Movin’ Out

Reviewed by Holly Bartges

It will knock your socks off.

It will stun your mouth open from the first note to the very last.

It will pulsate through your veins with Billy Joel rock rhythm for days afterward.

Movin’ Out moves out.

Corbin Popp makes great leaps in Movin’ Out Photo: Joan Marcus

Designed and choreographed by innovative Twyla Tharp, Movin’ Out tells the intense story of five friends through 26 Billy Joel music and lyrics. The high-energy choreography resets the bar for quality dance with the exceptional cast. After this show, it will be difficult to accept anything less in the way of quality, endurance and magnificence. Because of the high quality, demanding choreography, dance definitely should have a place in the Olympics.

Maybe five words are spoken throughout the entire show. The actors/dancers climb inside their characters, zipping the souls snugly around them, and let the lyrics tell the story.

It works.

Actually, astonishing no one thought of it before.

Movin’ Out follows the king and queen of the high school prom: Eddie and Brenda to their tumultuous break up. Judy and James are ready to settle down into marriage. Tony searches for their kind of love and finds it with Brenda who has become her own person. Vietnam takes the guys away to war. James doesn’t come home. Tony and Eddie return broken. Judy grieves.

It’s a simple story of puppy love and hard core war tearing apart. Going from high school fun crazed days to war, tears the innocence, leaving them in a land of lostness. They find their way back, discovering the depth of love and the meaning of personhood.

Billy Joel’s genius of classical music background takes rock and roll to its highest form, giving depth of heart and soul to his music, and definition to the characters. The actors/dancers have corralled that definition coloring beyond the lines.

Eddie, Brenda, and Tony are double cast. Tuesday, Thursday and the Saturday/Sunday matinees Eddie is danced by Ron Todorowski, Brenda is danced by Laurie Kanyok, and Tony by Corbin Popp. Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday Evenings: Eddie is played by Lawrence Rabson, Brenda by Holly Cruikshank, and Tony by David Gomez. Throughout all performances, Julieta Gros dances Judy, Matthew Dibble dances James, and John Carroll plays Sergeant O’Leary/Drill Sergeant.

With a spilt level stage, the high-powered band is magnificently visible from the top level. Darren Holden plays the piano and sings the lead vocals enhanced with a spotlight on Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday evenings and Sunday matinee. Matt Wilson takes the spot with the piano and Lead Vocals Wednesday, Sunday evening and Saturday matinee.

Some of the Billy Joel favorites that are featured are “Scenes From An Italian Restaurant,” “Just The Way You Are,” “We Didn’t Start The Fire,” “Angry Young Man,” “Captain Jack,” and “An Innocent Man.” Beloved as they are because they strike a universal chord, after experiencing Movin’ Out they climb to a new dimension.

Because the current far away war sits so tightly on our heads, the visual interpretation of “We Didn’t Start The Fire” burns with poignancy. Each song has its own heartbeat. Each song reveals more of the characters. Each song moves the story along on a well-traveled road.

Donald Holder designed a brilliant intricate lighting display with flashing bright colors and appropriate strobe lights, that tell their own story cutting to the quick.

Movin’ Out could easily go down as a capsule for the 1960s-1970s. It leaks beyond the story of five friends to universal wisdom of that time. For those who were there, it is our story. We were there. Ironically, the universal truths of love, loss, redemption, and forgiveness are shoes we walk in. Billy Joel’s genius is his music that will speak 100 years from now, and then some.

No froth here in this musical. The music digs deep. The rock band is one of the best to grace any stage, and the dancers are not only incredible to execute the demands, they’re actors who give us more than characters, they give us the life blood of a story.

Call early for reservations. They will be hard to come by. The only question left for Denver Center Attractions is when can Movin’ Out return?