the girly who shall end all girls

scarlettina took me to see the revival tour of Les Mis on Friday evening. ultimately i enjoyed it a great deal, even though what i saw on stage was constantly fighting with my memories of the original Broadway production and the cast album. as we noted, we both knew the songs much better than we realized.

obligatory THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS for a 30-something musical and an 1862 book.

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my first exposure to Les Mis was as a teen; it was my first national tour (I later saw it again during its loooong run in New York) and before i went all the way to Philadelphia to see it with my French class, my mom's boss made me a tape of the cast album and i listened to it obsessively in preparation.

my mind was blown by that show. hearing the music live was great, sure. but it was the stagecraft. i don't think it was the first play i saw with a turntable, but it was the most dynamic use i'd ever seen, where it wasn't used just for quick scene changes, but for motion within scenes to give a feeling of traveling and distance, and to change POV. then there was the barricades, where the revolutionaries literally pulled the buildings down and locked them together! Valjean's run through the sewers, with the slices of light from the gratings and the ripping reflections of water on the floor! Javert falling to his death, arms pinwheeling, center stage! at the time i didn't know that any of it was possible. seeing that production is probably why i have a theatre degree.

i then spent years singing arrangements of it in various choruses, etc etc as you do.

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this production skips the turntable and the pivoting tower units in favor of projections and (i think) some sliding floor sections that are only used for set changes. the dynamism comes instead from moving the background behind the actors and it works well. projections are finally getting to the point where i don't entirely hate them.* it was especially nice for creating a sense of time and distance in the sewer scenes.

i thought the tempo was a bit too fast for most of the music - not just because i have an older production memorized, but because i could hear the orchestra leading the singers on several solos and was losing lyrics.

BUT there were some really lovely touches of business and lyrical interpretations. for the first time i genuinely liked Marius, who at one point let his voice crack in his duet with Cosette. it was easy to follow Javert into his role as spy. in Valjean's death scene, the voices of the dead are lightly processed to sound a bit unworldly and unlike the living, which sharpened the storytelling of the moment, as did the the bishop welcoming Valjean with open arms and hugging him.**

i still don't know exactly how Javert's fall is done, which brings me such joy. i think i might have caught his signal that his harness was secure, but i'm not sure. YAY.

over all it was a great trip down memory lane and a solid production of a show that's held up remarkably well.

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over intermission scarlettina and i talked about our feelings about Eponine. On My Own was my first favorite song from the show, and i always hated the Marius/Cosette storyline. like, he literally sees her once and he's in love; he's been friends with Eponine for however long and she can't get the dude to see her as more than a friend or to understand her feelings for him until she's taken a fucking bullet for him.*** scarlettina always saw her as selling herself short - why hasn't this girl moved on? being a teen when i first heard the song, it was the perfect expression of my real-life frustration; the people in my life who i thought were right for me were romantically interested in people that they literally couldn't hold a conversation with (but who had a certain look).

I'm going to be thinking about me and Eponine for a few days.




*although i still think it forces under-lighting and the older i get the less i am able to enjoy that without strain. you have to be really careful of getting actors too close to the projection surface because you don't want to throw shadows on it or wash it out when you light the actors. and of course there are issues with resolution and getting the colors to match the set and on and on.

**maybe that hug was there before, but it certainly didn't mean anything to me mumble mumble years ago when there was no one i might hope to see in an afterlife

***is Eponine a "nice guy"? ultimately i don't think so. she doesn't decide to hate on Marius or Cosette and she understands that it's not going anywhere and that saying something at this point is going to make things worse.

and someone complained about how the trailer music was "dad rock".

which, okay, it's totally reasonable to be a young adult with parents who like Nine Inch Nails. but ouch.

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regarding the show, I'm wary. I need to see how they handle his personal identity - Kovacs is always the same person, but his external appearance changes; I almost want them to have approached it like Quantum Leap (where we mostly see the character how he sees himself and not how other people see him, unless he looks in a mirror) but it's pretty clear that is not the case. hopefully they will be swapping leads every time he swaps sleeves. the world looks...whiter...than I remember it from the books, although it's been a while. maybe I should get a reread in before it drops in February.