Playwright: music by Elton John, book & lyrics by Lee hall. At: Broadway in Chicago at the Ford Oriental, 24 W. Randolph. Phone: 800-775-2000; $30-$100. Runs through: Oct. 24
The tap-dance step called a “nerve” is made by the dancer’s toe beating a swift tattoo on the floor while the rest of his body remains motionless. The climax in the first act of Billy Elliot the Musical begins with this minimal movement and swells until the tempo is echoed by the smack of police batons against a wall of riot shields. And in this sound is encapsulated the show’s central image. We have earlier witnessed masculine sport’s terpsichorean elements—boxing footwork and military drills—so what could be more natural than spectacle melding these manly motifs with the pastime once dubbed “the fairy’s baseball?”
This connection is not apparent to the miners of Durham, whose unions waged a yearlong strike in 1984 against the conservative policies of prime minister Margaret Thatcher. Amid the economic tension, the strikers’ children seek solace in the kinetic fantasies provided by the local dance-mistress, who discerns exceptional talent in the boy who sheds his pugilist’s gloves for ballet shoes. As Billy’s technical expertise progresses from spotting turns to multiple pirouettes and, finally, to the bravura one-foot fouettés, we cheer him on (often literally), as we do his later Swan Lake duet with the adult he will become and the Las Vegas-style extravaganza that emerges when Billy and his friend, Michael, play at cross-dressing.
Much care has obviously been lavished on this poor-boy-makes-good tale by scriptwriter/lyricist Lee Hall, composer Elton John, director Stephen Daldry and choreographer Peter Darling, all of whom admit to sharing some aspect of Billy’s experience. But it’s not necessary to have grown up in a provincial blue-collar environment to understand our young hero’s hunger for escape from his bleak destiny: Doesn’t every youth facing uncertain adulthood suffer crippling alienation? And is not the duty of every good parent to acknowledge this fear and encourage their offspring in pursuit of individual excellence?
Billy Elliot the Musical is, for boys, what Wicked was for girls—reassurance that the path to happiness may be hard, but rewards come to those who persevere. This wisdom may be a heavy burden to lay on the shoulders of actors barely past puberty, even with the lead role divided among four of them. But despite a few inevitable traces of Broadway bloat—musicals demand textual room for the music, after all—the hope its lesson proffers is a timely gift to audiences of all ages and livelihoods.