Adaptation Analysis 1 - Matilda

This shouldn't shock anybody, after writing tens of thousands of words about Symphogear, but I really like musicals!

Sometimes other people like musicals too, and figure that they should have a different shape than they originally had. A musical movie being turned into a stage musical, or (more commonly) the reverse.

Turning a stage musical into a movie feels like a no-brainer. It is able to find a far wider audience, and if it finds a new fanbase those might go see the original stage musical. This, however, only works if the adaptation is good.

And that's what this little series of posts will be about. A musical that gets adapted into a different shape of musical.

We'll be going through the songs, compare renditions, and talk about the general vibes and choices. And for this first one we'll be talking about Matilda! Because I really like this one and it's best to start with something positive.

What is this then? / "What, they're doing books now?"

Matilda was originally a 1988 children's novel by Roald Dahl, it's about a gifted girl that isn't supported by her environment. Her parents are dismissive and at school the headmistress terrorises and hates all students equally.

 

It's a story about justice, about finding your people, about unexpected powers.

I read it as a child, a Dutch translation, and really liked it.

 

There's also a 90s movie adaptation which I might have seen, I honestly don't remember.

But I've seen the musical and the musical movie, so let's compare the two! 

 

 

The General Details / Before we dive into things

The musical premiered in 2010 and is still performed in the West End at time of writing (it also had a 4 year Broadway run from 2013 to 2017). It's a traditional 2 act structure, with each act clocking in at an hour and change, for a total runtime of about 2 hours and 15 minutes.

The movie came out in 2022, only slightly has a gap where the original act break was, and has a runtime of 1 hour and 50 minutes (not counting the credits).

That doesn't really tell us much, huh?
And I'm not going to go into boring details like casting or budgets or whatever.

Instead we will be going through all the songs in both productions and comparing them!
Which looks like this:

Song 1: Miracle / "The most common thing in life is life."

Original Runtime: 10m17s Description: The opening number is about the miracle of childbirth, about how parents tend to read their own children as smarter. And then to contrast it the Wormwoods hate the very idea that they're pregnant again. After the birth Mr Wormwood complains that his son doesn't have the genitals he expects and he will continue to misgender his daughter through most of the show. The song ends with a verse by Matilda, explaining how she isn't valued by her parents.

Adaptation Runtime: 5m10s Changes: Wow, we lost a lot of runtime there. There was a big verse about parental expectations that was cut entirely, turning the text from the original into (still quite blatant subtext). The baby-genital talk is dialed down but not completely absent. Also, the opening lines sung by the babies is done in far more of a baby voice which is a smidge grating. And finally, as an interesting choice, Matilda's older brother is fully cut from the adaptation. She is now the Wormwoods' first and only child.

Some pretty big changes in our opening song! Economical cuts for length, and some sanding off of the nastier bits of the Wormwood parents. But, I think it works as an adaptation. Maybe docking a few points for the baby talk to just swing it to the original.
Leaving us with a song split of:

55% Original

45% Adaptation

Song 2: Naughty / "You have to put it right!"

Original Runtime: 4m03s Description: Matilda, after a particularly cruel move by her father (he informed the headmistress that she is a troublemaker before her first day of school), is deciding to stand up them in the ways she can and be a bit naughty.

Adaptation Runtime: 3m09s Changes: We lost a verse about Cinderella that was just another example of an unfair situation where a character is stuck in their story. Though I guess the acrobat's story later on does have some Cinderella-ish elements...

Such a fun and playful song that becomes an excellent solo and introduction to the character. Not much to say about the adaptation, I think it basically stuck the landing and did everything right.

50% Original

50% Adaptation

Song 3: School Song / "Like you I was Q-rious"

Original Runtime: 3m45s Description: Starting with a short reprise of Miracle by the new students we quickly turn into a song explaining how school is a horrible prison by the upperclassmen. This is an absolutely genius song, because the second half of the song is just the first half again, but stressing that it spells the alphabet. These letters are punctuated further with letter blocks being pushed into the school gate.

Adaptation Runtime: 3m22s Changes: We basically don't lose anything in this adaptation, other than the reprise. Rather than focus on the school gate the song follows the students on a tour throughout the entire school, conveniently introducing the audience to the location as well.

Basically a perfect adaptation, taking what was there and utilising the change in medium to make it hit even harder.
(Oh great, this already breaks my bars...)

5% Original

95% Adaptation

Song 4: Pathetic / "Look at you hesitating, hands shaking!"

Original Runtime: 1m41s Description: Miss Honey, Matilda's excellent teacher, sees her genius and tries to work up the courage to knock on the Headmistress' door to argue for her to be moved up a grade or given special material to nurture her. Clearly even she fears the Trunchbull, and we will later learn she has reasons both general and personal to do so.

