'Matilda: The Musical' review: Croswell finds fresh magic in Roald Dahl's mischievous classic

Courtesy of The Croswell Opera House/Ashlee Sayles and Lad Strayer 

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Seven years removed from its first appearance on the Croswell stage, the imagination of Roald Dahl comes roaring back to life in “Matilda: The Musical,” a delightful, charming and spirited reimagining of the beloved children’s book and its even more iconic 1996 film adaptation.

Among the seemingly endless parade of musicals adapted from books and movies, “Matilda” remains one of the rare examples that actually justifies the transition to the stage. It never feels as commercially engineered or dramatically inconsequential as something like “Mrs. Doubtfire” or, worse, “Back to the Future.” Dennis Kelly’s book and Tim Minchin’s music and lyrics understand that the appeal of Dahl’s story was never simply its recognizable characters or mischievous set pieces. There’s a genuine streak of rebellion running through it, a celebration of children who refuse to accept that the adults controlling their lives must automatically know better.

That makes “Matilda” especially fertile ground for the Croswell, which has assembled an array of talented young performers to bring this strange little world to life. Leading them is the fierce Alayna Brazzil as Matilda Wormwood, who, at just 13 years old, delivers an absolute triumph of a performance. She’s surrounded by a company that understands exactly how much camp, eccentricity and controlled chaos the material requires without allowing all that theatricality to swallow the heart underneath it.

Leading this brigade of “revolting children” is director Brian Hissong, who has assembled an exceptional creative team that includes choreographer Jodi Hissong and music director Josh Glover, along with Pam Krage’s colorful costumes and Terrence Hissong’s buoyant scenic design. Together, they give this version of “Matilda” its own distinct flair, cultivating a playground that encourages exploration without losing sight of the story being told inside it. That visual playfulness becomes an extension of Matilda herself, a child who discovers that the qualities making her different are precisely the ones worth embracing. Sometimes, as the song reminds us, you have to be a little “Naughty.”

Most of us know the story. Matilda (Brazzil) is a bright, extraordinarily gifted 5-year-old who can devour everything from “Crime and Punishment” to “The Lord of the Rings” in a single weekend. Unfortunately, she has been born into the Wormwood household, where intellectual curiosity is non-existent. Her parents are so uninterested in their daughter that they persist in treating Matilda as the boy they apparently wanted in the first place.

Ashley Fox and Emma Skaggs have a ball as Mr. and Mrs. Wormwood, finding just the right mixture of posh absurdity and slimy self-absorption. Their performances have enough cartoonish edge to fit comfortably within Dahl’s heightened universe without turning the Wormwoods into complete caricatures. Eli Fox similarly gets plenty of mileage out of the droll, dim-witted energy of their son Michael, whose existence only further illustrates the spectacularly warped priorities of this family.

The Wormwoods cannot comprehend why their daughter would rather bury herself in books than sit in front of the “telly,” but reading is Matilda’s escape from a world determined to underestimate her. That imagination spills over into the elaborate stories she tells local librarian Mrs. Phelps, played with infectious enthusiasm by a fantastic Leigh Jewett, and eventually becomes part of the same instinct that drives Matilda to protect her classmates.

Those classmates desperately need the help once the frothing Agatha Trunchbull bulldozes onto the scene with Jeffrey King attacking the role in full drag and never missing an opportunity to crank the mustache-twirling villainy up to eleven.

It would be easy for a character this enormous to become exhausting, but King understands the joke and, more importantly, the rhythm of it. He relishes Trunchbull’s dialogue and physicality, finding a rapid comic momentum that keeps the character moving rather than simply relying on the costume or spectacle to generate laughs. This is a woman who proudly declares “Children are Maggots” and seems genuinely offended by the continued existence of anyone under the age of 18. King makes her a wonderfully grotesque literary monster, the kind of villain children can fear while everyone else howls at the sheer ridiculousness of her cruelty.

If Trunchbull represents the most exaggerated ugliness of adulthood, Becca Nowak’s Miss Honey supplies its necessary counterweight. Nowak gives the character a gentle warmth that provides some of the production’s rare pockets of calm, eventually becoming Matilda’s greatest advocate in the classroom. There’s an easy camaraderie between Nowak and Brazzil that makes their relationship feel earned, and those quieter scenes become increasingly important as the production piles on the chaos around them.

There’s the classic chocolate-cake sequence, in which Bruce, wonderfully played by Landon Miller, is forced to devour an enormous portion of cake or face the Chokey. There’s Trunchbull sending Amanda Thripp (Norah Stukey) airborne by her pigtails, a piece of theatrical trickery that the Croswell is more than equipped to pull off. Mitchell LaRoy gets a scene-stealing turn, Genesis Mutatu is downright adorable as Matilda’s best friend Lavender, and Nathan Glover nearly walks away with every moment he gets as the spectacularly ridiculous Rudolpho.

The result is something of an embarrassment of riches. This 2026 incarnation of “Matilda: The Musical” rarely sits still, powered by the kind of rollicking energy that can only come from a young ensemble seemingly incapable of running out of it. The kids tumble, leap and hurl themselves around the stage with tremendous confidence, and Jodi Hissong’s choreography wisely harnesses that youthful restlessness rather than trying to contain it. When the production reaches “Revolting Children,” still an absolute banger of a showstopper, all that pent-up energy finally explodes. It’s the kind of number that makes you want to stand up and join the revolution out of sheer solidarity.

If there’s a drawback to all this abundance, it’s that “Matilda” can occasionally become a victim of its own enthusiasm. Kelly and Minchin pack the show with so many characters, narrative detours, heightened performances and densely worded musical numbers that its emotional throughline can briefly get buried underneath the spectacle. The Croswell’s production throws itself into that maximalism wholeheartedly, sometimes moving so quickly from one eccentricity to another that the quieter pieces of Matilda’s story have to fight for breathing room. But when Hissong allows the production to settle and focus on the lonely little girl at its center, the reason all this madness matters comes sharply back into view.

Which brings everything back to Brazzil.

Matilda is a monumental role inside a massive production, requiring an enormous amount of singing, dancing, comic timing and emotional dexterity from a young performer who also has to remain the steady center of a world populated almost entirely by people behaving like lunatics. Brazzil never appears intimidated by the assignment. There’s a confidence to her stage presence that cannot simply be manufactured, but what makes the performance work is that she doesn’t mistake confidence for precociousness. Her Matilda can be clever, defiant and mischievous while still feeling unmistakably like a kid searching for somewhere she belongs.

That distinction is important because beneath the telekinetic powers, chocolate cakes, flying children and larger-than-life villains, “Matilda” remains a story about the moment a child realizes she does not have to accept the story other people have written for her. Being small does not mean being powerless. Being different does not mean being wrong. Sometimes changing your circumstances requires being brave enough to misbehave.

Seven years after “Matilda” first brought its particular brand of mischief to the Croswell, the material has lost none of its magic. With Brazzil leading an exuberant company of young performers who meet the considerable demands of the show head-on, this “Matilda: The Musical” is big, boisterous and unapologetically peculiar.

IF YOU GO:

MATILDA: THE MUSICAL continues through Sunday, August 16th at The Croswell Opera House. You can purchase tickets here.