After hemming and hawing (how, exactly, does one "haw"?) for a couple of months, and then vacillating for the past couple of weeks, I finally - with a gentle nudge from Christopher - got off my butt and went to see "Billy Elliot" last night.
It's a touring production, due to leave on Sunday, and so this is the final week. I had almost convinced myself to just not go, but then we were with friends last weekend who had seen it and were raving about it. And then it came up in conversation this week and - as I've mentioned - Christopher said I really ought to just go. So I did.
If you don't know about the show (the musical was taken from the movie), it's about an 11-year-old kid (who happens to be named Billy Elliot - lucky for the writers of the show, hunh?) from a poor mining community in Northern England. It's a town where all the boys grow up to be miners, and the economy is driving everyone into the ground (literally and figuratively). One day, Billy stumbles into a ballet class after his boxing lesson, and somehow finds himself caught up in it. And, as he realizes he'd rather dance than box, he keeps coming back. Eventually, his teacher decides that he should go to audition for the Royal Ballet (school), and... well... that doesn't go over so well with his family. Drama ensues - or continues to ensue, at least.
What's amazing about the show is that no matter what the rest of the cast is like - whether it be the girls in the ballet school, or Billy's family, or even Billy's friend Michael (who likes dressing in his mother's clothing because it's what his dad does, too) - the entire show comes down to Billy.
There are some amazing dance numbers in the show, and they all come down to focusing on the one pre-teen kid who has to sing, dance, and act his heart out to make them work. And, you know what? He does.
Unfortunately, since they rotate Billy's throughout the run of the show, I don't even know for sure which kid was playing him last night. I just know that he had incredible balletic form. When he was paired onstage with his "grown-up" self, they matched each other perfectly. It was... to use the word again... incredible.
And, for me, there was one other very cool thing about last night's show. I was reading through the program before the lights went down, and one name caught my eye: Faith Prince. I realize you may not know who she is, but if you know about theater (or a number of TV shows), you'd know her if you saw or heard her. She's a redhead with devastating comic timing, a Broadway belting voice, and - I gotta say - quite the legs.
Prince played Billy's dance teacher - which means she got a couple of great scenes onstage, as well as a couple of songs. And me - sitting at the back of the orchestra floor - I felt like I got an extra little bonus Christmas gift.
Overall rating: A. I gotta admit that a few of the accents came and went throughout the show - and sometimes when they "came" they were so strong that you couldn't understand what was going on. But, aside from that, the show was all it promised to be.
And, thankfully, although the music of "Swan Lake" was used throughout the show, no one lost any toenails on stage last night.
No comments:
Post a Comment