The musical, Matilda, by Roald Dahl was performed on a thrust stage, at the Winspear Opera House in Dallas. Matilda is a story of an astonishing little girl who despite has a bad beginning controlled by evil parents and a scary headmistress, she decides to make her story the greatest of them all.
The general idea that was shown throughout the story was the power of education and those that try to stop it. Towards the beginning of the musical, Matilda was shown reading a book while her mother and brother watched the television. The importance of this scene creates the picture for the audience of what Matilda values most. However, because of the fact she would rather read then watch the television, her mother disliked her and thought she was abnormal compared to her unintelligent older brother. Matilda’s parents wanted to distort the view of education that she held so dear. That is why her father especially tried hard to influence her choice of education over “fun”. Furthermore, education is once again shown as being important with Miss Honey, Matilda’s teacher. Miss honey confronts headmistress Agatha Trunchbull and demands for Matilda to be put into an upper-level class. Although this request is denied
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At the beginning of the musical, it was only the story being shown, but after the intermission, an unexpected thing happened, at least for me. Harry Wormwood asked the audience, “who here has read a book”. After watching “The Complete Works of Shakespeare Abridged” in class, we talked about how the actors interacted with the audience. It was interesting seeing this done in Matilda because it strived away from the story of the play. The play was believable for me up until that point, but to my surprise, he remained in character the entire time he was talking to us. This was shown with the hat that he continued to wear as if it still had glue in
If there is truly tradition to be found among the great theatres both on and off Broadway, then certainly the Sullivan Street Playhouse and its long running production of The Fantasticks rates as one of the most celebrated of New York theatrical traditions. Maintaining its place as the longest running production Off Broadway, The Fantasticks remains an enchanting and insightful tale of both young love and bitter disillusionment. It also reminds one, in this age of spectacle and the mega-musical, how powerful and truly inspiring theatre itself can be. Clearly, one of the great strengths of this production and a large part of its appeal for audiences over the last four decades lies in the fact that both the story and the style of presentation compliment each other so completely. Here we find the non-essentials are stripped away, and we are left to rely simply on the imagination of both the audience and the performers to create a magical evening.
Throughout the piece, we see the use of audience as active participants to amplify the didactic message of the play. In the literature we see many instances where the author uses this cognitive distancing as a way to disrupt the stage illusion and make the audience active members of the play. Forcing the audience into an analytical standpoint as opposed to passively accepting whats happening in their conscious minds. This occurs time and time again in the fourth act of the play. The characters repeatedly break down the fourth wall and engage the audience with open participation. We see this in the quotation from the end of the fourth Act of the play:
To begin with, Roald Dahl meets a man named David Coke during his adventurous travels. David C. according to Roald Dahl can be best described as truthful. The author wrote, " You're going to be unlucky." he said (First encounter with a bandit, Paragraph 47). David C. was as honest as anyone can get. Another trait of David Coke is that he can also be described as concerned According to the text, “It's absolutely hopeless!!”, (First encounter with a bandit, paragraph 43). David was concerned about the fact of the odds with the Germans were not so well and the lives of his fellow pilots.
Mary Cassatt, an American printmaker, and painter was born in 1844 in Pennsylvania. Cassatt’s family perceived traveling as an essential part of the learning process thus she had the advantage of visiting various capitals such as Paris, London, and Berlin. Cassatt studied to become a professional artist and attended the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. She later went to study in France under Thomas, Couture, Jean-Leon Gerome, and others. She spent a significant part of her adult life in France. When in France, she initially befriended Edgar Degas, a famous French artist, and later her works were exhibited among other impressionists. Afterward, Cassatt admired artists that had the ability to independently unveil their artwork and did not
At the beginning of the story, the main character, Matilda, displays the attitude of a typical teenager, irresponsible, unappreciative, and immature. Mattie does not appreciate that she has a hard working mother that tries her best to raise her. When she was asked to haul water by Eliza and was called “Little Mattie”, her reaction was, “Little Mattie indeed. Another month and I’d almost be as tall as Eliza. I hated being called ‘little’. I sighed loudly, put my dishes in the washtub and my hair into my mob cap, I tied a disreputable straw hat…” Her tone suggests that she’s not ready to take on small responsibilities such as something small as washing the dishes.
The film ‘Matilda’ directed by Danny DeVito, who also stars in the movie as Matilda’s father Harry Wormwood, made in 1996 is about the resentment that Matilda has for her evil, malicious principal Agatha Trunchbull, who’s school has no principles. The bright, young girl Matilda decides to turn the tables on the adults who have done some wrong-doing. During the film ‘Matilda’, Agatha Trunchbull is expressed as the big, bad antagonist with her appearance, personality and language and the camera angles.
Going Solo, Roald Dahl's memoir of his work in East Africa and his service in the RAF, covers much of the buildup to World War II. In the book a mention is made of the BBC. The BBC was a popular broadcasting company during World War 2. It provided news for the public and anyone who needed it. The BBC world service was created to give ALL people who needed information receive it.
