The Muny's 96th season kicked off with, in effect, a shout of "Five, six, seven EIGHT!" Monday night as it put "Billy Elliot The Musical" on stage. The show itself may not be the best musical to cross a Broadway stage in the last decade - for instance, it slows a bit late in the second act - but there's a decent story line, taken from the film of the same name, and the score is more than respectable compared to most of its contemporaries. Thank you, Elton John, four words I never thought I'd be writing.
It doesn't feel like a dance musical, thanks to its gritty setting in a coal mine town in the north of England during Margaret Thatcher's evisceration of the unions. But it surely is. The choreography, done on Broadway by Peter Darling and re-created for our marvelous monster of a Muny stage, is remarkable. Early in the first act, the magic emerges as police, miners and dance students work together.
Tade Biesinger is the lad in question, who finds himself in a ballet class by accident. Great footwork and lots of grace for this fellow, who's been Billy on Broadway and in London. Ben Nordstrom, seen on St. Louis stages for more than a decade, it seems like, takes on the role of Tony, Billy's elder brother, like a hungry attack dog, just what's called for, a new Nordstrom for many of us, and a pleasure to see. Speaking of locals, Steve Isom, as Billy's dad's good mate George, may well be doubling as Maggie Thatcher in a Christmas number. And dad, Daniel Oreskes, and the dance teacher, Mrs. Wilkinson, delight.
A few quibbles among the delights. Sometimes the accents are too thick for our weak Midwestern ears, and the jokes too British - how many in the crowd knew the word "wanker", to take one example.? At least once, the tide turned too far the other way, at the Christmas party and a fellow announced he was Santa Claus. All good anglophiles (guilty, your lordship) know that it's Father Christmas, but the the followup joke was leaning on the line, so.... And I do wish the delightfully nasty lyrics to "Merry Christmas, Maggie Thatcher" were more understandable.
But this is a marvelous show. The finale is the sort of number the Muny stage was made for. My strong advice is to revel in it and forget getting to the parking lot so quickly.
Billy Elliot The Musical
through June 22
The Muny
314-361-1900
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