Saturday afternoon, I took mom to see Billy Elliot. I was pretty sure she would love it, and I was not wrong. We had good seats (orchestra row J cuz that's how I roll!) and I brought a lot of kleenex, because the past two times I've seen the show, I've been a blubbing mess (more on this later).
We saw Tommy Batchelor as Billy - and he was great!! What a talented dancer and singer he is. He captured the essential "Billy-ness" for me, I don't know why. The rest of the cast was also outstanding - and I am now completely OBSESSED with Emily Skinner's voice (even though, full disclosure, I still didn't understand a whole lot of "Shine" - we were really close to the speakers though, so maybe it was just loud? I went home and listened to the OCR and I was like 'She said that? Really?')
And, yes, I cried (again). It started early this time, too. I would say I'm pretty emotional, but I don't cry easily at theater or movies. But this just really grabs me, maybe because of the struggles we are having now, economically, or maybe because I identify with the plight of the working man? (YEAH! SOLIDARITY, BABY!) I was only 6 years old in 1984, so I don't remember Margaret Thatcher (I was barely aware of our own president and politics!) so I don't know much about the situation in reality, but it all just seems so strange to me to shut down working mines and import coal from somewhere else just because you can, and put hundreds of thousands of your own people out of work. What did they do for a living after all this happened? I get especially misty when Mr. Elliot goes and BECOMES A SCAB to try and provide a better life, an opportunity, for Billy. It's just gutwrenching.
"Solidarity" remains my favorite number, it's really really well done, combining the clash of the miners and the riot police (we were so close, we could see the expressions of the police during the opening music to this number, and one of them was picking his nose. Hilarious.) and setting it against the innocence of the kids in their dance class. Life goes on, even amidst strikes and chaos. The show is also timed very well, just when there's a lot of sadness and angst, something funny happens - another powerful scene is when Billy receives his letter from the Royal Ballet School (Spolier Alert!!) The buildup to his opening the letter is pretty funny, but the celebration is cut short by the announcement that the strike has ended and the union has lost. He watches the miners go back down the shaft before he leaves for school, knowing when he comes back to town, everything he has known will be different, gone.
SUCH a good show. Go and see it, if you haven't already. And go before October, so you can see Emily Skinner as Mrs. Wilkinson. It is SO worth it...
No comments:
Post a Comment