April is always an interesting time to land in New York, trying to figure out what to see on Broadway. There is an invariable pile-up of new shows waiting to open and get Tony nominations within a few weeks, hoping they will be propelled into long runs. (This started before Harvey Weinstein started using the same principle for Oscar with December launches.)

When I was preparing for a trip to The City a couple of weekends again, I was looking at a bunch of shows that were just about to open and a few that had been on the boards for a short while. To be honest, the New York Times profile of Tim Minchin had convinced me that I had to see “Matilda,” for better or worse. I have found myself misled in this regard by The Gray Lady in the past. They tend to get crushes. And for that reason, I eliminated “Lucky Guy” from the top of my list. They just love Nora Ephron so much that I don’t trust a word they say when they are in the bloom of love. But the feature on Michin had enough content from the show to convince me… the great lyrics. If there is anything that has been lacking in new musicals on Broadway in the last five years, it’s great lyrics.

I was a sucker for Bette Midler on Broadway. I have seen her live in various venues over the years and she always kills. I was a little scared that I was going to The Booth to see her Sue Mengers show as I was a little crushed by Vanessa Redgrave’s miscast turn as Joan Didion a few years back in a one-woman show on the same stage. But this was the first ticket I secured.

There’s a funny thing about going to Broadway over a bunch of years. Theaters have history. And this was also true for “Matilda” at The Shubert, where I had seen “A Chorus Line” many years before and “Spamalot” more recently, both quite joyously.

And what about show 3… which is all I had time for? An actor suggested “Assembled Parties,” which scared me a little… just sounded dry and overly smart. I always had mixed feelings about “Kinky Boots” as a movie, so another $250 to see the show seemed iffy. I thought I might finally go see “Book of Mormon,” but a not-insanely priced orchestra ticket turned up on Telecharge… and then mysteriously disappeared in a cloud of tech problems with their site. I quite wanted to see Sigourney Weaver in the new Durang, so that was near the top of the list.

But it ended up being “The Nance.” I think Douglas Carter Beane is one of the great writers working on Broadway today. And Nathan Lane is always great, even if the hysteria level can overflow in a bad show.

“The Nance” is an interesting experience. Lane is terrific in what is mostly a dramatic part. The rest of the cast is also excellent. But the play is both well-written and a bit frustrating. The backdrop is the dying days of burlesque, in which there was often a mincing “nance,” who was–so the show tells us–usually played by heterosexuals… gay blackface. But this story is about a gay man who is also playing the nance in the Irving Place Theater in New York, already carrying the heavy weight of being a minstrel, mocking his own sexuality, wearing “gay face” to make a living.

The other storyline is the end of burlesque, which I kinda loved. It’s not that I love corny, broad material. It’s that it’s a snapshot of a moment in entertainment that has passed, but while it was around, it was the focus and passion of the performers in a real way. I think the show honors the serious intent behind that work, while still not being shy about expressing how threadbare it was even then.

The problem with the show – why it doesn’t feel like a clear home run to me – is that the homophobia that floats through every moment of the show is also, certainly in NY theater, also a part of the past. This is not to deny the existence of harsh and even violent homophobia in the culture still. But today in New York, the mayor is obsessed with the size of your soda, not driving homosexuals off the island of Manhattan.

This is also what is difficult about Holocaust dramas. There is a real purpose in continuing to remember what people are capable of doing to one another. It should not be forgotten. Nor should pre-Stonewall gay life in NY or life a decade after Stonewall (like “Torch Song Trilogy”) or in the start of the AIDS era (like “The Normal Heart” or “Angels in America”). But it’s very easy to miss by a small amount and not quite find a clear, compelling argument that engages an audience for an hour or more of a theater experience.

The demons that Carter Beane gives to Lane’s character are familiar – Osborne’s “The Entertainer” being the great example – but the addition of realistic gay paranoia in New York in the late 30s, while compelling, seems like either one too many layers or one not quite deep enough. It’s not a wide miss… but it doesn’t quite hit the target either.

Still, I am glad I saw the show, loved the performances, and the issues linger for me. So maybe it will seem even better in time.

Bette Midler is no less a gay icon than Mr. Lane. And if Sue Mengers was a public figure, she too would be the kind of brassy, fearless talker who would be able to play the bathhouse circuit. Of course, Mengers was much more private. Her fame and reputation were intense within the inner circles of Hollywood and amongst those she brought into her world.

The show, “Sue Mengers: I’ll Eat You Last” is a memory play, all as told and performed by Ms. Midler herself. It’s the end of Mengers’ run as one of the very biggest agents in Hollywood when we meet her and she can’t seem to stop herself from telling her best tales, even if the audience represents someone she doesn’t know who has basically wandered into her living room. But because the play is showing us Mengers as she knows her power is waning – she is waiting for a call from Barbra Streisand to fire her – there is a sense of melancholy through the whole thing.

Midler is charming, as always, and can tell the hell out of a story. But there is an element of the real fire that tends to drive people like Mengers that is missing. She’s already given up the fight, really. So it’s a bit of a glory days remembrance. We get the skill set and the charm of the woman… but outside of turning catty, funny phrases, the – for lack of a more appropriate word – “cunt” is missing. I’m not saying that is what she was or all she was… but in my experience with men and women who wield great and fragile power, there is always a big pot of cunt in there bubbling away somewhere. They are like Dilithium Crystals on Star Trek. When they need some more power, it always comes down to those crystals… or in the case of agents, male or female, some serious cunt.

