By Kimberly Harper
It’s the Rhode Island premiere of “Billy Elliot: The Musical” at Ocean State Theatre Company, and it’s good. Really good. And not just because the entire show is basically carried on the back of a 12 year old with more dancing ability than any one human should be allotted.
For Billy Elliot, life in Northern England in 1984 is hard enough. His mother died, his father and loudmouthed older brother are both out of work as a result of the miners’ strike that unemployed hundreds of thousands at the time, and his grandmother suffers from dementia that makes her hide food in his clothes and forget important events. His best friend Tony is a cross dresser. And to top it all off, he has to go to boxing class after school.
Well one day he winds up staying late and inadvertently becomes part of the ballet class that meets after. And despite the teacher’s initial protests, she eventually forces him to join and it turns out, Billy’s talented. Really talented. Good enough to get into the Royal Ballet School, probably, if only he can get to the auditions. Now the problem becomes convincing his father – the whole town, really – that this is a goal worth pursuing, when everyone else seems to have given up on their dreams.
Director Amiee Turner has done a nice job with this one. The ensemble is strong and works over time to fill a number of smaller roles, and the leads are impressive, too. Notable voices include Christopher Swan, a familiar face at OSTC who plays Billy’s emotionally walled-off father. He sings with the ensemble but it’s his folk song solo at the top of Act 2 that really shows off his talent and range. Matthew Dean is relatively new to this whole singing thing but was handling the challenge just fine the night I saw him, and Sarah Polen, the addled live-in grandma, truly transforms in her Act 1 song, where she describes dancing with her late husband as a newlywed.
Then there’s the dancing. Choreographer Rachel Bertone has done a great job here. The little girls’ ensemble is appropriately awkward in the beginning and grows in talent as the story progresses. And Dean as Billy is just fantastic. He’s been dancing since he was a toddler and it shows. At one point he completes 20 pirouettes in a row during the number “Electricity,” a challenge for any dancer, and there’s a lovely pas de deux in the second act as well with J. Morgan White. It’s sensational. Many of the dance numbers are set up against the police and coal miner strike, with the beauty and innocence of the children mixing against clubs and riot shields. The song “Solidarity Forever” is a recurring musical theme throughout the entire show, pervading Billy’s life even when all he wants to do is focus on dance.
The entire thing is set inside a wood-paneled town hall, designed by Erik Diaz, that turns into a coal mine, or apartment, or stage, depending on which panels are removed. And Jamie Roderick’s lighting did a lot to set the mood, especially when the workers are going down into the mine.
There were some slower moments in the show, and the accents of some of the actors could use some work (I initially thought this was taking place in Ireland, and had to check my program), but overall this really is one you want to catch before it closes, especially if you enjoy watching exceptionally good ballet.
Billy Elliot runs through Oct. 23 at Ocean State Theatre Company, 1245 Jefferson Blvd., Warwick. Tickets start at $39 and may be obtained online at www.oceanstatetheatre.org or by calling the box office at 401-921-6800.
