Last week I had the pleasure of seeing Billy Elliot with my former ballet teacher Mrs. Pors, who has been helping me this past year with my RAD (Royal Academy of Dance) certification. As a thank you for all the time, effort, and energy that she's put into helping me through hours of lesson planning, practical teaching sessions, meetings and evaluations, I bought tickets for us both to see the show during its brief run this summer in San Francisco at the Orpheum Theater. I'd been a fan of the story of Billy Elliot since the movie came out in 2000, and Mrs. Pors and I were excited to take a trip into the city to see the story played out onstage. With music by Elton John and choreography by legendary Peter Darling, our expectations were high, and duly matched.
Billy Elliot revolves around a young boy (Billy), growing up in Northern England in a small coal mining town. With a mother that has recently passed away, a father and brother on the picket lines of the 1984 British National Union of Mineworkers strike, and an aging and somewhat delusional grandmother, Billy has plenty of pent up frustration and anger, but can't seem to take it out on a boxing bag, as his father wants him to. Instead, he inadvertently winds up in a ballet class, and amidst the tutus, music, and sarcastically pointed remarks of the ballet teacher Mrs. Wilkinson, finds himself falling into, and in love with the ballet world.
Billy was played by Lex Ishimoto in the performance I saw, and was brilliant. There are 5 boys who alternate the roll of Billy, each have equally impressive resumes. Ishimoto is a California native, listing hip hop, tap, jazz, ballet, lyrical and contemporary dance as his specialities. What, no specailities in ballroom or Irish stepdancing? C'mon kid... (I joke. Completely joke). Faith Prince is fantastic as Mrs. Wilkinson, hitting the nail completely on the head with her sardonic but reluctantly tender character. Rich Hebert plays Billy's Dad, a rough and tough coal miner whose character really develops as the musical progresses. His struggle with loosing his beloved wife, and fighting for the rights of his co-workers and professions while still trying to provide for a family are poignantly felt. Billy's older brother Tony (played by Jeff Kready) is everything you would imagine a young twenty something righteous protestor to be. His character is dripped in the injustice of the world, gritty and angry, yet not without cause. I felt my heartstrings pull during the scenes where he is so fervently supporting a cause that will inevitably die. A favorite of mine, and in my opinion, a true show stealer, is Grandma, played by Patti Perkins. An important but secondary role, old and off the rocker Grandma is ironically the voice of reason many times, and when she's not, she's definitely funny. One of my favorite numbers is performed by Grandma at the beginning of the performance. After being reminded that both her daughter in law and her husband are dead, Grandma reminisces on (or rather, celebrates at the decline of) her marriage. The number "We'd Go Dancing" is the audiences first clue that this dance thing isn't just about Billy, or specific to him. Grandma sings about the daily grind and fights with her husband, and how all troubles disappeared on the dance floor:
It was bliss for an hour or so
But then they called time to go
And in the morning we were sober
Done with a humorous flair and in British fashion, completely poking fun at the silliness husband and wife inflict upon each other, the number is funny but tells us something that we all know: dance is an escape. Later on, we see this theme again in "Born to Boogie", a fun and fancy footed piece by Billy, Mrs. Wilkinson, and Mr. Braithwaite (the ballet class pianist). Upon first meeting the eye, Mr. Braithwaite is a slowish form of human, banging away at the piano with a cigarette in his mouth and his pants in need of a belt. Unexpectedly, during one of Billy's rehearsals, Mr. Braithwaite gives a fine speech on the impact of Diaglev's Ballet Russe and then taps, flips, and splits himself across the stage in a grand old boogie fashion. Again, the escapism of dance is both joyful and unexpected, yet omnipresent. From the harsh realities of Billy's life, to the burdens of being all things to another person, and playing a role that everyone expects of you, dance is a universal happy place.
A not so happy place is the picket line, where Billy's father and brother are actively striking Margaret Thacher's moves to close the state owned industry and unions of coal mining. The piece "Solidarity" is exactly that - a show of a solid and tough community. Their solidarity is commendable and slightly frightening. The sets, designed by Ian MacNeil are malleable yet solid, much like Billy's community itself. Walls of brick emblazoned with graffiti are a constant backdrop, weather the police be pushing back protestors with sharp and stark choreographic movements, to when Billy's house and upstairs bedroom become a prison like cell that he bangs and thrashes into while dancing out his frustration, which we see later in "Angry Dance". Continually through the performance the audience is faced with a tangible pent up anger. Such frustration at life, and at the world, bearing down upon Billy until he just can't take it anymore and has to stomp, tap, punch, and pirouette his way through just one more day in order to make it to the next one. The entire cast does a fantastic job of bottling up this gritty frustration and carrying it through the entire show. Ben Brantly, in his review from the New York Times, puts it perfectly: "This show makes sure that we always keep in mind the grittiness and despair of the society that produced Billy, so that the poetry of his dancing seems all the more startling and inexplicable."
