Someone please call child protective services. On Monday night in Littleton, I was not alone in witnessing a grotesque, hulking ogre punish a defenseless, doe-eyed little boy by forcing him to eat every last morsel of an entire, thick chocolate cake. Not content, the brute then imprisoned the boy overnight in a small closet covered in broken glass, lined with rusty nails and not even big enough to sit down in. And when the tortured pip was finally released, this callous cad ensured this humiliated rapscallion would now “toad” the line by making him hop – and ribbit – like a frog before hundreds of frenetic, cheering, laughing onlookers.

And to make it all really twisted: They both seemed to enjoy every moment.

That may be because the ogre in this case is Brian Merz-Hutchinson. And the rapscallion is his 12-year-old son, Mason. They’re both actors – both really good actors, it turns out – playing the vaingloriously villainous schoolmaster Miss Trunchbull and relentlessly abused schoolboy Bruce Bogtrotter in the Town Hall Arts Center’s hilarious and expertly produced family-frightful musical, “Roald Dahl’s Matilda,” through Dec. 31.

By day, the elder Merz-Hutchinson is a presumably caring counselor to impressionable teen minds at Regis Jesuit High School. (Back in the day, that might have been mine.) By night … oh, let’s let him describe it.

“I get to play an ultra-crazy hammer-throwing bully to a swarm of disgusting little smart-(bleep) maggots – while jumping off a trampoline, swinging on a trapeze and singing,” he said. “And I am so honored and blessed to be doing it.”

This little bit of “All in the Family” casting comes courtesy of director Steve Wilson, himself a multiple True West Award-winner who has compiled an astonishingly deep ensemble that includes a dozen tiny actors who can truly stand shoulder-to-kneecap with every adult actor on stage. And at the heart of all of their terrific work is a ferocious sense of play. Like every finely-tuned comic moment between the villainous Miss Trunchbull and her oblivious little (blood) nemesis, who several times during the show had the crowd screaming, “Bruuuuuuce!”

Take when Trunchbull wrongly accuses young Matilda of stealing that aforementioned cake. Guilty young Bruce gives himself away by letting out a 180-degree, slow-motion belch that Trunchbull detects with a use of the tongue that would make both Lee Strasberg and Jim Carrey weep with joy. Without saying a word, this brilliant, extended comic moment between father and son could milk a cow dry. It was everything.

“You would be hard-pressed to find a better connection between two actors,” Wilson said. “There is something about putting two people together on a stage who know, love and care for each other that just takes things to another level.” But the thing is, he added: “They are both really good.”

Take it from the mother/wife of this irrepressible comedy tandem.

“I am sure that I annoyed everyone who sat anywhere near me on opening night, because I was so loud every time they did something,” said Michelle Herz-Hutchinson, herself an accomplished local stage actor. “I had opening-night jitters for both of them, but the evening exceeded my wildest dreams.”

Brian Hutchinson and Michelle Merz fell in love performing on stages all over Denver back in the Aughts, most notably perhaps in two productions of Stephen Sondheim’s “Assassins” by a company called Next Stage. Michelle’s most recent performance was six years ago in the Aurora Fox’s “Company.” Brian’s most recent performance was five minutes ago in Cherry Creek Theatre’s oh-so-posh musical revue, “Sondheim on Sondheim,” which overlapped with rehearsals for “Matilda.” (Side note: I’d pay through the roof of my mouth to see Hutchinson perform “Send in the Clowns” in the style of Agatha Trunchbull.)

With two such accomplished performing parents, you would think Mason and his twin sister, Marin, have been fated to a life on the stage. And, well … duh.

Mason is a seventh-grade theater major at Denver School of the Arts. He just played Young Don in the all-school musical “Kinky Boots.” That’s Don before he grows up to become the burly hyper-masculine bear of a factory worker who acts as the drag-queen Lola’s arch-nemesis.

“We certainly have subjected our children to a lot of theater from birth,” Michelle said. “We sing showtunes all the time at home. We watch the Thanksgiving parade just to see the Broadway performances. But we have always told Mason that just because theater is our passion, he should only do it for as long as he wants to do it.”

That has already been decided. As soon as Mason could sing … he could sing, if you know what I mean. “When the kids were 4, they staged a Thanksgiving production of ‘The Little Mermaid’ in our basement,” Michelle said. “Mason directed, produced and played Ursula. We all had different parts. He even made programs.”

Now encroaching upon teenhood and killing it with the big boys (and ogres) on a professional stage, Michelle admits that the earnest, signature number in “Matilda” hit her particularly hard. It’s called “When I Grow Up,” and … it’s coming.

But whatever life has in store for this father or son after this nearly sold-out run of “Matilda” ends, Wilson is sure of one thing.

“What a glorious experience for the two of them to have had.”

Note: The True West Awards, now in their 23rd year, began as the Denver Post Ovation Awards in 2001. Denver Gazette Senior Arts Journalist John Moore celebrates the Colorado theater community by revisiting 30 good stories from the past year without categories or nominations.