This is a review of the musical "Matilda", but I also watched the movie of the same name, which is also suitable for fans to watch.
01 response
During the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday, I went to the scene to watch the world-famous musical "Matilda" in person.
Before watching the drama, I had a doubt in my mind: because the major marketing accounts have already blown up the drama and anointed the gods, they have invisibly raised the audience’s expectations to a peak . Don't you slap your face?
After the first screening of the Hefei Grand Theater, some friends who had watched it talked about the performance, but the quality of the audience was poor. After repeated orders and warnings not to take photos or video recordings, they still opened the screen to take pictures, and some young children made noise on the scene. , Seriously ruining the perception, how about the scene presentation?
It was not until I sat in the 15 rows of 27 seats at 1 o'clock in the afternoon on September 14 and experienced an immersion, that these doubts were completely dispelled.
During the performance, there was no sound from the audience. I secretly went offline for a few seconds and glanced at the audience around: the lights coated the faces of all colors with a layer of light. Even if the stage is far away, many audiences can't even see the faces of the actors, but the moving atmosphere is like a magnet that firmly attracts the audience. No children are making noise, and no one changes seats without authorization.
At the end of each scene, all the audience spontaneously reported with polite and warm applause. After the end of the play, all the actors appeared and the audience stood up, and the applause was thunderous again, and they continued to express their most respectful praise and gratitude to the actors in their way. At that moment, I was deeply moved by the charm of theater art.
Two words emerged in my mind: advanced .
It is true that audience participation and feedback is a key part of a successful stage show.
I took a look at the front during the intermission
There is a sinking area for the band between the stage and the audience
All music is played live and it is very shocking
02 Enlightenment
My musical enlightenment began in a university elective course. The elective teacher of "Appreciation of Western Musical Drama" is called Li Ji. His beautiful skin and interesting soul are combined into one, and he is a musical talent admired by all girls in the school. Many people have taken this course because of Li Ji.
"Cat", " High School Musical", "Phantom of the Opera"... Mr. Yan and I followed Teacher Li Ji's class and opened the door to a new world in an atmosphere of romance, art and thought.
After becoming a mother, I began to pay attention to some children's musical stage plays: "Frozen", "Snow White", "Little Red Riding Hood" and so on. Most of them are based on the global classic big IP adaptations, according to the sincerity of the screenwriter and team, the quality is uneven. Coincidentally, Ruoxin also chose the course of musical theatre during her studies in the Radio and Television Children's Art Troupe. He developed the basics in vocal music, dance, body, and language , although talent is the key to determining results.
Drama, lines, music, stage art ... The major elements of musicals are not so professional, but there are some intuitive feelings that can be talked about. Today, I will talk a little about my impressions from the plot and its deep metaphors.
03 cool drama
In order to fully experience it, I also found out the movie of the same name in 1996 and watched it. In addition to enriching more detailed plots, the overall plot is the same as the musical plot, and even the character costumes and the settings of certain lines are highly consistent. . The story as a whole is actually quite satisfactory. It tells the story of the growing up of Matilda, a girl who is obsessed with reading and knowledge, who grew up in a family composed of a superficial mother who loves ballroom dancing and a profiteer father who sells cars to Russians at a high price. Matilda was sent to a school that loves corporal punishment of students under the rule of the terrifying Principal Chuanqibu. He used her reading accumulation and his superpowers transformed with anger to fight against the power of Principal Chuanqibu again and again. While opening up the mysterious life experience of Mr. Honey, who is sick and pitying with him, re-form a warm family with Mr. Honey who loves.
The whole play can be understood as the 2.0 version of "Cinderella", but it does not prevent us from loving it at all. Facts have proved that as long as the plot is solid, the details are exquisite, and the interpretation is in place, people don't mind falling into stereotypes. On the contrary, people still enjoy joining hands in a collective carnival in which the weak defy the power and turn defeat into victory. Indeed, the 5-year-old girl Matilda is definitely the weaker in front of the authoritarian parents who rule her family or the authoritarian principal who rules her school. But it was this weak man who seemed unable to resist. In this plot trend that seemed to have to be compromised and obeyed, Jedi fought back and rewrote the ending of his own story.
In order to avenge his father's ridicule and insult, Matilda poured his mother's hair dye into his shampoo, and asked his father to go to the customer with his emerald head;
In order to avenge the revenge of tearing the book, Matilda applied super glue to his father's hat again, which made his head hurt and couldn't take off his hat;
With fear and hatred, the children used their own power to secretly resist the cruel Principal Chuan Qibu. Facing the punishment of being locked in a small black house and being forced to eat an entire chocolate cake, Matilda stood up for her partner time and time again and beat the arrogance of Principal Chuanqibu;
Until he used his superpowers to show on the blackboard the truth about Chuan Qibu killing Teacher Honey’s father to frighten the principal, and finally defeated this terrible brutal power.
Although the plot is full of the childlike innocence of "Home Alone" , it does not prevent Matilda from helping Matilda turn over again and again with witty revenge.
