Archive for Musicals.Net Musicals.Net |
| Apples2for10 |
Importance of EponineI am not trying to encite a fight here, as I know that many people on here have played Eponine at one time or another. Since I know next to nothing about Les Miserables, I can only go by the little that I *do* know. From my vague understanding of this show, it seems to me that Eponine is not a necessary character. I think her only purpose in the show is to create a preteen love triangle and try to make the audience feel sorry for her, but again this is only my view of the character.I really feel that I have to reiterate that while I don't know much about the show, that is not my choice. My parents refuse to take me to see it because they think it's too depressing, and the only recording I own is the Highlights version, which is obviously not the full score. So, please don't tear me apart on this thread and possibly other questions about the show that I may have in the future. |
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| dcrowley |
She really isn't important to the plot... at all... that is the reason why many films don't feature her. She was much more than a "preteen love triangle" member in the novel. Victor Hugo used the character of Eponine to make a social statement about children in poverty. You see her as a spoiled brat, then, many years later, a malnourished crazy. She is also one of the tools Hugo used to further paint Thenardier as a villain... he abuses Eponine and even whores her out.
She is an extremely interesting character if played right. |
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| Orestes Fasting |
In the book, Eponine pushes the plot along in assorted ways:
- She finds Cosette and brings Marius to her - She delivers Marius and Cosette's letters - She manipulates Marius and Valjean in order to separate the young lovers: she spooks Valjean into moving to England with Cosette, then leads Marius to believe his situation is hopeless and sends him to the barricade to die. In many of the movies, the Cosette-finding and letter-delivering duties are fobbed off on Gavroche. The last chain of events could have unfolded on its own, but seems a tiny bit less coincidental if Eponine's pulling strings behind the scenes. So yeah, the plot could rumble along just fine without Eponine. In terms of the reaction she's meant to wring out of the audience, the musical is pretty much the only adaptation to focus on the unrequited love angle to the exclusion of all else. In all other versions she is, as dcrowley said, a statement about children in poverty. Her love for Marius is, if anything, thrown in to add pathos. I wouldn't call her outright crazy though--degraded, yes, and desperate, but not crazy. Hugo often alludes to madness when referring to her, but that doesn't make her literally mad any more than a few offhand references to Antinous or Achilles and Patroclus mean that Enjolras and Grantaire were literally doing it. Likewise, any prostitution Eponine might have been involved in was entirely in the subtext of her first meeting with Marius. It's never stated outright. |
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| herkind |
I don't think Eponine is crazy but she does display an utter lack of social skills, moments of dark depression and impulsiveness all of which are understandable given her current situation.
I also think the Eponine-Cosette role reversal is an interesting commentary on social class. Cosette is the illegitimate daughter of a prostitute while Eponine is the daughter of two working class innkeepers yet each ends up leading the opposite life than would be expected. Eponine is one of the few characters in the novel with a "normal" background which I think was meant to show how perception of class can be completely arbitrary. The character of Eponine can be quite haunting if done well. She's a tragic figure kind of like Ophelia but with more grotesque elements to her lifestyle. I always imagined her dying with a creepy half-smile frozen on her face like Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights. That's what I loved so much about Celia's ALFOR- the way she died an inch away from his face was so compelling. |
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| ponine_singer |
Eponine may not be important to the "plot" but Les Miserables isn't ABOUT the plot. Don't get me wrong. I am a huge Les Mis geek. And therefore I know that Hugo was trying to address the question "Is man naturally good, flawed by Original Sin, or somewhere between the two?" (No prizes for guessing what he decided!)
Really, Eponine represents what they are fighting for, and sacrifice. Marius is fighting to protect Cosette, and Valjean is fighting to protect Marius. the rest are fighting for the common person who still has feelings and a life and longs for more in life--Eponine is the personification of this. Also, Valjean's love for Fantine is purely platonic, and Fantine's great love is Cosette. Marius and Cosette's love is so "happily ever after" that the pain involved in unrequited love would not really be there without Eponine. She is the image of sacrifice, delivering love letters for the man she loves, putting herself in front of a gun aiming to kill him. She died for her cause but is not simply a visionary--she is a girl who knows what she wants and knows that she can never have it. In this respect she is, in my opinion, vital to the story. She adds complexity, depth, and pain to the story. |
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| Orestes Fasting |
More complex than that--you overlook the influence of society, which is key to the question Hugo was addressing. He was trying to say that all human souls have worth, and if they are degraded it's more likely to be the result of society's artificial hells than their own wrongdoing. Eponine the defiled innocent is just one example of many, and a minor one at that. She's possibly the purest example of a mis�rable in the whole book, rather like an exquisitely painted miniature; the problem is when people try to make her out as bigger or more important than she really was.
What? Just, what? Secret or unrequited love is one of the most persistent themes of the plot. Let's run a breakdown, shall we? Fantine starved, suffered, sold her body, and eventually died to support a child who would never even know her. Colonel Pontmercy watched his son from afar, unable to so much as speak a word to him for the boy's own protection, and died mere minutes before he would have been able to talk to him at last. Marius spent at least a year pining over a girl whose name he didn't even know. Did he get her in the end? Yes. But that doesn't erase the year of agony--Eponine's infatuation with Marius lasted no more than a few months. Grantaire longed for any shred of acceptance from the man who personified everything he had failed to be, and got only scorn in return. The acceptance came only at the moment of his death. And let us not forget that Cosette was the only being in the world that Valjean ever loved, and that he gave her up to ensure her own happiness. More than that, he saved the life of a man he hated in order to ensure her future, and cut himself out of her life entirely because he considered himself a danger to her. That is the emblem of sacrifice in the book. And Eponine? A wretched child infatuated with a boy above her social station, who tried to lead them both into death and had a last-minute change of heart. Hardly the only one to feel the sting of unrequited love. Oh wait, I forgot, only romantic love has any sting these days. 
