Out with a bang
Jun. 21st, 2005 10:53 pmTonight I saw Movin' Out, the musical based on Billy Joel songs, as the last play in my season ticket series. It was marvelous. Movin' Out was "envisioned", choreographed, and directed by Twyla Tharp, and was a ballet set to a continuous series of Billy Joel's top hits, beginning with an energetic It's Still Rock and Roll to Me. The band was excellent, and not too loud, and the piano playing and singing was done by one man, who had the heart and energy (and music) of the songs down pat. The story followed a group of friends, Eddie and Brenda, Tony, James and Janet, from when they graduated high school in the sixties, the men went off to Vietnam and only Tony and Eddie came back, through drugs and guilt, and finally forgiveness, with love triangles and so on mixed in. They mixed classical ballet with other moves (I don't know enough about dance to describe it), and the dancers were wonderful, too. (Some of them were from the original Broadway cast.) If you get a chance to see this, do.