As adults, we have been brought into the perspective of children more than once, clapping and applauding in the plot of lively resistance and revenge victory, which is comparable to the current fashionable "shuangwen" and "shuangju" look and feel.
The most impressive and wonderful famous episodes of the whole play are undoubtedly the two scenes of "Alphabet Song" and "Swing on the Swing" . And the well-deserved "Ding Menqing " (Tim Minchin, the songwriter of "Ma") does present a perfect match with "Matilda", a song "naughty" ("Naughty") and a song "WhenIGrowUp" (" Waiting for me to grow up"), blessed by the clear voice of a child, the lingering sound surrounds the beam, refreshing the heart. Friendly reminder, you can review it in "Bilibili".
04 Lies
If it is just like "Home Alone", it is not enough to convincing gods. The most precious thing about a play is its ubiquitous metaphor, satire and sublimation. Through the lively plot and the perfect ending itself, what I see is actually more of a realistic cruel and lonely destiny. This is exactly what makes this drama so thought-provoking. The excitement is just a kind of appearance, loneliness is its core, completion is just a wish, and incompleteness is the real reality.
Lies about parents. In the play, Matilda’s top-quality parents make people embarrassed. They think that the girl is useless to read. They force Matilda to watch TV all day long. They don’t care about Matilda’s feelings. They don’t let her go to school because they think it’s useless to read. , Let her go to school to make herself clean, choose the devil’s school to torture her, Matilda struggled to survive this kind of family tyranny—"Every child is unique, and my birth is a miracle. My parents said I was a prince and I was their little princess"-what a wonderful irony. Someone would think that there are such cruel parents? But as long as we look back at the relationship between parents and children in reality, it is really terrifying to think carefully. This kind of identity that has been stamped out is the tragic color of absurdity and reality.
Lies about friendship. The sympathy between Matilda and Teacher Honey, the friendship between teachers and students like "The Spring of Cow Herding Class" is even more angular in reality. Matilda hugged Teacher Honey so hard, she said that the air in her body was about to be squeezed out. At that moment, I was full of tears. This deep attachment and touching affection was last time when I watched the Thai movie "Stars on Earth" . Who doesn't understand the preciousness and rarity of this emotion? In ordinary life, as many honey teachers as there are, there are ten times as many principal Chuan Qibu. Whether in school or at home, we have never been too small to choose. Being tamed is a required course for growth.
Lies about ability. In the process of growing up, every child has experienced the loneliness of not being understood and accepted. This is why Matilda makes us seem familiar. Only with the blessing of the dramatic background, her situation is even more extreme. Matilda, who was struggling and struggling in loneliness, fell in love with reading. She is a genius. She read books at the age of 5 and reached the level of intelligence of college students. In addition, she was given a supernatural ability to move objects by eyes. ability. It was with the vast knowledge and wisdom given in the book, as well as extraordinary superpowers, that she was able to summon the courage to defeat the power again and again, win victory, and usher in a great reunion. And what about us in reality? When we were young, when we were young, we faced powers that were bigger and more powerful than ourselves. In addition to gaining loneliness itself, we never gained the superpowers that loneliness gave us. The genius and wisdom beyond the young age, the extraordinary martial arts beyond the general laws, have never come to us. We just grew up alone.
Lies about the ending. What about reunion? Many film critics have suggested that if the whole drama stays at the moment when President Chuanqibu is driven away and Teacher Honey returns to her house, this drama can definitely become a magical drama. And Matilda helped her parents drive out the Russian Mafia, the parents moved abroad and agreed to the honey teacher to adopt Matilda's happy ending, in fact, it was a big failure, mainly to cater to the taste of Chinese audiences. Including the final cartwheel between Matilda and Mr. Honey, it did capture the slap of the audience. But looking back at reality, can parents and families really let us choose? When we find that the plot was a mistake at the beginning, can we really rewrite our ending with our own hands? Even if it is as strong as Matilda, can it only continue to grow under ignorant parents. In reality, isn't our family education and school education just like that? It's a misunderstanding. Teach the god-given spirit jade into a stubborn stone, one unique child, forged into a unified part in the social factory. Looking at the world, how many reunions can be ushered in?
Therefore, the courage, rebellion, and strength spawned by children's loneliness, the miracle of incubation and the reunion spawned in the play are actually more like the moon in the water and the flower in the mirror, which is a big lie. It is indeed a magical fairy tale of a lonely child breaking loneliness, a tragic fable that a lonely man is destined to be lonely. It's just that when we see "Matilda", which played a natural rotten card, revel in this absurd and beautiful victory hustle and bustle, the growth that hasn't had enough time to turn defeat into victory. Going beyond the fate and loneliness of being a man at the beginning of childhood, finally--
Laughter and tears reached a reconciliation, the fairy tale collided with reality, and we were willing to fall into a lie, and completely sealed it.
Yeah, struggling is always necessary. Even when I grow up, I won't become Matilda.
This article was first published on my WeChat public platform "Axing Life Home" (ID: axshj160716)
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