If there ever were a musical that was
destined to
be the very “poster child” for the maxim that a musical with a solid
book but a
middling score has a better chance for survival than a musical with a
weak book
and a terrific score, it’s Billy Elliot, which
has a strong book and a perfectly poopie score. Adapted and with lyrics
by Lee
Hall, who also authored
the
original screenplay upon which the musical is based, Billy Elliot is another of those confounding
evenings in which Elton
John skates to a
totally unearned
box-office glory simply because he’s attached to a machine that makes
the
quality of his work (and I use both words frivolously) almost totally
negligible.
In
this case, the machine is an almost irresistible story. As adequately
summarized in Wikipedia, with a little tweaking from me for the review
context, here’s the premise: “Set in County Durham, against the
backdrop of the 1984-85 coal miners' strike, [the story tells of]
motherless
eleven-year-old Billy (David Alvarez,
Trent Kowalik or Kiril Kulish) [who] inadvertently
finds his way out of his boxing
practice and into a girls' ballet class run by Mrs. Wilkinson (Haydn Gwynne, who created her role
in London). Sure enough, he
becomes attracted to the grace of the dance and yearns to learn more.
While his
brother (Santino Fontana),
father (Gregory Jbarra) and neighbors stand on strike and
clash with riot police, Billy
continues to show up at the studio, keeping it a secret from his
family, who
would prefer that he take on more manly, working-class pursuits.”
As
eye-fillingly directed by Stephen Daldry (who also directed the film), with
equally sumptuous choreography by Matthew
Bourne (who likewise
provided he
film’s choreography)—and a lot of it—the evening cannily steers mostly
clear of featuring
songs that
have any substantial book function (indeed, a number of dramatic beats
that, to
a real musical dramatist, would cry out for musicalization, are
relegated to
simply well-acted book scenes). He rather lets most of its numbers be
celebratory or
anthematic or philosophical comments that don’t have to be listened to
for
their points to be made, and most of the time those numbers trigger dance, which
is
even less dependent on words
(i.e. the dance teacher’s “all ya gotta do” type
number about expressing oneself in dance; the miners’ “Solidarity”
number about
rallying to their cause, etc. etc.) and the few times the numbers have
to carry up-close,
personal moments (i.e. Billy’s
grandma [Carole Shelley]
remembering romantic dances in her past; Billy’s deceased mom [Leah Hocking] appearing
to voice words from a cherished letter, etc.), they’re lumpen of shape,
treacly
of content—and pale so, next to the dance numbers, that the audience
simply (yet willingly!) tolerates them as harmless place markers. None
of the songs reveals
anything you don’t know from the libretto, and between the
unschooled-but-nice-try lyrics of Mr. Hall and the hackwork,
day-at-the-office,
throwaway burbles of undistinguished melodoids by Mr. John (have I
de-glamorized it enough, do you think?), the actors have very little to
hang
onto by way of musical shape and natural verbal emphasis, thus about
70% of the
evening’s lyrics are, to an ear hearing them for the first time (as
mine was),
pretty much indecipherable. (And I must pause to add: for the task of
discerning detail, even in a convoluted or obscured setting, mine are
uncommonly fast, perceptive and sharp ears.) The actors might as well
be
singing bibbity-bobbity-boo for all the difference it makes. The score
for Billy
Elliot is a triumph of
dog
communication: tone of voice and intensity of delivery send a
rudimentary
message. The audience responds accordingly and on we move to the next
part of
the story.
And
I wish I could tell you that any of this matters.
But
it seems not to.
In
all other departments save music, including design and performance (a
number of the actors are mentioned above and they are, to a person,
committed and terrific), Billy
Elliot is top notch.
And feels
like a gigantic creative conspiracy, all the community members
gathering to
give their one deficient neighbor this great, wanking alibi. (And of course that's not what's
happening on a conscious or even unconscious level. The creative and
production team are believers, because they have to be. But the score
is still inferior goods.) And
once again,
Elton John gets away with it. And we all know he gets away with it.
And
it’s not okay. And there’s nothing that can be done about it, unless
you’re
into spreading your arms wide and howling at the public, like some
latter-day
Howard Beale (Who?
you ask?
Look him up!), which probably wouldn’t be my style even if I thought it
would
help, even if I wanted to futilely shout “Boycott!” at the top of my lungs, which,
contrarily, I
don’t, because I think you have to see the hits, when you care about
musicals,
you have to see what’s Out There and know the landscape, and Billy
Elliot is part of it
now, and on a global scale, at that.
Just
don’t let them slip the bad stuff past you, all right?
Notice.
Let yourself resent that there’s an even better show being denied you.
Somehow
that awareness and passion will come in handy later.
Because
it’s not okay.
It’s
not.