When I Grow Up

When I grow up- that’s something that we hear all the time when we are kids. We are asked what we want to be, do and are told that we can do something when we are all grown up and as kids that seems like a lifetime away. In the new Broadway show Matilda, direct from the West End in London, the song “When I Grow Up” plays into the fantasy and notions of what it is like to a child to be a grown up. “And when I grow up, I will eat sweets everyday on the way to work and I will go to bed late every night. And I will wake up when the sun comes up and I will watch cartoons until my eyes go square and I won't care cause I'll be all grown up.” As the children sing these words, you yourself can’t help but look back and admit that you thought some of if not the same things about being an adult when you were a small child. I’ll admit that when I was younger I always got upset that I had a bedtime. There were those rare nights that I couldn’t sleep when I would sneak downstairs and watch TV in my living room, sitting on the rug on the floor with the lights out and the volume down low for fear of waking my parents and being caught. I would sit in school the next day and think, “I can’t wait to be a grown up and I can stay up late and watch TV and eat chocolate chip cookies.” While sitting at the Shubert theatre, already mesmerized by the joy and brilliance that is Matilda based off the beloved book by Roald Dahl and film by the same name I was left thinking about my childhood, yearning to be an adult and wondering when are we all grown up?

When I ventured into the Shubert theatre this past week, I was immediately engulfed into the world of Roald Dahl’s imagination. Often times a musical based off a novel, movie or in the case of Matilda both, the show tends to get lost as the creative team struggles to find what exactly needs to be kept and what can go. The same cannot be said for Matilda. The creative team found the elements from both the novel and movie that made it a cherished classic while adding new aspects to the show. It was a perfect blend of both the new and classic material making it a wonderful and one of the best stage adaptations of a book/movie that I have ever seen. The cast is incredible and the music is just beautiful to listen to.  

Growing up, Matilda was one of my favorite movies. Roald Dahl was one of my favorite authors and I read the book numerous times and just like Matilda I loved to read.  My eight-year old self secretly wanted to have powers like Matilda, eat a piece of chocolate out of Miss Honey’s fathers chocolate box and have a doll named Lissie. So, it comes as no surprise that I was incredibly excited to see this.

Whenever you find a show that you love there is always something about it that made you fall in love with it. It could be the storyline itself, you could’ve lived through it or relate to it on a certain level. It could be a particular character, song, dance, moment, particular lyric or line. For me, that moment in Matilda came during “When I Grow Up” When I saw the cast on the swings going back and forth, something that I loved as a kid and still do; I got the chills running up my spine and goose bumps appeared on my arms. It was one of those visceral moments when something is just so spectacular that you could watch or listen to it many times and it would still have the same effect on you like when Elphaba flies in “Defying Gravity” and during “Finale B” in Rent. During the song while listening to the lyrics and watching the scene unfold on the stage in front of me I began to think about my childhood and being a grown-up.

My childhood was amazing, don’t get me wrong I loved it! I had a mother, father and younger sister. I had toys, a room of my own, a swing set with room to run and roam and an obsession with the Disney princesses, Belle to be specific was my favorite. I was innocent and when not watching Disney movies or Arthur on PBS I loved to get lost in my books. I would sit with my Samantha American Girl doll, read and let my imagination run wild. I was able to get lost in the adventures of Jack and Annie in the Magic Tree House series (remember those!), Junie B. Jones, The Jewel Princesses, the American Girls and Nancy Drew. The characters in my books felt like dear friends, much like they do to Matilda, which is why I think when I discovered Roald Dahl’s books, that one really stuck with me. I loved Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Witches and The BFG but something about Matilda struck a chord within me. Why I didn’t really know at the age of eight, I think it started earlier.

I always had a vivid imagination as a kid. I would make up stories all the time and my cousins, my favorite childhood playmates and I were always thinking up new stories and games to play. Once we were pirates on a ship and we all had our own pirate names (mine was Isabella). But, when I was a child I wanted to be and thought that I was always older than I actually was! On career day in elementary school, instead of coming in dressed up like a doctor, nurse, teacher or vet like most kids did, I came in dressed as Belle. I wanted to be Belle at Disney World it was that plain and simple. My parents played into it, knowing that this was a passing phase and the next day I would want to be something else. They were right of course but it was then that I started to question what it was like to be an adult. At career day, our teacher asked us, what we would need to bring to work to do what we want to do, why we want to be what we wanted to be and such. I started to realize that I won’t be in school forever, that one day I would be a grown up and on my own. I could eat only the marshmallows in my Lucky Charms if I wanted to, watch Scooby Doo and play Barbie’s instead of going to bed because I would be a grown up and my parents wouldn’t be able to tell me what to do. It did scare me though and thought of not sleeping in my Cinderella bed for a night was not that appealing at the time but oh how I wanted to be a big girl! I think that is why I connected to Matilda as much as I did, because we both wanted to be big girls who were seen, heard and not laughed at! I started then and through the rest of my childhood I would wonder every now and then when am I a grown-up? Is it when I turn 18 and legally an adult and not a minor? Is it when I go off to college, when I’m out of my teens when I’m 20-21? Is it when I graduate college or is it when I am completely self-sufficient and on my own financially speaking?

I came to the conclusion that you really are an adult when you begin to make smart choices in your life regarding yourself, and treat people with kindness and respect as Miss Honey does in the show. People like Matilda’s parents the Wormwoods, make childish decisions and selfishly think that life is about them, not their children and often times put themselves first. Miss Trunchable played the fantastic Bertie Carvel, doesn’t treat people like she should and takes for herself what belongs to others like she did to her niece, Miss Honey. They might look like adults but they don’t act like one. Miss Honey however, is an adult. As displayed in the show she fights for Matilda and her students. She always wants to do what is best for them and will do what it takes to make them happy. That is what a true adult does and that is what is like being a grown-up bills and such aside.

As my mind goes back to this show that I love, I see the kids swinging on the stage and a for a moment, I want to be that young and innocent again, when life was easy, when being a revolting child was like it was in the show. I snap out of it and realize that being an adult isn’t saying to a child or anyone “I’m big, you’re little, I’m right, you’re wrong” as Matilda’s dad says to her. It’s about your attitude, mentality and how you treat others. You don’t have to always have to look like one. Matilda taught me that as a child and this incredible stage show showed me that again this past week. I hope that I am now and continue to grow into an adult like Miss Honey, but for now I won’t bore you with what I want from my aspirations but the kind of adult that I want to be when I grow up is someone like Miss Honey, who loves and respects everyone and who not only looks like but acts like an adult as well.