Ben Brantley was spot-on in his review in The New York Times when he said that the sets for Matilda The Musical are “brilliantly designed by Rob Howell.”
Schoolroom desks pop up from below the stage, and a colorful proscenium arch is covered with blocks adorned with bold letters as a very smart little girl wins the day against the tyranny of less smart adults in a British boarding school.
The roots of this production stretch back to the Royal Shakespeare Company, where Matilda premiered in 2010, based on a book by Roald Dahl and directed by Matthew Warchus. It moved to London’s West End in 2011, where it won seven Olivier Awards including one for Warchus and one for Howell’s sets (as well as one for sound designer Simon Baker), setting a record for the most awards for any one show in a given year, edging out Nicholas Nickleby, which won six Oliviers in 1980.
With such a track record, Broadway was inevitable, and Matilda premiered at The Shubert Theatre on April 11, 2013. The magic of the musical crossed the pond unscathed, resulting in 12 Tony nominations, including best musical. This time, Howell was nominated for both sets and costumes, and Hugh Vanstone for lighting.
“There was a lot less scenery at the RSC than what you now see on stage, but the ideas are the same,” says Howell, who used the children’s novel as a basis for his research. “We didn’t know at first if we were going to use kids,” he admits. “We considered puppets and small adults.” In the end, the cast has four girls who rotate in the title role, as well as nine other kids.
Howell's Design Philosphy
Howell’s philosophy is that “the design needs to contribute to the overall concept,” which in this case translates to his creating a sense of scale to establish the physical world of Matilda. “We didn’t want the stage to be too big,” he notes. As a result, the playing area is the same size in New York, even though the stage is wider than the one in London. “It’s a long way to the center line at The Shubert Theatre if you are nine years old,” says Howell.
Some of the scenery is bigger as well, and the complicated false proscenium, built by Hudson Scenic, stretches further to the sides to mask some of the extra space. Both Hudson and Show Motion built sections of the set. “I was thrilled with both shops. It was a fantastic experience,” Howell comments. Paul Weimer served as associate scenic designer.
The building blocks on the set—evoking wooden tiles, many with painted letters— are mostly vacuformed, while some are made of scrim to hide loudspeakers placed behind them. There are also three portals on stage with more building blocks, and the floor has block designs painted onto the deck. “The letters on the blocks spell out words such as ‘joy’ and ‘Matilda,’ as well as words that crop up in her story,” Howell points out. “Each wood block was individually made and represents an amazing amount of work. They fit together like a big puzzle. The tiles on the portals are also like a puzzle and were numbered for the load-in.”
Swings on stage for the song “When I Grow Up” create one of the most beautiful scenic moments in the show. “The swings are complicated,” explains Howell. “The pendulum point has to be exactly right to get them to swing in time to the music. It would be maddening if they didn’t.”
Howell's Challenges
Back in Stratford, the challenge for Howell was the restricted amount of fly space above the thrust stage where Matilda premiered. Thus he needed to find a solution for the nine school desks that need to be extra strong as the kids jump on them. “They come up out of the floor, whilst most of the rest of the scenery slides on from right and left,” he explains. “On that thrust, the floor became a very busy scenic area, and it stayed that way in London and New York. I saw the skeleton at Hudson without the deck, and it was a very impressive bit of engineering. I hadn’t seen it exposed like that before. I was surprised at just how much is crammed into the floor alone.”
Other major set pieces comprise the school gates in Act I, which are used in a dance number with people climbing on them. These also slide in from left and right, as Howell felt, “We didn’t want to change how we move through the show, even though with the benefit of a proscenium arch to hide behind, and a fly tower, we could have made our lives easier if the gates had flown in. The scene changes had already been carefully worked out. That’s part of the handwriting for the show, not just getting the gates on stage, but how they get there is of interest.”
The gates, a library, and a blackboard are among the elements that slide onto stage between the two upstage portals. Matilda’s bedroom is stored on a wall backstage, from where it moves down and out onto the stage. The extra wing space in New York gives the scenery a bit more breathing room.
Howell, who also designed the costumes, worked with the Little Angel Puppet Company to create shadow puppets for one of the scenes, the only projection in the show. “The RSC video department filmed what the puppet company did, and there is a certain kind of naiveté to it.”
Matilda has taken Broadway by storm, and more international and touring productions are on the drawing boards. This gives Howell the chance to rethink the show once again, while remaining true to the winning design concepts that are such an essential part of Matilda The Musical.
All photos by Joan Marcus