“Theatre is like a gym for the empathy. It’s where we can go to build up the muscles of compassion, to practice listening and understanding and engaging with people that are not just like ourselves. We practice sitting down, paying attention and learning from other people’s actions. We practice caring.” (Bill English of the SF Playhouse). This quote accurately summarises the purpose of Children’s Theatre, to help the growth and understanding of children whilst also keeping them entertained through theatrical techniques. The National Theatre’s Cat in the Hat, along with our performance pieces of Cranky Bear and Possum Magic all showcased these techniques in a number of ways, whilst also subconsciously coinciding with the child development theories
When describing the Landlady in “The Landlady” by Roald Dahl, readers can conclude that she is clever. The Landlady is clever because her plans are well thought out to kill people who visits her house. Dahl writes,”There was a baby grand piano and a big sofa and several plump armchairs, and in one corner he spotted a large parrot in a cage, animals were usually a good sign in a place like this, Billy told himself.” She tries to pretend to make other people think that it’s a safe, peaceful and comfortable place to stay at her home by making fake animals. Especially, waiting for Billy Weaver to come. Also, the Landlady is clever when Billy was so attracted into the BED AND BREAKFAST title at the window. Dahl writes,”BED AND BREAKFAST, it said.
Imagine going on a trip a long way from home for a job, and then all of a sudden, instead of going to your job that you went for on the long trip, you have to fight the Germans? In "Going Solo" by Roald Dahl, a young man (Roald Dahl) was on a ship traveling for his job, when he was called to fight the Germans when the war broke out. It was World War Two. He was chosen to be a leader of a squadron. He meets many people on his while fighting with them and learning new things in the war with them. His life is crazy with all of the transferring and learning new things. He is learning how to fly now for Britian right after learning how to be a leader with no military experience and no fighting experience. He had tons of responsibility for his squadron.
Helen Nicholson expressed that ‘T.I.E’s primary objective was to use theatre as a tool to explore ideas, feelings and values’ titling the medium as the ‘Theatre of ideas’ (2009, p24). It is within this sentiment in which our group formed its key intentions for our piece. As a company, our objective was to focus on children’s emotional response to a story based performance of T.I.E. Due to the educational aspect of T.I.E we decided upon the historical story of Pocahontas, allowing the group to retell and alter the well-known animated Disney film with an additional historical feature. The group designed and collaborated the performance to concentrate on the underlying issue of identity and to make the audience question, what it is that makes each person an individual? Pocahontas is forced to choose between her family home and a new life in England with her partner John Smith, and it is through this dilemma in which the group directed the overall performance. Desiring to create a ‘hybrid’ (Wooster, 2007, p1) piece of theatre, the group wished to include both historical and issue based techniques within the story, thus causing the children to think critically about the piece with both factual and emotional arguments. Throughout this essay I will examine the development process within our rehearsals and the group’s use of audience participation through different Theatre and Education techniques, in order to achieve our company’s aims.
In the short story “Poison” by Roald Dahl, the author's expressive style was successful in emanating an impact by using a visual setting that puts the audience in the place of the character, suspense that keeps the reader on edge, and imagery that draws the attention of the reader by using vivid word choice. Readers saw how he used description to specify the setting. Likewise, the author made the audience feel as if they were right there in the story. Along with the use of uncertainty, he used suspense to make the reader have a sense of worry or tension. Lastly, Roald Dahl used imagery, one of the greatest elements, to express that visual feeling in the story. Making the reader know additional information that could help along the story. Given
The movie Matilda is about a young first grade girl named Matilda Wormwood. Matilda is a very smart young girl with a family that does not pay any interest in her. From a young age she had to take care of herself. At the tender age of three she had read all the magazines and newspapers in her home, so she looked up where the library was and walked to it. From then on Matilda would read anything she could in the library, the books gave her an important message, that she was not alone. A few years past and Matilda wanted to go to school, her father, Harry Wormwood, who thought she was four when she was actually six, didn’t want her to go because he wanted her home to sign for packages. Although awful, Harry did manage to give her one piece of
Prominent among these characters was Matilda’s father, Mr. Wormwood, who was a reflection of one of Dahl’s old friends. In Matilda, Wormwood is described as a sly, dishonest man that sells cars. He rigs the cars just enough to work until “the buyer [gets] a good distance away”(Matilda 25) and Matilda, much like Dahl with his friend Ginger Henderson, notices this corruption. Page 23 of Matilda “‘I’m always glad to buy a car when some fool has been crashing the gears so badly they're all worn out and rattle like mad. I get it cheap. Then all I do is mix a lot of sawdust with the oil in the gear-box and it runs sweet as a nut’... ‘But that’s dishonest, daddy,’ Matilda said. ‘It’s cheating.’” The corruption of Mr. Wormwood goes to the extent of falsifying that the engine is working fine until the customer can no longer return. Mr. Wormwood's malfeasances are further highlighted on page 25 of
Matilda is a brilliant girl neglected by her stupid, self-involved parents. Ignored at home, Matilda takes interest in reading and she develops telekinetic powers. Eventually, her insensitive parents send her to a school run by the cruel Miss Trunchbull. Matilda befriends her schoolteacher, Miss Honey. She soon realizes Matilda's talents, but is later amazed to see the full extent of Matilda's powers.