mastachen
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New thoughts on the revivalI just watched it for the second time last week, and here are some of my thoughts:
1) Marissa McGowan was Cosette. She was awesome, and so cute at the stage door. But she should've had a blonde wig.
2) Adam Jacobs getting on his knees during AHFOL... is that new? Cuz it's incredibly cheesy...
3) Don Brewer as Grantaire wasn't as hilarious as Drew Sarich, and I was waiting for someone to scream You Ass at him when he knocked over the drink, but it never came  . Also, many of you talked about a secret relationship between Enjolras and Grantaire, but it never materialized. They kept their distance.
4) Speaking of Enjolras, I still think Max Von Essen doesn't look the role, although he sounds like it now. He's too... boyish. Maybe growing a beard and getting a haircut might help.
5) Is Megan supposed to just stand there during On My Own? She didn't move her arms or anything!
6) Judy Kuhn didn't get into IDAD as much as Lea did. And I noticed that the postures for each of the 3 Fantines changed with each cast member. DRV stood when she sang, Lea knelt, and Judy sat. Interesting.
7) Jenny Galloway is hilarious, and incredibly short.
 I really liked Robert Hunt's fist pump at the end of Stars. It fits him well. He's a better actor than singer, in my opinion, and nice at the stage door too.
9) John Owen Jones, the main reason I went to see it, started off... alright. But he picked it up starting with Who Am I and wow! His Bring Him Home was the best I heard.
10) The new orchestrations still bother me, but I kinda liked it for One Day More and On My Own.
11) The leg room at the Broadhurst is horrible! It was worse than the 5 hour plane ride there!!
12) I got Carly Rose Sonenclair (sp?) again for Young Cosette. The first time I heard her, she sounded so fragile, but this time around, she sounded a bit more... not fragile.
Any thoughts on my thoughts then?
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lesmisloony
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| Quote: | | But [Cosette] should've had a blonde wig |
Why?
| Quote: | | I still think Max Von Essen doesn't look the role, although he sounds like it now. He's too... boyish. Maybe growing a beard and getting a haircut might help. |
I've hardly ever seen an Enj who looked the role to me. Closest thus far, oddly, is the one from the Shoujo Cosette anime. But I agree that Max is different from the typical Ken-haired musical!Enjolratti. If he grew a beard, though, I would definitely begin to object.
I'm going soon, so I'm glad you shared, though I do wonder whether this deserves its own topic...
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Orestes Fasting
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1. Marissa is adorable, isn't she? And she's a lovely Cosette.
2. This dates from when Ali Ewoldt left the show and Leah Horowitz replaced her. It seems like they wanted to keep the humorous effect at the beginning, but the down on one knee thing is way overkill. Comparing Leah to Ali, it looks like Adam's doing twice as much work to keep that scene interesting because Leah's acting is so bland.
3. Don recently replaced Michael Minarik, so he was probably still getting his bearings in the role. Minarik was the one who spent the second half of Drink With Me giving Enjolras the sad kicked-puppy face and practically clinging to him. (Drew was amusing, yes, but I think Don and Michael have done much better work with Grantaire's characterization and made him a lot more than some irritating goofball. They've both done an amazing job with the transition between cynic and believer, and they've both come very close to making me cry during the second act.)
4. I think Max would be a lot better suited to Marius than Enjolras. Try as he might to be commanding, he's just too cute to pull it off.
5. This annoys the snot out of me, but Celia did it too. In fact, it was even more frustrating with Celia because she spent most of her stage time prior to OMO slowly spiralling towards a nervous breakdown, and then she just didn't deliver. I loved her interpretation of Eponine, but I always wished she'd done something interesting in that scene.
6. I can't stand Judy until right around Fantine's Arrest. Which, surprise surprise, is where she begins to act.
7. I love Jenny.
8. Rob has been directed to hold back vocally. Which is a shame, because I've heard him really let loose a few times and he has a very powerful voice. But yes, he's made some brilliant acting choices, and he's very sweet in person.
