Archive for Musicals.Net Musicals.Net |
| l'ivrogne transfigur� |
I'm particularly fond of the phrase "celebrity pop person", I have to say.
And, I'm sorry, but
Really? Is that the best you can do? |
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| Lauraa |
Here's the US tour dates if anyone's interested 
http://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Les_Miz_Anounces_Tour_Dates_20010101 |
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| riverdawn |
Thanks!
Still nothing in my area, but I'll just have to keep waiting for those "additional dates" that will be posted in the future. 
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| l'ivrogne transfigur� |
There's an interview with Gareth Gates about the tour here.
That's what I didn't like about it - changing stuff just for the sake of change. And now we have it confirmed! And apparently he got to choose between going on tour or playing Marius in London... |
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| riverdawn |
I noticed that quote as well and thought it was somewhat telling...
Although I can't post an opinion on the tour just yet. In a couple of weeks.
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| music is my life!!! |
I loved the projections, but some of the orchetsrations were completely pants... 
to be honest though, alot of productions of the school version are very similar to the original (in terms of staging, like ours was), and i think they're trying to a ppeal to a completely different audience. However, how can they say "it's too much like the original" when they weren't IN the original... 
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| Violet |
Here's a link to the full interview.
http://living.scotsman.com/features/Interview-Gareth-Gates--Pop.6233270.jp Considering that Cameron Mackintosh, and various others involved in the original production, came back to give input into the re-worked version, I'd say they are probably in a strong position to give their opinions. By the look of things, it was Mackintosh himself who was keen to have something different. I saw a tv interview he did recently where he said that he didn't want to have to sit through the exact same production for the next 25 years. I was also thinking that those who had been in the WE version might have subconsciously done what they were used to, and so it was a case of stopping and re-thinking, rather than anyone jumping up and saying "they did this on opening night". 
It is interesting that Gareth was also offered the chance to be in the Queens version, and wonder if he'd consider a stint there in the future. He's so much better than Alistair. |
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| Eppie-Sue |
At least Alistair's Marius has personality. |
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| Quique |
I read an interview with Claude-Michel that someone posted over at the WOS forums the other day and the original creative team have been more involved than I thought. I don't have the link now but I will post it later when I find it. Claude-Michel has been very much involved with the re-orchestration, much to my horror. And, according to Claude-Michel, they intend to replace the original version with the one on tour. He didn't specify exactly what is meant by that. I doubt he meant that they're going to close the current London production and open the touring one in its place but who knows? Anything goes at this point. I'm waiting for SuBo to be cast any day now. EDIT: Link... http://www.regardencoulisse.com/claude-michel-schonberg-les-miserables-de-retour-a-paris/comment-page-1/#comment-1454 Translation: Claude-Michel Sch�nberg: Les Miserables, back in Paris On Monday, March 8, 2010 at 1 h 15 min | By St�phane Ly-Cuong | Category: Encounter From May 26 to July 4, 2010, Les Miserables , the famous musical by Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schoenberg, invest boards Theatre du Chatelet. Claude-Michel Schoenberg reminds us that English-speaking tour, projects a potential return of Les Miserables in French, Miss Saigon at the cinema ... or Susan Boyle! Claude-Michel Schoenberg Claude-Michel Schoenberg, how do you feel about the fact that Les Miserables replays in Paris in a room as prestigious as the Chatelet? For Alain and myself, Paris is always a special place, it is not anonymous, it is always an event to be played here for us. Obviously, Paris is special, it's still there where you came from. I will, at the first, the personal guests that I have never in the world. These are people who know what I do in life but who have very little opportunity to see what is really my job. So it is with great pleasure and apprehension that it is considering. The Chatelet is it a mythical room for you? The first show I saw was at Mogador: it was the star dancer in 1949 and then I went to the Opera Comique. In contrast, the first time I went to the Chatelet, I saw L'Auberge du Cheval Blanc , Luc Barney and Colette Riedinger. I knew the songs by heart when I left there and it was in the early 50s. Of course, imagine that one day I'd played at the Chatelet or Mogador, it had never gone through his mind. Regarding the production of Les Miserables , can you tell us about the changes from the version we know? Our ambition with Cameron [Editor's note: Mackintosh, producer