I was at Moving Out!! What were YOU doing?

Thanks to a friend of mine being well connected (look at me, I got connections!! Woo hoo!) I got to see the final performance of Moving Out at the T-U theatre. Not FINAL final performance, just the final in Jax, of course. Anyway, I was SUPPOSED to be joined at the intermission but an apparently BIG SNAFU occurred which left me with an empty seat next to me the whole night (sorry, Amy, I hope that doesn’t piss you off TOO much mwa ha ha ha ha ha!). This meant that Icouldn’t really question some of the stuff I was seeing and what it meant. Like watching hardcore anime the first time… some shit just don’t make sense, you know?
But I’m getting ahead of myself… let me back up.
When she first mentioned getting me into and told me it was a musical based on the music of Billy Joel, I was a bit hesitant but then she said the magic word* and I agreed. MY first thoughts was that if I was unlucky, it was going to be like Kids Incorporated where they just forced songs into a plot or on the really bad eps, they forced the plot into the songs. You remember, right? They would make the song “relevant” simply from ONE line or word in the song. Argh. But it was on when I got home from school so I watched it. Plus, Marteka was a cutie. Then I realized that if I was REALLY unlucky, it would be like Moulin Rouge. Shudder. Not that that movie was bad… it was half brilliance… the other half was just pure, unadulterated shite!! So I was trying to think of some way it could possibly be good and couldn’t think of anything so I actually got behind it at this point. Like a train wreck!! I just HAD to see this thing now!
It was neither of those things.
Now I almost wish it was. At least then I could easily complain.
See, Moving Out is a modern rock ballet with Billy Joel music and songs. That’s it. The stage is split into an upper rafters type set up with the rock band and “Piano Man” and the bottom, STAGE stage area is for the dancers. Sure, the band was talented and the Billy Joel stand-in was VERY competent and skilled. Sure, the dancers were all attractive and gifted dancers… ok, MOST of them were both those things, some were just one or the other. Sure they selected some nice BJ songs (River of Dreams, We Didn’t Start the Fire, Keeping the Faith, Angry Young Man, Moving Out, etc). I think I am just NOT the target audience for ballet.
I guess.
I just would’ve preferred a more traditional musical, I think. Where the songs were incorporated into the plot as best they could. To be honest, it’s not all that hard to figure out a plot that would work even with the songs they had. I did realize that it would be even EASIER with Huey Lewis and the News. Write that down. That’s MY idea but I wouldn’t mind someone else doing all the hard work. {:o)
“What WAS the plot?” I hear you all asking. Seems a bunch of friends are moving on with their lives… some are getting married, some breaking up, several are joining the military. This is all back in the sixties so, of course, they go to Vietnam. Since it’s a dramatic piece someone has to die and that’s where the thing gets dark. The death of one of the friends messes with the minds of the remaining few and they do their best to move on while falling further and further into drugs and the seedier side of life. In one of the more…. Interesting sequences, we witness the complete and total mental destruction of the main character as he basically gets high, hallucinates and feels incredible guilt while at the WORST place… surrounded by sexual depravity and drugs and all sorts of things. It really must’ve gone over well at the Sunday matinee. Strippers, sex, faking shooting up… you name it, someone was doing it.
Where was I? Oh, right. So we finally get these guys to all be in happy places and they come back together, forgive each other and move on.
Well, all except for the dead guy but he shows up at the curtain call so it’s all good.
I know a lot of people around me enjoyed themselves. I also know several didn’t quite get into it. It’s easy to appreciate the skill in the dancing… there were some really incredible performers. I wasn’t a fan of some of the moves and thought the dancers tended to be just sssssssslightly off beat for many songs (except the sex one, how odd) and that affected my enjoyment but I could still imagine what it would look like if they were dead solid perfect and, well, still would’ve been kind of meh. The story just seemed a bit too complex and if you DIDN’T read the plot synopsis in the book, you really would have absolutely no clue what was going on. Hell, even WITH that it still got muddied in spots.
It also suffers from one of my biggest complaints with musicals involving “tough guys”… gangs, bad asses, violent fuckers, whatever… see, it’s hard to accept them as REAL manly men when they keep doing the whole ballet thing all over the stage. Heck, one bit where we are supposed to be understanding how close the three male leads are, they are playing football in a park and punching each other and wrestling and all that stuff … nothing wrong there… but then they start actually LIFTING each other and at one point the soon-to-be dead one is picked up by his legs and spun… you see it in swing dancing between a man and a woman… but three guys? I think we ALL got an idea of how close these guys are, lemme tell you.
So it was an experience I am glad I had. (Thanks, Cathy!) I am very glad I got to go but at the same time… it really should have been called “Moving Out: A Billy Joel Cover Band and Interpretive Dancing Experience!”
Oh, and their version of We Didn’t Start the Fire was junk. The guy mispronounced WAY too many of the names. BUT, that being said, the signing interpreter was frickin’ AWESOME!! Anytime the show got dull, I could always look at the older one (there were two, one young and chubby, one old and skinny) and she would be boppin’ to the music and signing… looked like a beautiful dance. And I know they cramped up during Fire.
Anywho, if you get a chance to see it, DO go and make up your OWN mind.
My fave parts though were the band warming up to various NON-BJ songs and the fact that I see that Black Watch is coming to town. Ahem. Cathy? Can you help a brutha out? {:o}
Take it easy, everyone.

* The magic word for me, as most of my friends know, is “free”. I’ll do almost anything if it’s FREE!!