billy elliot in chicago

I'm back!! New York was fabulous, as always and watch this space for photos and details of all of our exploits. Last night though, it was Billy Elliot at the Oriental Theater back in sweet home, Chicago. It was my second time seeing Billy (the first one was in NYC a year or so ago - I did a double show day with a matinee Billy and an evening Road Show) and I was eager to see how the Chicago production measured up to the Broadway one. I remember liking the show immensely, laughing, crying, etc etc (and also being stuck in the middle of a row in the balcony and missing the intermission bathroom dash but whatever. The show was good.) but I wondered if it was just a combination of being-in-New York excitement and emotionality? Seeing it again, would I have the same responses?

Happily, this time I was with my friends (Heidi had gotten two tickets as a Christmas gift and I was her plus one - thanks, Heidi!!!), I was sitting on an aisle and made the intermission run smoothly (but hello? the restroom in the loge in the Oriental Theater has THREE STALLS. Three. Is that nuts or what?) and the show was just as good as I remembered.

The action of the show is set against the miners' strike of 1984 and young Billy's father and brother, indeed most of the men in his town are on strike, fighting for their jobs, their community, and their way of life. PM Margaret Thatcher was intent on breaking the union and dismantling the state-owned mining industry. The playbill synopsis says that in 1984 more than 300,000 men worked in mines in Britain, but now there are less than 1,000. Most of the coal used there now comes from abroad.

Amidst all this turmoil, is young Billy Elliot (played last night by JP Viernes who was just so adorable, I wanted to dress him up in corduroy and put him on my bookshelf). His dad sends him to boxing lessons which he hates and he inadvertantly ends up in a ballet class, where he shows some potential. Through training with Mrs. Wilkinson he is able to audition for the Royal Ballet School in London. This is his ticket out of this town, a chance to be more than a miner and he is able to take it.

This show is wonderful for so many reasons - it is about a kid, but the show is not necessarily for kids. The first time we see Billy, his friend asks him a question about the strike, the response to which is "Fook if I know!" There is a hard edge here - my favorite scene is "Solidarity" where the striking miners clash forcibly with the police sent to "keep the peace" and Mrs. Wilkinson's ballet class dances around them. It is a powerful scene - the innocence of youth combined with the brutality of the circumstances of the miners. I cried again - during that scene, the letter scene with Billy and his mom, "He Could Go and He Could Shine" when his father realizes that Billy's talent could give him real opportunities, and becomes a scab, breaking the picket line to try and provide for his family, Billy's song "Electricity" where he answers the question "What does it feel like when you're dancing?" I am crying now, just typing this. Seriously. It's a serious show, set to great music by Sir Elton John (and no, Crocodile Rock does not sneak in to the proceedings. It is all original music) with an uplifting story, lots of heart, and killer dance numbers.

On to the cast. The role of Billy is being shared by four young actors. We saw JP Viernes, who, as I mentioned, was absolutely adorable. He danced his face off last night and I enjoyed his overall performance very much. His father was played by the excellent Armand Schultz, Grandma Cynthia Darlow was imported from Broadway and her "We'd Go Dancing" was "Loovleh." I'd been very excited about Emily Skinner's Mrs. Wilkinson and - gosh, do I love her voice - but I had a little trouble understanding her through her northern dialect accent. I barely caught a word of her first song "Shine" and I couldn't avoid a mental comparison with Haydn Gwynne, whom I'd seen on Broadway and listen to on the cast recording. Still, she was good in the role, and it must be kind of hard to sing out full blast and try to keep the accent in place too, if it's not your native one. It also all seemed kind of loud, like they were all shouting all the time - maybe it was where I was sitting??

I didn't notice many changes in the actual show from the Broadway production, although there were a few places where I felt vaguely like I remembered an extra scene or two before - like I was sure Billy's dad confronts him about not going to boxing "Where have you been going?" "Boxin' where do you think?" etc. but that didn't happen - he wasn't caught lying to his dad (and I was sure that he had been and that maybe? His dad slapped him or something? Did anyone else see the Bway show? Did this happen or did I just make that up??)

The one thing I DID notice was the cut of the final verse of "Merry Christmas, Maggie Thatcher" and I only noticed this because it happens to be one of my favorite verses in a show possibly ever. The ballet girls sing "Oh my darlin', oh my darlin', oh my darlin' Heseltine, you're a tosser, you're a wanker, and you're just...a...Tory... SWINE!" and it made me laugh very hard the first time I heard it. Although I think I was the only one laughing, since I'd followed the strand of who "Heseltine" was and also knew the meaning of "tosser" "wanker" and "Tory swine". The cut is a little puzzling, because yes, it is offensive, if you know what all those things mean, but it wasn't cut for language, since there is ample use of "fook" and "shit!" and "bastard" and it's not like anyone would be mad that Heseltine was insulted, and it's not like they needed to do it to make the show shorter. Anyway. If you want to hear it, get the OCR because it's on there. It is also on a special short Elton John disc of songs that he sings from Billy Elliot, including Electricity, Merry Christmas Maggie Thatcher and the letter. And I am telling you, it is worth the price of purchase/download/whatever to hear Elton merrily singing "You're a tosser, you're a tosser, and you're just a TORY... SWINE!!!" at the end of the song (he leaves out the "you're a wanker" part, but whatever. It's still worth it.)

Billy Elliot will be at the Oriental Theater for the forseeable future so go if you can.