9. JOJ FTW.
10. The new orchestrations still bother me, too, and I've heard them upwards of 50 times. I really hope that any future CM productions will go back to the original orchestrations.
11. I love being short.  (Except when there are tall people sitting in front of me.)
12. Carly's pronunciation has been weird the whole run, but I think she's improved. Kylie Liya Goldstein has definitely improved, and she's now a lovely Young Cosette; Kaylie Rubinaccio, on the other hand, has an incredibly grating style of shout-singing that makes me want to slap her voice teacher. It's strange that the musical direction for each girl is so very different.
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mastachen
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| lesmisloony wrote: | | Quote: | | But [Cosette] should've had a blonde wig |
Why?
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I'm used to seeing her blonde I guess. I've seen Marissa McGowan in pretty much everything she covers now: Ensemble during the tour, Eponine, and then Cosette. She was always blond before. The brunette wig did help her manage to escape a LOT of fangirls (I was surprised by the number of people at the stage door; there should've been barricades) before I caught her. After me, then I felt bad because everyone before me wanted an autograph too and she almost got away!
| lesmisloony wrote: | | Quote: | | I still think Max Von Essen doesn't look the role, although he sounds like it now. He's too... boyish. Maybe growing a beard and getting a haircut might help. |
I've hardly ever seen an Enj who looked the role to me. Closest thus far, oddly, is the one from the Shoujo Cosette anime. But I agree that Max is different from the typical Ken-haired musical!Enjolratti. If he grew a beard, though, I would definitely begin to object.
I'm going soon, so I'm glad you shared, though I do wonder whether this deserves its own topic... |
I started a topic when I first watched the revival, complaining about Jeff Kready but singing the praises of Ben Crawford, Megan McGinnis, and Lea Salonga.
Another thing I noticed about JOJ that I didn't mention last night is he didn't do a lot of little things that I remember Randal Keith and Jeff did. He didn't go "Oh my God!" or something to that effect when he saw all the dead bodies on the barricades. Nor did he look up in surprise at Marius when he was singing his verse in Drink With Me. Oh, and he didn't go O_O when he read the word "love" while reading Marius's letter. Was that how he was directed to play, or did he get too comfortable in his role?
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Catherine
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| mastachen wrote: | there should've been barricades
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was that intentional? Because it made me laugh... A LOT.
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mastachen
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| Catherine wrote: | | mastachen wrote: | there should've been barricades
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was that intentional? Because it made me laugh... A LOT. |
It wasn't meant to be funny. lol
But I'm glad you laughed! I like making people laugh! haha
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Orestes Fasting
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There usually are barricades, actually.
And you can bet that if JOJ were supposed to do the things you mentioned and just getting complacent in the role, he'd get a talking-to from the stage manager. Most likely he was just never directed to do them, instead of being actively directed not to do them.
...you saw Marissa as Eponine? *jealous* (I think she looks cute in the Cosette wig, though.)
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mastachen
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| Orestes Fasting wrote: | There usually are barricades, actually.
And you can bet that if JOJ were supposed to do the things you mentioned and just getting complacent in the role, he'd get a talking-to from the stage manager. Most likely he was just never directed to do them, instead of being actively directed not to do them.
...you saw Marissa as Eponine? *jealous* (I think she looks cute in the Cosette wig, though.) |
I just assumed they got rid of the barricades after Lea left.
I have another question.
Has Grantaire's line in Drink With Me change back to "Could it be your death mean nothing at all? Is your life just one more lie?" or did Don Brewer mess that one up?
I remember when I watched the revival the first time, it was "Could it be your life mean nothing at all? Will your death be one more lie?"
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Electricity24601
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I don't remember it ever changing... I'd be inclined to say that the first Grantaire you saw messed it up. Could be wrong though....
