Billy Elliot; The Musical

As much as I love the theatre and acting, I've never actual seen a professionally performed musical.

Sure, you can see shows at Edmonton's citadel theatre, and good ones at that. Having said that, Edmonton has never and will never be known for it's performing arts. For professional shows, this is entry-level stuff.

Over on the other side of the world, there's England. A production of Billy Elliot was my first taste of truly high-quality theatre, and the first professional musical I had ever seen. Singing, dancing, good acting, lights, and costumes all combined to make an extremely enjoyable show.

I won't go into detail regarding the plot of the show, as that would take much to long for it being 11:55 PM. (1) In a sentance or two, the play is about a kid named Billy Elliot who escapes the troubles of his everyday world through dance. There, I'm done. See the show if you want the whole picture!

The performance was, at times, spectacular. Let me tell you, I have a weakness for a bunch of people onstage clapping or banging things in unison. I could watch that all day, and Billy Elliot gave me plenty of that. The actors were of high quality, and delivered a high quality play with this skill. The music, composed by that damn Elton John, was splendid. Just swell. Because perfect Elton John is just so wonderful. He can't do anything wrong, oh no. He's one of the best songwriters alive today, and he deserves his fame. It's not like BILLY JOEL is better or anything!

Sorry. Where was I? Oh yes. Music.

Honestly, it was great, and I've got nothing against Elton John. I just shake my fist at him from time to time because I prefer Billy Joel, and no one in my generation has heard of him whereas everyone has heard of Elton. Still, it's...!

Oh, wait. I was done.
The show more then met my expectations. Though ironically, it isn't the show itself that I remember most vividly today. (Twenty-odd hours have passed since the last paragraph. Whoa, time travel!) There were a couple distinct moments that I remember from last night, not all of them actually related to the show.

• The Random Crunching Person: Behind where I was sitting, someone was making some weird noise throughout the first half. My mom was the one who was most effected by this, with me and my dad sitting obliviously through the first half, but I did here some noises in the second half. These were a strange combination between popping bubble wrap and crinkling chip bags, and were rather annoying to a lot of people in my row. Luckily, by the time my attention was called to the problem it had started to die down, so I wasn't too affected by it.
• The Vomiter: Just as it sounds, somebody had the indecency to throw up in the theatre. Imagine that you're sitting placidly, happily watching to a twelve year old float across the stage beside a professional ballet dancer. Smoke skuds across the stage, shrouding the whole scene in a mysterious, unearthly air. You listen to the music, picking up every note until suddenly, a new note comes in. A wet sounding note. A heaving sort of note. Then imagine someone say in horror "He threw up!" This was the grim reality last night.
• The Contagious Laugher: Thankfully, not all of the crowd-related moments last night were unhappy ones. The cast of the play was skilled at bringing out the comedic aspect of the play, and they were doing so in the middle of the second half when something more funny then the actual scene happened. The scene that was being performed was amusing, but only mildly so. The kind of scene that you smile slightly at and nothing more. Now, 99% of the crowd was doing just this when the laughter started. One single man was laughing outloud, roaring his head off in the silence of the theatre. And for some reason, the laughter was contagious. Out of nowhere, one man started the entire audience laughing for no particular reason at all. That was pretty awesome.

Yes, Billy Elliot was a whole lot of fun to see. It was illuminating to see a higher level of theatre, and I do hope that one day I'll be able to see it once more. Thanks for reading,

-Mark

(1) "Hey! It's 11:50 now!" -Mark nearly 24 hours later. Sorry I'm so slow, guys and gals,