Yet, even with all the grittiness and despair of the world Billy lives in, we're reminded that Billy is really just a boy. A lost boy who is struggling with the loss of his mother. "Dear Billy" is a tear jerking duet between Billy and his mother, expressing all the things that mother and son will never get to experience together. As inspiration for a piece that Mrs. Wilkinson wants Billy to choreograph for an audition to the Royal Ballet School, Billy brings a letter that his mother wrote to him before her death. Though they will miss each other, she encourages Billy to always be true to himself. This number is tender to a tee, although Billy and his mother are never allowed to touch, always ebbing and flowing to and from each other. I'm fairly certain there were few dry eyes in the audience. I wish that the number had not been repeated in the second act; to me it became one of the few bits that was overdone in the show, and I'm really just not a fan of crying during a show I've paid for! I will say though, one of the best lines I found in the entire show (and in the movie), is Mrs. Wilkinson saying to Billy "Well she must've been a very special woman", and Billy responding in an ever so childlike and honest way "No, not really... she was just me mum".
On the theme of being true to oneself, "Expressing Yourself" is a piece that comes out of the closet to a rough, and shall we say... insensitive way of thinking among Northern British communities when Billy's friend Michael openly dresses himself (and then Billy) up in his sister's clothes, saying it's all just in good fun, and really what's wrong with it? And Michael does have a point, and there is a good amount of humor in watching Billy squirm. It's a well done nod to the skittishness we still see today from gay and lesbian issues, cross dressing, ironically enough, males in dance. This was the only other place I found the show a bit overdone. Cast members in full suit dresses tap dance their way on stage, and while it's all in good fun and fantastic costume design, I didn't feel it really added any value to the show or the momentum of emotions the show had come to at that point.
The second half of the show is Billy's fight to make it to the auditions at the Royal Ballet School. Or, Royal Ball-ey School, as pronounced with the thick Northern British accent. (There were times I felt in need of subtitles to decipher the heavy accents). Billy's first attempt is thwarted by his father and brother's anger at his new hobby, and absolute disgust and distrust of ballet and Mrs. Wilkinson. Upon further consideration and a change of heart during "He Could Go and He Could Shine", Billy's father takes up a "scabber" position, and instead of working the picket lines, goes back to work in the coal mines to pay for the trip to the audition. That solidarity kicks back in, and the entire community pitches in to sending Billy to the audition. The audience gets a glimpse of Billy's future as Maximilien Baud steps in as Older Billy, and the two dance together in unison, spinning a single chair into their dance that Mrs. Wilkinson has used to train Billy from morning to night. Older Billy attaches Young Billy to a harness, and off he goes, wooshing and flying across the stage, rising above all the things that have been weighing him down.
This is similar to the movie's ending, but the musical continues on to give us a humorous glimpse of Billy's audition - his nerves, his father's shock at the uniform of a grown male dancer, and the poetic number "Electricity", where Billy explains to his audition panel what dancing feels like:
I suppose it's like forgetting, losing who you are
And at the same time something makes you whole
It's like that there's a music playing in your ear
And I'm listening, and I'm listening and then I disappear
I completely and 100% agree, and even if you're not a dancer the audience is able to connect with Billy's passion and description of something intangible, but very very real.
Predictably, Billy is accepted into the Royal Ballet School, and the musical culminates with Billy saying his goodbyes and heading out through the audience to bigger and better things. Perhaps my favorite moment of the entire show though, is the company bows, when every single cast member dons a tutu to dance together one last time. Tutus really are the epitome of dance, from here to Africa to Japan, all one has to do is see a tutu to recognize "ballet". And although we're here in 2011 and we like to think of ourselves as accepting and open minded people, stigmas and ignorance still flood our everyday lives. Billy's community regarded his dancing and "tutu loving" as frivolous, feminine, and gay. But through his passion, Billy is able to change that stigma, mend a broken community, family, and bring a sense of calm to a chaotic world just by embracing a tutu and all it stands for. To see the entire cast joyfully prancing around and embracing all that tutus stand for makes me so happy, not only for this musical, but for the world, and makes me hope that maybe one tutu at a time, it really can become a better place.