Adaptation Runtime: CUT SONG Changes: Any adaptation is likely to lose a song or two and I get that this one was short and not about Matilda herself. However, it still would have been nice to get this early characterisation of Miss Honey and her relationship to the Trunchbull.

How do you grade the split between a song that exists and an adaptation that doesn't? I think I'll grade it based on how much I agree with the song being cut.
Which in this case, yeah fine I get where they're coming from, but I am still kind of sad that they didn't take that extra minute.

70% Original

30% Adaptation

Song 5: The Hammer / "Always keep your feet inside the line."

Original Runtime: 2m54s Description: Miss Honey makes it into the Trunchbull's office, who rejects the very idea of any student getting special treatment. In this song she equates being a student to her own past as an olympic hammer thrower. How it's important to do the one thing you've practised, and how you should always stay within the lines. It establishes her as a tyrant, forcing the students and even Miss Honey to join in with her song.

Adaptation Runtime: 3m24s Changes: Ooh, that's a rarity. The adaptation is actually longer than the original song. I guess this is the introductory villain song so it makes sense that they take their time. A small change in the lyrics, the original dates her olympic win at 1969, which the adaptation switches to 1959. I'm not sure if they just wanted to age up the Trunchbull or if the entire adaptation is supposed to set a bit earlier.

A great song in both versions, I don't think I have any strong feelings about it either way. The movie version is more elaborate, but that's an upside of the medium. Maybe it is ever so slightly nudged by the casting choice.
You see, The Trunchbull, despite being a woman, is traditionally portrayed by a male actor. And while I sort of understand that, she is supposed to be imposing and tower over student and faculty alike, it also feels a bit... iffy as a choice. Like it equates being an evil woman to mannishness? Not a fan of that.
Don't think the musical meant it that way, but I'm glad that the movie adaptation just casts a woman for the role.

45% Original

55% Adaptation

Song 6: The Chokey Chant / "And it's made of spikes and wood."

Original Runtime: 1m00s Description: Let's establish some stakes for The Trunchbull's threats. Her main form of punishment is called Chokey, a dark cupboard that she stuffs students into. Soundproof, lightproof, and filled with spikes. Sheesh, this was supposed to be a children's book.

Adaptation Runtime: 1m26s Changes: Chokey is changed to a box in the woods rather than a cupboard within the school. Not entirely sure why this change was made, but I guess it looks more dramatic.

Either way it's not a very consequential song, a solid 50-50.

50% Original

50% Adaptation

Song 7: Loud / "What you know matters less"

Original Runtime: 4m51s Description: Mrs Wormwood explains to a visiting Miss Honey that it doesn't matter whether you know a lot of stuff, but rather how loud you are in expressing yourself. It's mostly a song that explains Matilda's mother's priorities, which couldn't be more opposite to Matilda's (or Miss Honey's for that matter).

Adaptation Runtime: CUT SONG Changes: It's not a song directly about Matilda or the main story, so it was fully cut. And I have mixed feelings about that choice. Because this is a fun song, and the only song she gets in the original musical.

I feel like we could have had a reduced version of this, we could have made time for it. There are movie scenes dedicated to highlighting the contrast between Matilda and her parents, and I see no reason why one of them couldn't involve a version of Loud.

75% Original

25% Adaptation

Song 8: This Little Girl / "And another door closes, and Jenny's outside."

Original Runtime: 2m05s Description: A reprise of Pathetic where Miss Honey laments not being able to stand up to Mrs Wormwood in Loud and how Matilda deserves better support than what she is currently getting and what Miss Honey herself is capable of.

Adaptation Runtime: CUT SONG Changes: It wouldn't make sense without Loud, so I get that it's another cut song, but we sure go for all of Act 1 without getting a single Miss Honey song.

An understandable cut, even if Miss Honey's sentiments in it are heartbreakingly strong.

30% Original

70% Adaptation

Song 9: Bruce / "Your largeness is a bit like the Tardis"

Original Runtime: 4m16s Description: The big finale of act 1! A classmate of Matilda's, Bruce Bogtrotter (everybody has phenomenally good Roald Dahl names in this) has eaten a slice of the Trunchbull's cake and she now forces him to eat the entire cake. It's cruel, it's impossible, and yet he somehow manages. The Trunchbull had promised him complete forgiveness if he could eat the whole thing. She of course breaks that promise, sending him to chokey (despite Miss Honey's pleading).

Adaptation Runtime: 2m42s Changes: We lost over a minute, but I think it's mostly a difference where the lead-up dialogue was omitted from the soundtrack of the movie adaptation. The song might also just be a bit faster? And this is another excellent adaptation. Basically no notes at all.

Not much to say, it's upbeat, it's grandiose, it's triumphant. Maybe all slightly more so than you'd expect from the adaptation? So it just wins out over the original.

