Girl's power play

The sassy and brave titular character of musical stage production Matilda is inspiring and entertaining Chinese audiences in equal measure, Chen Nan reports.

The theater is full of magic.

When 23-year-old Wang Ruoxuan watched the musical, Matilda, on Nov 21 at Beijing's Poly Theater, she was confronted with an explosion of colors, books and letters as children on long rope swings flew back and forth while singing one of the show's headline musical numbers, When I Grow Up.