Character:
Matilda Wormwood, a precocious five-year-old who wants to stand up for what's right; loves books and fantasizes quite a bit.
Song Context:
Miss Trunchbull is giving Matilda?s class a physical education lesson when she discovers a new in her water jug. She verbally abuses Matilda, and Matilda gets angry enough at the unjustness of the situation to realize that she can harness her powers and move objects with her mind.
Fun Facts:
1. This musical was based on the famous children's novel of the same name by Roald Dahl.
2. In an interview with The Guardian, Sophia Kiely, one of the four actresses to originate the role on the West End, described Matilda as "intelligent and powerful...confident to say what's right, when something is wrong.?
3. In an interview with Time Out New York, composer Tim Minchin said ?I loved giving her ?Quiet??She asks all these Cartesian questions about other minds which she can articulate because she?s a f*cking genius. But it?s something we all thought of as kids - this question of other minds, of whether the red that you see is the same as the red that I see.?
"Have you ever wondered, well I have.
About how when I say, say red, for example.
There's no way of knowing if red
Means the same thing in your head
As red means in my head, when someone says red!
And how if we are traveling at almost the speed of light
And we're holding a light,
That light will still travel away from us
At the full speed of light, which seems right in a way.
What I'm trying to say, I'm not sure
But I wonder if inside my head
I'm not just a bit different from some of my friends.
These answers that come into my mind unbidden,
These stories delivered to me fully written,
And when everyone shouts like they seem to like shouting
The noise in my head is incredibly loud!
And I just wish they'd stop, my Dad and my Mum.
And the telly and stories would stop just for once!
I'm sorry, I'm not quite explaining it right.
The noise becomes anger and the anger is light
And its burning inside me would usually fade,
But it isn't today!
And the heat and the shouting,
And my heart is pounding,
And my eyes are burning,
And suddenly everything, everything is
Quiet,
Like silence, but not really silent.
Just that still sort of quiet.
Like the sound of a page being turned in a book.
Or a pause in a walk in the woods.
Quiet,
Like silence, but not really silent.
Just that nice kind of quiet.
Like the sound when you lie upside down in your bed,
Just the sound of your heart in your head,
And though the people around me,
Their mouths are still moving,
The words they are forming
Cannot reach me anymore!
And it is quiet
And I am warm
Like I've sailed
Into the eye of the storm."