45% Original

55% Adaptation

Song 10: Telly / "What to think and what to buy"

Original Runtime: 2m35s Description: As a start of Act 2 it is time for Mr Wormwood's song, which is in praise of television. It's fast, it's upbeat, and it's a lot like Loud in that it portrays her family's priorities and values as directly opposite to Matilda's.

Adaptation Runtime: CUT SONG Changes: And same as Loud it was cut. Kind of an understandable choice, especially since it featured Matilda's brother joining (comedically poorly) on a ukulele.

Yeah, fine. We could lose this one. It's a silly song to get people onboarded into Act 2, and it wasn't doing all that much else.

10% Original

90% Adaptation

Song 11: When I Grow Up / "I will be brave enough to fight the creatures"

Original Runtime: 3m37s Description: An optimistic song sung by Matilda's classmates after school, thinking about what they want to be when they are grown up. This is the song that features the swing that you see on the poster up there. It's a nice little song, with as an extra bonus it has a verse by Miss Honey who we've been seeing as struggling with her bravery a lot already so it fits perfectly. And we close on a small reprise of Naughty.

Adaptation Runtime: 3m43s Changes: Much like Miracle the child voices in the song are more clearly actual children, cast as actors first rather than singers. It's not BAD, but maybe a bit distracting? The movie perhaps overdoes it a little bit with the imagined futures, we didn't need to see two of the children becoming stunt-plane pilots (even if it transitions into the next scene well).

A solid adaptation, but I think I slightly prefer the original. There was something purer about it? I don't know. The Miss Honey segment is intact though, which is the critical part.

55% Original

45% Adaptation

Song 12: I'm Here / "Let me wipe away your tears"

Original Runtime: 5m34s Description: Matilda has been telling a made up(?) story to a kindly librarian for most of the show so far, just not in song form. But finally it reaches song. How the daughter of an escapologist (and by now dead acrobat) is saved by her father from her evil stepmother. It does some very nice layering of dialogue where Matilda telling the story and the dad in the story speak/sing at the same time.

Adaptation Runtime: 3m44s Changes: The told story is obviously shown a lot more in the movie adaptation. And the librarian now runs a bookmobile so they can be in different outdoor locations for the various scenes, which makes sense as an adaptation choice. The actual song here is adapted faithfullly and spectacularly. (Reduced length is just omitted story narrating.)

I like the adaptation ever so slightly more, it's a bit more bombastic and I really like the way they framed it.

45% Original

55% Adaptation

Song 13: The Smell of Rebellion / "I find a session of Phys Ed sorts the merely rank from the revolting"

Original Runtime: 5m35s Description: The Trunchbull does not take her defeat in Bruce well and torments Miss Honey's class with an unreasonable Phys Ed class. Though this is mostly an excuse for some fun physical comedy from the child actors. About two-thirds into the song there is a weird transition where the Trunchbull imagines a world without children as a trap to get ridiculed by any of the pupils.

Adaptation Runtime: 4m43s Changes: The unreasonable torment is dialed up to 100, moving the Phys Ed class outside to a prepared obstacle course. Unlike in When I Grow Up I don't mind the escalation in the adaptation as much. It feels deserved.

An excellent adaptation again, I feel like they really dug out the core of the original song and went at it with everything they had.

20% Original

80% Adaptation

Song 14: Quiet / "The words they are forming, cannot reach me anymore!"

Original Runtime: 3m48s Description: In the wake of the previous song and subsequent targeting of the classmate that ridiculed The Trunchbull Matilda calls the Trunchbull out for what she is, a BIG FAT BULLY. This, shockingly, does not defuse the situation. And The Trunchbull is furious, berating Matilda and the class about their audacity. Her ranting fades in volume as we get Matilda's big solo song. About how she can finally tune out what is happening around her and focus, which culminates in her tipping over a glass containing a newt into the Trunchbull's clothing. Without touching it.

Adaptation Runtime: 3m59s Changes: Rather than berate the class, the Trunchbull is standing directly over Matilda as she shouts at her. It's menacing, imposing, so clearly unfair. Excellent framing. For the actual Quiet part we soar up to an imagined scene of Matilda in a hot air balloon. The tipped over glass is escalated into a full-blown telekinetic fling, hell yeah!

There's a thing I dislike about this song where it builds up to this big crescendo and then fades as we go into the quiet part. This is highlighted more by the movie adaptation, starker somehow. But I don't think it's a big issue with the adaptation.

55% Original

45% Adaptation

Song 15: My House / "It isn't much but it is enough for me."

