Tracks of the StoneBear Odyssey #9 ROF = Ring of fire
March 17, 2012
The Fabulous Fox Theater, Atlanta, Ga
Broadway comes to Gooberville
The Billy Elliot Story ... was the traveling theater production come to town. Boy were they in for a treat.
The playbill stated - paraphrased- NO photographs, or any type of video / recording device... Prohibited. OK... we'll do this your way. Had I had any responsibility for this production... I wouldn't want any photographic evidence of it either.
Darwin would have been fascinated watching this age of discovery and enlightenment take place in Gooberville, USA. You think ... I don't like theater. WRONG ! I love theater ! I live for Dance! I dance for my tribe ! Good choreography is wonderful and was done well in this production.
The performers / dancers/ actors of The Billy Elliot Story did a great job... they served their craft well and due respect is noted for their performance. Any time New York theater productions come to the South our cultural world is expanded and we thank you... and I appologise up front for what took place from here on.
The producers, directors, author.... I'm sorry you have not won your Mom and Dads approval yet. Keep trying. The performers did what they were directed / paid to do as best as they could in the nightmare of this production. It was a 'pserience not to be forgotten anytime soon.
It was BAD !... this was a RT Road Trip to Hell . It was Bad Dinner Theater ; this critics review is NOT favorable, but i'll be gentle. Billy Elliot, a kid in an English coal mining town chooses to be a ballet dancer... rather than follow his Fathers career of being a coal miner ; Go figure. Not a real stretch of imagination to come up with this plot line. You missed the real story ; the coal miners strike. Had Billy lost a foot in dangerous coal mine machinery... had a prostetic foot and wanted to dance ballet... THEN... you would have had a story. The only reason Billy was not working in the coal mines at age 12 was that a hundred years earlier... the unions struck to eliminate child labor in Englands mines, textile mills, and factories.
Although the producers, director, and author missed the real storyline of the coal miners union strike and struggle... it would have been good had they taken the time to talk, even better to know some coal miners and their families and understand that for a couple hundred years the coal miners unions worldwide have a long, often violent struggle just to win basic rights and safe standards. ... and they think America is naieve about this? Google "The Ludlow Massacre" to get an idea of our coal miners unions struggle. Then do a re-write.
I noticed in the playbill that the actors, stage hands, director, musicians, press agents were all members of a union,... ie,... Actors Equity, IATSE, United Scenic Artists, American Federation of Musicians, Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, ATPAM to name a few... and should thank their lucky stars of the union predecesors that they're not working 12 hour days for $5.25 an hour -- or less -- with NO overtime, or renting their costumes at overinflated prices.
I'm sure it was an easy choice for Billy to avoid the mines... a hard task for the author... which didn't even think up this plot; just wrote a musical about it.... Overlooking the miners struggle I'm suprised the author didn't come up with Nazi Party bloopers and practical jokes. Maybe holocaust bloopers and practical jokes.
It was like NY theater troop comes to Gooberville, Georgia. They could have shown a Dukes of Hazard movie and the crowd would have been just as happy, while eating / stuffing their pie holes with their hot dogs and popcorn, while consuming their favorite adult beverage.
I'm sure the actors were agahst at the Gooberville patrons starting in the orchestra section.... among them noted Atlanta society theater patrons.... Mr and Mrs Bubba "Hoss" Turnipseed, jr, eating their 2 hotdogs apiece... wondering when The Dukes of Hazzard was going to start,... the Culhanes,... that's the Lilburn Culhanes sucking their teeth during the dialogue of the 4th song,.... the Ledbetters of Cabagetown and their bucket of popcorn, ... the Traywicks.... wearing a black cap with a white " 3"... ... the Louie Robbins' of Decatur that were burping and farting from eating too much bacon,... the Travis Carters ... the Buckhead Carters ...with gratuitous applause during tap dance numbers... Mrs Houston "Jabo" Tankersley enlightened the theater troop with a nascar " whoooo " after each scene, ...at times I thought I was in mega church. .... and this.... is... Dinner Theater in Atlanta.
I know society thirsts for entertainment. Maybe I've known too many coal miners, some that lost family in the mines, that I take the stories of coal mine strikes a little different than making a musical production highlighting the delimma of a young kid that wants to dance ballet. The life of coal miners families even before the strike was not one of envy. ?What do you suppose happened to those families, already at the lower ranks of the labor scale, after the strike was broken? The real story was about busting unions by the wealthy powerful. Those coal miners wanted more than subsistance wages and better working conditions. That the conservatives and the Thatcher conservative party government wanted to break the unions with their "Free Market Programme" (?how's that free market programme working for you now?) , break down the subsitance levels of pay for workers... that is their right to work for that change; I just don't understand why the conservatives are so proud to make familes survive on less than minimum wage in unsafe working conditions. This was the story today, buried in a theater musical production. ... buried like the future hopes of those coal mining workers.
This was a wonderful production you will enjoy,... I wont forget it anytime soon.