She died desperate and confused, barely even knowing why she saved Marius or why she gave her life, more giving up the fight against her miserable existence than laying down her life for the man she loved. Her desire to please and protect Marius came into conflict with her desire to be the only one to have him, and it destroyed her. More pitiable than admirable, IMO. |
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| lesmisloony |
Word, OF. Eponine the character is sort of interesting, but musical fangirls who IDINTIFYYYYY have driven me to detest her. |
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| herkind |
I understand that the fangirls are annoying but this kind of statement has always bothered me. Eponine's actual character is unaffected by fangirl adoration. Eppie-Sue, the bastard child of musical Eponine and a fangirl's compulsive need to project themselves onto a fictional character, has no depth or complexity and begs to be mocked. Fangirls only focus on the unrequited love aspect and there is so much more to Eponine than that. |
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| Dona Quixote |
 I have to be honest, I would really like opinions from you guys on my portrayal of Eponine on a role-play board I am a part of. It is called Rewritten City, and in it the members take characters and plots from classic literature and rewrite them into modern-day New York. The Les Mis plot is just getting going (we just a Marius the other day, and still not JVJ), but I've had Eppie around for a while, interacting with other characters and developing her. It would be awesome if you would read what I've written and critique what I have as her personality and behavior in comparison to the Brick version and the musical version.
Here's a link to the posts ... alone they're a bit out of context, but I try to provide as much detail as I can in each post. Besides, they're all accompanied by links to the full thread. They are listed newest to oldest. http://rewrittencity.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=userrecentposts&user=eponine |
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| Vanessa20 |
I think you're doing a good job. You seem to have captured both her flaws and her good qualities from the Brick, and I like the way you focus on all aspects of her life and personality, instead of just making her a one-note angst-bucket the way other writers do.
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| Javvyshomegirl73 |
*Le Gasp* SOUNDS LIKE ME!!!.  Hahahha yeah right... I think any girl who thinks she can relate to Eponine is crazy. XD! but when it comes to Social skills..erm...nah lets not go there.
I for one think Eponine is needed in the story, how else would Marius find Cosette? there is no other way unless you wanna go non canon- *Victor Hugo turns in grave* ....Thats right I'm looking at you Bille August. But Eponine I think is one of the hardest parts in the Musical, You don't want her too mad, not too pretty, a hoarse voice, but you don't want it too sound bad, I think it is one of the most complicated roles I have heard of.
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| Vanessa20 |
Agreed. It's so difficult (at least from an audience member's perspective; I just assume that if I were an actress, I'd find it difficult) to balance the character of Hugo's Eponine with Musical!Eponine's blatant grabs for sympathy. You can try to make her ugly, crazy, bitchy, or whatever in an attempt to be true to the book, but then she comes out as a spirit at the end and stands at Valjean's side singing "To love another person..." etc. Not that Hugo's Eponine doesn't deserve to go to heaven, of course she does, but putting her right next to Valjean and Fantine and having her sing with them puts her on a figurative pedestal, and I think you have to make her likable and admirable for that to work. Complain all you like, but that's how it's written. I think I have yet to see an Eponine who struck just the right balance between Hugo-esque depth and grit and enough audience-sympathy to make her worthy of the final scene. Celia Keenan-Bolger may have done it, but unfortunately I only saw her once, and her grubby portrayal was probably too much of a shock to my system for me to totally appreciate it that one time. |
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| Javvyshomegirl73 |
Yes, even Lea Salonga could not do it, she is way to beautiful. | ||||||
| Vanessa20 |
I just wish I could have seen Lea in the role onstage. And for that matter, Ruthie's Fantine, Colm's Valjean - heck, everyone in the TAC. (Not counting Jenny Galloway, since I have seen her onstage.) I wonder, were their stage characterizations just the same as the concert's, only a little more mobile? Or did they do more with the roles (more depth, different dimensions, more intensity, etc; not that they didn't do great jobs in the concert, but there's always more that can be done) when they were actually, fully performing them and not just standing at microphones? | ||||||
| Eppie-Sue |
I agree with that. For example, Ruthie's Fantine, as much as I love her, and as much as I think she's my definitive Fantine, vocally, is too controlled and dignified for me during Fantine's Arrest. She might have played it differently on stage, with the actual set and costume, not standing behind a microphone, so I won't judge her on that.
The only one that I feel I've seen on stage is Philip Quast. Let's face it - Javert doesn't do a whole lot more than what Quast can do, standing behind a microphone. Yes, I would have liked to see the way he moved around on the barricade, etc., but I think the way he acts it just standing there provides everything you need to know about his portrayal as Javert on the musical stage, really. /random |
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| Vanessa20 |
My thoughts exactly. It's been a while since I've watched the TAC, but the last time I did, I remember thinking to myself that Quast's performance was the strongest overall, largely for that very reason.
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