Growing up in Australia, satirical songwriter and transgressive comedian Tim Minchin was a Dahl baby. "Roald Dahl was absolutely the author of my childhood," said Minchin. "I was marinated in Dahl," referring to the author of such paeans to defiant childhood individualism as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, and Matilda. Before finding his niche as a didactic musical comic after rock stardom eluded him, Minchin was a musical-comedy trouper. He even tried to option rights to create a stage musical from Matilda before the Dahl estate scared him off with a request that he actually write some songs.
But a decade or so later, the Royal Shakespeare Company had rights in hand, and Minchin was sounded out about his interest in providing songs for Matilda (arriving on July 15 at the Orpheum Theatre). "I just started ranting about how they can't fuck this up, and you can't Disney-fy it," he said. "I said I don't care if you don't choose me, but you should be very careful because the thing about Dahl is that he doesn't condescend to children. And director Matthew Warchus was, like, 'All right, all right, all right.' He got the point, and I got the job."
Warchus, best known for directing the Yasmina Reza plays Art and God of Carnage, had already scouted out one of Minchin's shows combining prickly standup and jaunty songs with a sharp social edge -- always performed with his distinct spiky hair, eyeliner and barefoot (although during an interview, feet were clad and eyes were linerless). "He thought I was good but too heady, and didn't have enough heart," Minchin said. "He was about to leave, and I did an encore song of mine called, 'White Wine in the Sun' [an atheist's sentimental embrace of Christmas], and it's pretty and it makes people cry. He said that was my redemption."
Matilda, first published in 1988, tells the story of a precocious young girl whose mistreatment at home is partly assuaged at school by sympathetic teacher Miss Honey, but who also has to contend with the wicked headmistress Miss Trunchbull. Rallying the other children to mischievous rebellion, Matilda Wormwood begins to develop the powers of telekinesis to counter Miss Trunchbull's increasingly severe punishments.
"It's totally subversive," Minchin, 39, said of the musical, which has a book by British writer Dennis Kelly. "I think Matilda is a genuine feminist icon for young girls. It feels like we live in a generation where empowerment is about saying in the mirror, 'I am strong,' but empowerment is actually in education. People have been writing about what it means to be a human all these years. Read the fucking books; that's your key."
One might even call Matilda a queer show �" in a gender transgressive fashion rather than a sexual sense �" and Minchin, who is a straight married father of two daughters, seemed close to endorsing that label. "But I have to be careful about the language I use in talking about the show," he said. "I was having dinner with Dan Savage last night, and it's weird but I feel without any justification that I belong to the queer community. I'm really interested in this idea that queer is not about what you put your dick into. It's about disassociating with a societal paradigm that says a man is like this and a woman is like that."
Ever since Bertie Carvel originated the role of the monstrous Miss Trunchbull in England in 2010 and then on Broadway three years later, the role has always been cast with a man in drag. "But it's not played as a drag queen," Minchin said. "It's played with utter truth. She's cast with a man because of Dahl's description of how she's physically built. Other than one easy laugh in the second act, we're not asking you to laugh at the fact that she's a man. We're asking you to utterly believe her."
With a cast in which kids outnumber adults, Matilda is usually pegged as a family show recommended for children 6 and up. "But if you think you're too grown up for Matilda, come and see it. The most sophisticated, art-savvy person will still be getting stuff after three watches. There's just a whole lot of shit going on. It empowers kids, and it makes grown-ups cry for their lost childhoods."
With the commercial success of Matilda, still running in London and on Broadway, Minchin had his choice of follow-up projects. One is a musical based on the movie Groundhog Day that should open next year, and another is Larrikins, an animated epic for DreamWorks that he is directing as well as writing the songs, which isn't due until 2018.
Because of Larrikins (an Aussie term for a lovable scoundrel), he relocated with wife and children from London to Los Angeles. With the Matilda tour now in Los Angeles, Minchen figures it might be time for his 6-year-old son to finally see the show, although his 9-year-old daughter has seen it every year since she was 4.
"She's a girl, so she's much smarter earlier," Minchin said. "She was a little scared the first time she saw it. She got Miss Trunchbull because she's a monster and kids get monsters, but Mr. Wormwood was just a dad shouting at his daughter, and it reminded her of me." Beat. "Just kidding."
Matilda will run July 15-Aug. 15 at the Orpheum Theatre. Tickets are $40-$210. Call (888) 746-1799 or go to shnsf.com.