VIEWPOINTS – Stratford Festival, Day 5: BILLY ELLIOT

And just like that, my 2019 Stratford Festival immersion has come to an end. As with previous years, it’s been both enlightening and invigorating to see the festival’s repertory operation – a dying breed – fully flex its considerable muscles. Indeed, experiencing these diverse shows within hours of each other over the course of multiple days, often times featuring the same actors in vastly different roles, creates a conversation that examines our shared humanity in uniquely overarching ways and from various perspectives that seeing a single production isn’t able to. I look forward to next year’s landmark season, which will unveil a sparkling new waterfront venue that will house the new Patterson Theatre, a mid-sized performance space that has been much missed in recent years. Until next year!

Sunday, 18 August 2019

Nolen Dubuc (center) and the company of Elton John and Lee Hall's "Billy Elliot" at the Festival Theatre.

Nolen Dubuc (center) and the company of Elton John and Lee Hall’s “Billy Elliot” at the Festival Theatre.

For the last time this summer, I ventured to the Festival Theatre, where I took in one of the centerpieces of the festival, Stratford’s production of the Tony and Olivier Award winning musical Billy Elliot. In my opinion, the musical – which features a saccharine but sturdy score by Elton John (one of his very best for the theater) and a beautifully balanced book by Lee Hall – stands out as one of the crowning achievements of the British musical post the golden age of the 1980s and 1990s (which produced such commercial hits as Cats, Les Miserables, The Phantom of the Opera, and Miss Saigon). The musical, which tells the inspiring story of a boy (the titular Billy) who barely escapes a decaying northern England mining town through his talent for dance, is an unlikely mix of grit and delicacy that has more in common with the working class sentiments of Willy Russell’s Blood Brothers than those aforementioned mega-musicals.

I’m happy to report that the Stratford production, once again helmed by gifted director and choreographer Donna Feore, was worthy of the award-winning material, even if it didn’t erase the memory of the deeply satisfying original production by Stephen Daldry (who also directed the film on which the musical is based). Although I applaud Ms. Feore’s decision not to sanitize the material (four-letter curse words are thrown about at alarming frequency, particularly for a show that’s been marketed as a family show), I got the sense that perhaps the creative team didn’t trusted the material quite enough to let it simply speak for itself, which is the beauty of this exceedingly well-written musical. Some of its rawer moments – those which made the original production so moving – seemed glossed over and less examined here.

Nevertheless, Ms. Feore has stunningly re-tooled Mr. Daldry’s original vision for the expansive thrust stage of the Festival Theater. Much of her new choreography is thrilling, particularly the brilliantly juxtaposing “Solidarity” sequence. The cast was mostly more than solid, but once again I missed the chilly, very real desperation that pervaded that initial staging. Blythe Wilson and Dan Chameroy – as truly wonderful as they are – gave performances that were a tad too obviously studied in the great roles of Billy’s dance teacher and father, respectively. Billy Elliot is a musical that thrives on realism and emotional honesty, and less so on polished performances. However, the show sits squarely on the title character’s slight shoulders. Luckily, in young Nolen Dubuc, we have a very fine Billy that rings true. His performance beguiled me with its natural ease and vulnerability. Oh, and he danced and sang like a dream, too.

 

THE STRATFORD FESTIVAL
Regional, Plays/Musicals
Festival Theatre / Avon Theatre / Studio Theatre
Various productions in repertory through October

Categories: Off-Broadway, Theater

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