On the subject of Grantaires, can we talk about Stephen Trafton for a minute? I've seen him twice, and I love that boy. He is absolutely adorable and is so heart broken when the other barricade boys don't laugh at his jokes. He has a great relationship with Gavroche and I like his interaction a lot with Max. For some reason I like it better than Micheal and Max- even though Max does pretty much the same thing that he used to in Drink with Me. Stephen just has a better reaction to Max's little tough love, chin up kind of whisper to Grantaire.
Wow... I just totally hijacked that thread... anyway, continue on 
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Orestes Fasting
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It's always been "Could it be your death means nothing at all? Is your life just one more lie?" in this production.
I've seen Trafton too and I just couldn't suspend my disbelief long enough to like him. He's way too adorable to play Grantaire--he looks about fourteen, and you just want to pinch his cheeks and send him home to mummy.
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herkind
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| Orestes Fasting wrote: |
8. Rob has been directed to hold back vocally.
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...What? Why would you make someone with such a great voice now show it off? Or does this have to do with the Ben Davis thing of "overpowering the orchestrations." God forbid they actually sound like the tin can crap they are.
Anyway, I love Robert Hunt.
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Orestes Fasting
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I have three guesses on why Rob has been directed to hold back--one, so he doesn't overpower everyone else (he drowned out JOJ once in the sewer scene), two, so he doesn't make the orchestrations sound like the crap they are, or three, because otherwise he'd risk breaking the Broadhurst's sound system and sounding like a crappy overloaded bootleg. 
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Quique
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Rob's voice boomed throughout the theatre when I was it last July. It was far stronger than when I saw him on tour.
As for Mastachen's barricade comments...I'm really, really confused here. You mean, they weren't there?
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mastachen
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| Quique wrote: |
As for Mastachen's barricade comments...I'm really, really confused here. You mean, they weren't there? |
They didn't have barricades at the stage door to keep people from crowding it. They should have had them though, because they had lots of people at the stage door.
Sorry for the confusion, as much as Cameron likes stripping down the production, I think even he will agree that not having the barricades in Act II would be a great horror and travesty to the production.
Another thought:
I liked Enjolras's red vest during the ABC Cafe. I couldn't remember if it was there when I saw it in June, or if that was something new too.
And I could've sworn that there was a lyric change in Drink With Me. I remember there was even a topic about it...
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Orestes Fasting
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He's back to sounding like he did on tour now. Kind of disappointing after hearing how HUGE his voice was in August. Then again there's been a lot of illness and injury in this cast, so maybe he's taking it easy.
Edit: Haha, yes, Max's sparkly vest is new. You should've seen it back when they gave him a tie to "match" it; it looked like a Christmas bow and the gold shininess made it look orange from the mezz so it clashed with the vest. Poor Max.
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herkind
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| Orestes Fasting wrote: |
Edit: Haha, yes, Max's sparkly vest is new. You should've seen it back when they gave him a tie to "match" it; it looked like a Christmas bow and the gold shininess made it look orange from the mezz so it clashed with the vest. Poor Max. |
Right. Of all the characters in the show Enjolras would be the most likely to wear shiny clothes... 
Poor Max. Is he still wearing that god awful wig?
The thing I don't understand about this revival is not that they tweaked things but that they tweaked things that didn't need to be tweaked.
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mastachen
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I liked the vest though....
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StExLover
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The new rchestrations wer so disappointing! but i really liked cosette's new dress
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mastachen
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I'm guessing the dress left with Ali?
More than once, the thought of how pretty Marissa McGowan would look in that dress crossed my mind during In My Life.
I hate to be creepy.
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MunkuSwarley
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I agree about Megan McGinnis. And Carly Rose Sonenclair (sp?)
I saw Megan when she was an understudy and I was fairly bored with her acting. She sounded great, but didn't deliver as well as Celia did, in my opinion. Also, I didn't like Carly as Young Cosette.
Also, I don't like the new orchestrations. I liked the grandiose feeling of the original.
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phantomo88
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Stephen Trafton is now Passarino and u/s Raoul on the Phantom Tour:
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Orestes Fasting
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Okay, now that is just adorable. He looks about fifteen.
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