pumping hearty blood into familiar archetypes favored with delectably hard-boiled dialogue. ("A woman with six martinis can ruin a city.")

John Lee Beatty's dazzling set depicts the sunny "playroom" (that's where the bar is) of the spacious Beverly Hills home of B-movie idol Charlie Castle (Bobby Cannavale) with an upstage wall made up of glass and frame from floor to ceiling, suggesting the occupant's fame equates him to a caged animal in a zoo with his personal life regularly on display for the public's entertainment.

Charlie is a former New York actor who became rich and famous showing off his sexy looks and screen charisma in a parade of schlocky Hollywood dramas. His agent, Nat (Chip Zien as a loveable Jewish show-biz type), is advising him to take a contract extension being offered which would lock his career up with the studio for the next 14 years but Charlie wants the freedom to choose better projects to work on and his wife, Marion (Marin Ireland) is sick of the industry and wants to move back east, with him or without him.

The acerbic and intellectuAl Marion, who has already left Charlie twice but, like his fans, can't resist his masculine charm and physique, is a fine fit for the versatile Ireland who layers the character's outer coolness with frustration at herself for wishing for a commitment she knows she'll never get. Indeed, Cannavale's Charlie can lay on the charisma at will, as he does with an opening scene dancing around a gossip columnist's (Brenda Wehle) queries, but despite all his advantages, the part of him that needs artistic fulfillment feels trapped by an arrangement once made by studio head Marcus Hoff (Richard Kind) to protect his star's career from being ruined by his involvement in a tragic accident. Information about exactly what happened, who was involved and who knows anything about it is fed to the audience gradually.

Kind has only two scenes in the play, but his excellent portrayal of a bullying boss who acts the nice guy, but can quickly make his power felt by explosive outbursts of anger, is a memorable highlight. "It's nothing against you personally, you understand," he calmly explains while potentially ruining someone's life, "but I'm beholden to my stockholders."

Complications pop in and out throughout the play, by way of Ana Reeder as the frisky wife of Charlie's unusually devoted publicist (Joey Slotnick), Rachel Brosnahan as an actress who was contracted as a bit player in exchange for keeping her mouth shut, Reg Rogers as Hoff's slick hatchet man and C.J. Wilson as the playwright who wants to marry Marion and take her back to New York.

Don't expect a Hollywood happy ending, just some crackling and satisfying dramatics.

Photos by Joan Marcus: Top: Marin Ireland and Bobby Cannavale; Bottom: Chip Zien, Bobby Cannavale, Richard Kind and Reg Rogers.

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I imagine director Matthew Warchus is going for something a bit Brechtian in his cold, emotionally alienating production of Dennis Kelly (book) and Tim Minchin's (score) musical rendering of Roald Dahl's darkly comical children's novel, Matilda, although there is a blustery gust of Marc Blitzstein idealism in the story of an intellectually gifted, vengeful 5-year-old who inspires a children's revolution to overthrow a tyrannical schoolmaster. Both seem like reasonable interpretive choices for this British transfer, but any hope of empathy or, heaven forbid, charm, is buried under the rubble of a bombastic production that seems anxious to divert attention from the fact that, for a show that supposedly celebrates the joys of good storytelling, there's barely a plot to fill up the two and a half hours plus.

The four very young ladies who alternate in the role of Matilda Wormwood, a quiet and reserved child whose spends her days reading classic literature and learning foreign languages, are all actually about twice the age of the character they portray, as are the young actors cast as her classmates. While the other neighborhood kids are all over-praised as little princesses and creative prodigies by their parents, Matilda's mom and pop, a shifty car salesman and a ballroom dancing fanatic (Gabriel Ebert and Lesli Margherita), openly treat her as an unwanted inconvenience, preferring the sloth-like existence of their son, Michael (Taylor Trensch). In return, Matilda uses her brilliance to concoct nasty bits of revenge. The only adults who encourage her intellectual growth are librarian Mrs. Phelps (Karen Aldridge), an attentive ear for her stories, and her earnestly sweet teacher, Miss Honey (Lauren Ward), who hides a sad past from her brood.

Dark-haired Oona Laurence, who I saw in the title role, gives the appearance of a serious-minded, stony-faced grownup in her school uniform, like a child who has been emotionally abused for so long that any adult wanting to show affection must work hard to earn her trust. This works well for the character, most notably in her reaction when Miss Honey offers to give her special attention in class; a show of appreciation distinctly lacking in warmth. Unfortunately, Warchus has staged her musical moments with so many artificial gestures and movements she appears as a mechanical doll going through her paces with little motivation beyond performing her assigned tasks.

This same technique works better when the children perform the busy patterns of Peter Darling's choreography, but Minchin's dense concentration of lyrics coming through the theatre's sound system from their young, accented voices were mostly unintelligible from my center orchestra seat. The same problem existed, though to a lesser degree, with the adult voices, making it difficult to comment on the composer/lyricist's work. (My guest, who has far more experience listening to British accents on stage than I, had the same problem, as did several playgoers seated near us and a colleague seated several rows down.)

Very clear, and also very amusing, was Ebert's second act opener, a music hall style number praising the educational value of television over books. The bad guys in the piece are all performed as eccentric cartoons, with the lanky Ebert all jaunty limbs and Margherita screeching her self-centeredness.

The sadistic headmistress, Miss Trunchbull, described as a former hammer-throwing champ, is played in drag by Bertie Carvel in a getup by set and costume designer Rob Howell that makes him resemble a harsh caricature of female athletes. (Think of those Eastern European women competitors who were accused of taking illegal hormonal treatments.) He lumbers about stiffly (aside from a random somersault) in a performance oddly lacking in personality, making his bland menace neither a palatable threat nor source of comedy.

The second act spotlights the work of illusion designer Paul Kieve as we suddenly find out, three quarters of the way into the evening, that Matilda has telekinetic powers and a chalk that writes on a board by itself becomes this season's answer to falling chandeliers and descending helicopters. In an earlier scene Miss Trunchbull grabs a tyke by her pigtails and twirls her around as if she's throwing a hammer again, releasing her into the air where she disappears until falling to safety. The switching from the live child to a dummy and then back again is well done but the falseness of the moment, not to mention its violence, robs it of its intended humor. Before the design team is through we have a meaningless display of laser lights and the obligatory blast of confetti falling on the audience, not to mention the company taking their curtain calls while... Well, I'll let that be a surprise.

While the visuals are certainly expertly executed (Finding hidden words in Howell's Scrabble tile set helps pass the time during duller moments.) this musical about appreciating knowledge stresses spectacle over substance. Perhaps a listen to the British cast album may reveal more depth when the lyrics can be understood but as she stands at the Shubert, Matilda is the type of musical I can't imagine the title character herself being able to sit through without longing to sneak out for a trip to the library.

Photos by Joan Marcus: Top: Lauren Ward, Bertie Carvel and Company; Bottom: Taylor Trensch, Lesli Margherita, Gabriel Ebert.

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