Billy Elliot

I have a very strong affinity for underdogs, a symptom of growing up in a baseball family and rooting long into the 9th inning for our team (Cardinals, not doing too shabby at the moment) to catch a break.  So Billy Elliot, a musical unabashedly embracing an improbable pursuit, and currently playing at the Ordway, resonates with me.

This was my first time seeing the musical live, but I listened to the original Broadway recording pretty religiously a couple years ago, during my Elton John Can Do No Wrong phase.  I tired of that particular musical worship, but I still find John's craftmanship with this show to be top-notch. But just as my enjoyment of John faded with a few too many songs-that-sound-the-same, so my attention drifted, from time to time, during this performance.  There was no lack of skill, no particularly glaring error in direction or vision, the show simply faded for me a bit, with the highlights noted below snapping me back to attention.

Said highlights were the lead females, the supporters of our famous underdog.  I thought Janet Dickinson's Mrs. Wilkinson was tough and funny, with just enough of a soft spot to make you recall every "tough love" mentor in your own life.  She was a solid champion with a beautiful tone to even her friskiest numbers.  Grandma, the friskiest of the bunch, was simply hilarious. Patti Perkins' "We'd Go Dancing" was equal parts saucy, I-never-want-to-hear-my-Grandma-say-that hilarity, and downright melancholy.

Our hero, Billy, charmed, but even I, flagrant supporter of all things underdog-ish, found the Angry Dance at the end of Act I to be a bit long on Footloose, short on authenticity.  But Billy's frustration and eventual redemption in Act II felt more genuine than his building anger in Act I, and that may be a comment on the book or it may be a comment on the actor settling into his task for the evening or it may be a comment on a number of factors all rolled into a "good, not great" evening of musical theater. The final dance number with the company was charming and Billy deserved his standing ovation, not so much because his performance astonished me in and of itself, but because at the end of the day, he is a child commanding a stage for 2+ hours and he did so more effectively than many twice or thrice his age.

Shows through October 14th.

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