Mar. 20, 2013 - Issue #909: Water Crisis

Billy Elliot

Passion and inspiration have the tendency to strike in some of the most unexpected places. One such case involves Billy Elliot, a young boy hailing from a small, blue-collar mining community in Northern England who stumbles his way out of the brutality of a boxing ring and into the foreign world of ballet—where, as it turns out, he discovers a new talent that pushes him to go against the grain of his one-industry town in pursuit of something more.

Alongside the journey of the production's titular character is that of Tony, Billy's older brother, who is faced with his own challenges: dealing with the death of his mother, battling it out in the picket line during a miner's strike and learning to accept his younger brother's dreams, even when they go against the grain.

"I like to think of him as sort of a pivotal person and the voice of reason even though it's kind of an immature voice of reason," notes Cullen Titmas of his role, which he stepped into for this year's tour after understudying it and performing as part of the show's ensemble previously. "He just wants to fight for the community and the union and he's sort of the last one that comes around to Billy's situation and everybody else sort of gives in before him, so he has that struggle. He wants to do the right thing. He's been taught that the union is everything and the community has been generation after generation of miners who always fight for their community and the fact that his little brother wants to go be a ballet dancer is hard for him to grasp."

Noting the musical itself—with a score composed by Sir Elton John—is far from the traditional sense of the word, Titmas adds he and his castmates sought to bring a sense of realism to the story that can get lost amongst lavish song-and-dance numbers.
"I don't want it to be a frou-frou performance; I want to make sure there's some sincerity to it," he adds. "The show is very appealing to a lot of people for different reasons, and at some point during the show you'll cry and at some point during the show you'll laugh and you'll be moved somehow."

Until Mar 24 (8 pm Saturday; 7:30 pm Sunday; 2 pm matinee)
Jubilee Auditorium, $50 – $105 vueweekly.com comments: powered by Disqus