Original Runtime: 3m43s Description: Matilda shares the secret of her powers with Miss Honey, who takes her back to her preposterously humble home. When questioned by Matilda how she can live like this, Miss Honey explains that it's all she needs. Mid-song Matilda discovers that the story of the escapologist and his daughter is Miss Honey's past, which weaves I'm Here back into the song. It's very good.

Adaptation Runtime: 3m26s Changes: Basically no real changes in the adaptation here. The medium of a movie means that there's less need for imagining a hovel on stage, the audience can just be shown that it looks rough. The set was charming, but the adaptation does a great job too.

How to differentiate between two versions that are so similar... I feel like the adaptation makes the father's vocals coming in more of a duet rather than background, so let's give that one ever so slightly the upside.

45% Original

55% Adaptation

Song 16: Revolting Children / "We'll be revolting children, 'til our revolting's done."

Original Runtime: 2m33s Description: We got a LOT of plot progress between songs. Matilda used her psychic powers to defeat the Trunchbull, pretending that Miss Honey's father was haunting her. As the Trunchbull flees, the class breaks into this song. And it's my favourite song of the show, even though Matilda doesn't really take center stage here. It is mostly song by Bruce Bogtrotter, of Bruce fame.

Adaptation Runtime: 2m56s Changes: This one would have been horrible if they had phoned it in. Fortunately they didn't. The original was contained to the classroom due to the stage (at that time) being the classroom, but the movie takes us rampaging through the school. The upperclassman the movie introduces that was also in the School Song and Chokey Chant returns here and she has equal amount of focus to Bruce.

I like the original, I like it a lot. But the movie version, both in audio and visuals, is far, far superior.
It ends with them toppling the statue of the Trunchbull in the schoolyard and everything!

20% Original

80% Adaptation

Song 17: When I Grow Up (Reprise) OR Still Holding My Hand

Original Runtime: 2m20s Description: After the situation at school is resolved one final complication arises. Mr Wormwood scammed the wrong customers so he's moving the family to Spain and Matilda doesn't want to go. She convinces the mobsters to spare her family, but they still leave. Matilda convinces them she can stay and live with Miss Honey. And over the bows and goodbyes we get a nice reprise of When I Grow Up. It's a very stage musical-y way to go out, and it's charming.

Adaptation Replacement Runtime: 4m20s Changes: ...this one wouldn't really have worked in a movie format I think. But surely we have to end on a song, so enter Still Holding My Hand, a new Miss Honey and Matilda song where they are happy to have found each other. The mobsters are an implied off-screen threat, but other than that things happen the same way. (There's a very nice correct gendering for the first time from the dad as they part ways.) Once her parents drive off to the airport, we get this song. It's a very saccharine duet, which might not be everybody's cup of tea. And it has an over the top renovation of the school to boot.

Both have their charm. It's clear that this new song is still written by the same writer as the original show. It slots in seamlessly and still has the celebratory vibe from the stage musical while going all out.
I don't think I can choose between these two.
(Also, the movie's first actual credits song is When I Grow Up, as a cute nod.)

50% Original

50% Adaptation

Closing Thoughts & Summary / With a chart, of course!

...maybe this wasn't the best first adaptation for this series, because I think this ended up almost perfectly equal huh?
Let's see some data:



Yeah, see? 57% to the adaptation. Which means it wins, I guess?

This was fun to me though, comparing different versions, generally talking about how to adapt a musical. I want to do more of these.

 

Tearing apart Mean Girls would be nice, in a cathartic sort of way.

I could also do the reverse, where Frozen got a stage adaptation.

And of course there's Wicked, where I haven't seen the movie yet.

Ooh, or Into the Woods. Little Shop of Horrors, even?

 

Let me know what sounds fun to you! You know where to find me. 

So... what about the actual original? / What did you think?

It was a book! I went into that at the start. It has 1 limerick, but no songs.
Next question?

But, like- / y'know-

Nooooo! I don't want to go into all that. This series is about a musical thing being adaptated into a different musical thing. Even though Matilda was a very formative book for me as a child.
And I have never read it in English.
And I'm kind of curious how it holds up...

Okay, fine! Damn you.

*reads Matilda*

Huh! It's quite different from how I remember it. I'm glad I read it.

Compared to both musicals it is FAR more focused on Matilda's home life, with various revenge pranks to keep her parents in line. It feels a lot more like she's having fun, doing what she can, but not suffering all that much under her parents and home situation? Her quiet suffering from the musical versions definitely coloured my expectations there.

 

The other BIG change is that Miss Honey's backstory is far, far more limited. There is no imagined story from Matilda that turns out to be Miss Honey's history. The Trunchbull did steal her house, childhood and father, but the whole thing with the acrobat and the escapologist was a new creation for the musical.

 

And the actual telekinesis and getting rid of the Trunchbull are all kind of squished into the last four or five chapters.

Fascinating!

 

The book totally holds up though, and I recommend it.