BILLY ELLIOT -Saturday October 11, 8:00 PM - review — Page 2

I, too, was at the performance on October 11. I did not like the sets at all, not because they were drab or because they malfunctioned, but because they seemed to use large chunks of the sets over and over again. The town hall set was there most of the time. Even when the house came up through the floor, it was still surrounded by the town hall most of the time. I felt that the backdrop should have changed for the house scenes. Even the downstage left area was used in both the house and town hall scenes. I thought it was confusing and distracting. The corkscrew house set was sort of technically cool, especially when the bedroom separated from the rest of the piece, but I thought they made too much of it with all its spinning and such. Also, the kitchen table came up out of the floor. I thought this was a bit overkill. It could have just slid on from the side.

I was not impressed with the storytelling at all (and I liked the movie). There was not enough exposition (although they tried to do that through a news reel). I just didn't feel any empathy with the plight of the miners at all. They just came across as brutes (which, they are sort of supposed to, but still.).

I wish that they would cut "Grandma's Song." It did nothing to move the story along. It seemed only to serve to give Carole Shelley something to do for five minutes, since she is terribly underutilized otherwise. I would rather use that time for something else, and the show is too long as it is.

I didn't like the choreography of the miners, police, and ballet class all together. I know what they were trying to achieve with that piece, but it came across very silly. Are we supposed to be afraid and hate the police, or laugh at them? Are we supposed to be on the side of the miners, or think they are ridiculous?

While Kiril was strong with dancing and adequate with singing, I thought his acting was a bit forced and mechanical. I guess you can't ask for everything with a child star. Overall, he was good.

Overall, I would say that this was money wasted. I would not recommend this show to anyone, and I usually find very positive things to say about shows. Maybe with more work, it will improve. Maybe we need to send it to the Wizard to get a heart.

Are we supposed to be afraid and hate the police, or laugh at them? Are we supposed to be on the side of the miners, or think they are ridiculous?

The answer is "both". I applauded the way the staging of Solidarity allowed all aspects of Billy's life to cross and converge in a way that provided some brevity and whimsy. It quite clearly illustrates Billy's perspective on the issues at hand in the beginning, then playfully mixes them together from a youthful and imaginitive perspective. I think the number would be far less interesting if it merely spoon-fed the audience one view and monotonously portayed it throughout. I mean, I didn't believe men really appeared moving in slow-motion around the grandmother or that giant dresses actually came to life and danced. It is a production number and I viewed it as such. I didn't find it confusing at all.

I also loved the sets and found them to be well-representative of the mood, period and setting without being too literal (which I find incredibly boring). If I found a particular set to be unnattractive, I felt that it was deliberate and honest. While I was initially unimpressed with the score from the CD, I felt it served the production brilliantly. I never felt like I was plodding through a score that fought hard to compensate for a weak book or hackneyed design sets (Aida), but rather worked in tandem with the book and design to complete a unified piece. As a result, I fondly listen to the CD and appreciate the songs as well as my memories of the staged numbers. And as for the few moments when the songs didn't particularly propel the story such as Grandma's Song, rather than wish the story would move along, I was riveted by the insight into this rather minor character (as well as entranced by the gorgeous choreography) who was even more two-dimensional in the film.

As for the "megamix", I took it for what it was...a staged curtain call. Every curtain call takes you out of the show (as typically does the exit music). That is sort of the purpose. Do I feel the show would benefit in any way from the absence of a cute production number during the curtain call? No. For me, it didn't change the tone of the show whatsoever because at that point, I had already recognized that the show had ended and the curtain call had begun.

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