(Sidebar: This is also what is missing from most of Madonna’s acting performances. She is willing to be the diva, but she is unwilling to acknowledge her inner cunt (I’ll stop using that word now) and so what she exudes so naturally as an icon is not there when she acts. She can be a terrible, angry, vengeful character, but we don’t see that boiling evil deep inside, so it rings false.)

So, did I enjoy an evening with Bette Midler? Yes. Very much. Did I feel like I really met Sue Mengers? No, not so much.

The other problem is that the show is utterly missing a second act. It’s one long first act of storytelling then as the outside light begins to fade on the interior w/ exterior set, the maudlin begins. The maudlin is good. But there is a flavor in the middle missing. There is a charming and effective stunt to break things up… but that doesn’t make the structure right.

So… two good, slightly off shows… and one piece of true, forever, theatrical magic.

Every five years or so, something lands on Broadway that is, simply, undeniable. It’s truly unexpected, gloriously executed, both dry and moist, and reminds you why the live theater is worth the investment, financially and emotionally.

“Matilda” is that show right now.

As noted above, I was a little fearful that NYT had a new girlfriend and was telling us all how great she was. But they were 100% right… perhaps underselling a little.

The stage design by Rob Howell is on top of you from the moment you walk into the theater, a 3-dimensional use of the stage and the proscenium that will, as the show goes on, recreate itself in new and delightful ways, like a Rubik’s Cube of design. The key shape is that of a Scrabble tile, of which there are hundreds. That shape changes into all kinds of spaces on the stage, from a library to a bedroom to a schoolyard to a broken down shack. The last piece of stage design I saw that was nearly as impressive was the sliding panel and rotating stage of “The Light In The Piazza.”

And then, the show.

It’s very much the “Anti-Annie.” What if Rooster and Lily took Annie home and tried to have a normal life? (It also reminded me a lot of the Ray Davies “Quiet Life” sequence from Julian Temple’s Absolute Beginners.) That’s where “Matilda” starts. In this case, it’s Mr & Mrs Wormwood (Gabriel Ebert, Lesli Margherita) as the debauched couple, with the blush of youth and passion has long worn off… as well as any morality of any kind. They see Matilda much as most of us might see Annie after a few hours in the real world. Why is she so irritating?!?!

But instead of it embodying Annie’s endless sunshine, Matilda sees the world in realistic (and sometimes, hyper-realistic) colors. Matilda is smarter than anyone in her circle. But as smart as she is, she is still often sorting through facts, not ideas, as even precocious children do. Talk to her about a hard knock life and she’d essentially respond, “Why would anyone live their life like that?” But she has one Achilles heel… on thing she can’t quite make better with brainpower… a lack of real familial love.

When Matilda ends up at Crunchem Hall Academy, we meet the kids, one of the many magical elements of the show. Director Matthew Warchus bravely mixes a cast of 8 real kids with occasional additions of adults in kids clothing (for dance numbers and stunty things). Again… an “Annie” thing. But “Matilda” seems to rely on these kids through a lot more of the show than “Annie.”

As with Matilda, her “orphan pals” are not all sunshine and light in the face of a hideous life in a hideous world. They are less rebellious than she, but she will show them the light in time. The kids are, as in most drama with kids, representations of all kinds… the fat kid, the Asian kid, the wimp, the bully, etc. But as written in the book by Dennis Kelly, they are kept fresh and surprising.

At Crunchem, “The Natural” (aka Matilda) has a figure of light, in Miss Honey, and a figure of darkness in Miss Trunchbull, who is in charge. Truchbull, a former Olympic shotputter, is played unforgettably by Bertie Carvell. There are actually two drag performances amongst the five Best Actor in a Musical nominees for Tony this year, though the other one, in “Kinky Boots,” is about drag while Carvell’s Trucnhbull is of the British tradition of men playing women’s roles, never winking at the audience. Trunchbull is what Matilda could become if she never found love… angry and paranoid and operating in fear. Miss Honey, played by Lauren Ward, with a gentle heart and a smooth voice, is a reflection of what Matilda could be come if she never learned to stick up for herself.

For all the complexity of characters reflecting one another, very literary lyrics (if you have a hard time with English accents, you may need headsets or really good seats or both), the seamless production, the amazing performances of the kids and the adults, the very cool sets, and the occasional special effect, “Matilda” comes down to very basic, very emotionally driven themes. There is right and there is wrong. We know what they are, whether we are 6 or 60. And people deserve to be loved, especially when they are willing to give love.

Roald Dahl was a funny, tough guy. The darkness reflects life, just as the darkness of The Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Anderson, and others. In many ways, Matilda is like a Grimm hero, constantly navigating the danger… of her family, of her teachers, of her own power.

There is so much that could have gone wrong with this material. Matthew Warchus’ achievement is enormous, as the tone and the pace and the performances never take a wrong step. The whole show hands power to little Matilda (I saw Sophia Genusa and can’t imagine a better Matilda… but would love to see all four young ladies in the role), So when she takes center stage and puts those hands on her hips, the audience is ready to be with her, 100%. That’s not just the performance or the script. That’s in a show’s design.

I was really blown away by this show. It was not as “adult” as either of the two straight plays I saw, but this “kids show” reminds just how much drama can be every bit as powerful when it knows exactly what it wants to be.

If you can’t get to Broadway or are not willing to pay insane prices to see “Matilda” there, you will get plenty of chances to see it again… on tour… in school productions… in community theaters… everywhere theater lives. This is one for the ages. Pure pleasure.

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