Until you came along

Chapter 3/?

Chapter 2 / Chapter 4

McBean, Angus, 1904-1990. Photographs of Vivien Leigh.

MS Thr 581

Harvard Theatre Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard University

Broadway premiere of A Streetcar Named Desire (December 3, 1947)

“What Williams has set up in Streetcar is a triangle in which, most basically, Stanley and Blanche are competing for Stella’s soul. Blanche can, and does, articulate a vision of a coherent, comprehensible—and, alas, lost—world that has been crushed by the forces Stanley symbolizes. The reason the play goes on working, revival after revival, is that the conflict between Stanley and Blanche is primal: vulgarity versus tradition, brutality versus gentility, lust versus repression, immediate need vs. romantic loss. We are talking here about one of the most fundamental cultural conflicts of our times—possibly of all times.”

The music is written by the wonderful Tim Minchin, who’s probably one of the best musical comedians out there and all the music is perfect.

Edna Trunchbull is a drag role like how awesome was that desicion and it’s perfect

They do all the stunts you see in the movie. A girl gets twirled around by her hair. ONSTAGE.

Musical styles ranging from toe-tapping jazz to rock/soul to Latin to CIRCUS MUSIC

Bruce Bogtrotter gets his OWN MUSICAL NUMBER ABOUT EATING CAKE. If you thought the scene in the movie with the cake was the shit you haven’t seen anything yet.

The whole thing tears down this idea that all children are perfect and special (like so many hear from their parents) and replaces it with giving children the authority to do the right thing even when it means breaking the rules.

You have ever see a collection of children so disciplined and hard-working in your life like these children have this shit DOWN.

The curtain call is it’s own musical number in itself with choreography all done on FUCKING SCOOTERS

Speaking of choreography there’s another musical number done on a SWINGSET. Legitimate swings. And it’s perfect.

It can go from awesome and happy and campy to fucking creepy-ass shit in seconds flat.

The entire set is big letter tiles. They essentially made the set out of enormous SCRABBLE TILES.

Miss Honey has her own story arc about adulting. I’m not even lying

When the composer Tim Minchin’s daughter asked him why Matilda got to be naughty and she didn’t he responded “Well Matilda has very bad parents and she’s very bright, whereas you have very good parents and you’re a bit dim.” THAT’S THE KIND OF HUMOR THAT GOES INTO EVERY MUSICAL NUMBER IN THIS BITCH.

The kids are literally the most empowering little twerps. You leave the show feeling like you CAN do the thing.

There’s a scene where they secretly feed you the entire alphabet and it’s the cleverest thing ever when they reveal what they’ve done like “how did you slip that by me?”

You know the thing where things happen during the intermission? Well things happen during the intermission.

Matilda has a soliloquy (in song of course) about what it’s like to be as smart as her at such a young age and it gives her more character than the cheery little Mary-Sue in the movie.

Speaking of the movie, Mr. Wormwood is NOT played by Danny DiVito, which is reason enough to watch it.

The characters are so real and fleshed out I mean even minor characters like Amanda Thripp feel like they actually take up space and exist instead of being there for the sake of simply existing.

It’s musically simple enough to want to sing along to everything but complex enough that you never feel like you’re listening to the same thing all the time.

If you live in a dorm with a community bathroom do not - I repeat DO NOT - listen to When I Grow Up (Reprise) from the OLC while in the shower because if you do the secret track of Miss Trunchbull’s monologue will come on, catching you completely unawares and absolutely terrifying the other people who live on your floor.

Can we talk about Bertie Carvel’s hidden acting clip after the last song on the cast album can we please.