of the show] was to do a show that was written a year ago. For now, I think the goal is reached after the success of the tour of England. So it's a whole new generation, there is no way the original sets. The new designs are inspired by Victor Hugo. There are wonderful things. orchestrations have been rewritten. This process took me about four years because there have been several attempts, the first for New York in 2006, another to Amsterdam last year ... I had to adapt, as we usually does, that this is a new staging and new designs: some arrive more quickly, others more slowly, so sometimes you must extend or cut some steps and it is not a job I delegate, I do it myself. These are the only changes that were made. It did not rewrite the lyrics or music. I must say that the new orchestrations and new design of the prominence given to the music she had not before. Or maybe the image change: sometimes what we see as giving a boost to the music. It must be said that one of the directors [NDRL: Simon Powell] has long played in Les Miserables and knows very well the show. The other [Laurence Connor] has been resident director of Miss Saigon and knows me very well. Obviously, compared to Trevor Nunn and John Caird [original directors], they have seen the show so they know every nuance of the music. It gives them an inside knowledge of the score that no one could have before. The hope is that this version will take more precedence over the other who still 25 years of same way we did a new version of Miss Saigon , which replaced the original. In addition, it is a show that can rotate in different theaters, smaller or larger. And on the stage? The staging has been redone, but there are moments, like the death of Jean Valjean or the end of Act I, which are a must. But the sets have nothing to do with the old, Javert's suicide has nothing to do either. For sewers, there is a use of projections with the drawings of Victor Hugo, for example. The fact that technological developments can do extraordinary things they could not before, as projected on a black screen. There is no longer the famous turntable? Indeed. But I've seen productions of Les Miserables in Israel at the Bonn Opera in Germany or Hungary without a turntable. This is not an obligation. Think again about the staging. So there is no turntable and it works very well. Regarding distribution, have you ever worked with these artists before? There are some young people, especially the boy who plays Marius [Ed: Gareth Gates] had participated in Pop Idol in England and had always wanted to do the musical. There, in the company, many young people over the age of their role, but obviously for Javert [NDRL: Earl Carpenter] or Valjean [Ed note: John Owen Jones] are people who have lots of experience. Gender roles are very heavy. Indeed, John Owen Jones is one of our best Jean Valjean. He has played on Broadway, England. I find it exceptional. After so many years, are you getting involved for both new productions? Obviously, the fact that Thomas [NDRL: Schoenberg, his son] is the boss of this production is very motivating for me. I try to get involved to the maximum in each thing I do ... because I do not know how we can help it. " These are not trades being done with one foot in and one foot outside. We can not do this job as a hobby. This new production pleases me as much as the first. In its kind, it has all the qualities of perfectionism, professionalism, the level is excellent. I liked the particular sound of ten years concert at Royal Albert Hall and I dreamed of hearing the sound that comes over you that has a lot of momentum. How many musicians will be there? 14. I think they will benefit from the move to Manchester to make recordings for a disc. Do you still follow what is happening in France in terms of musical even if you live abroad? First, I read on the Internet that you post so I am somewhat familiar. I do not see the shows in Paris because I'm not. When I come to it for a few days. But I am aware of the news. Does Les Miserables in Paris in French, it would be possible? A year ago or two, a producer friend suggested I go Les Miserables in Paris. Cameron's office informed me that the current tour, which was planned for three years would pass by the Chatelet and therefore they could not compete with themselves. But if it turned out that the production of Chatelet had an interest in the French public, they are quite willing to be a shot in French and turns up in Paris in France. So yes, this is part project to follow. We'll see how it goes in Paris. Other projects? In terms of musical performance, I have nothing specific in the distance. We spoke with many ideas but the fact that Alain now living in New York that there is a problem of distance, even if we communicate regularly. My head is in ballet Cleopatra that I have to finish dialing. This will happen in February 2011: the ballet company will inaugurate the opening of a building in central Leeds, which will be an event for the north of England. It should match the opening with the launch of this new production. For me, it's a challenge: it is not easy to step back from the pathos of Egyptian music, symphonic music. In addition, I co-write the orchestrations for the first time so I'm totally into it. The last time you were interviewed , it was for Margaret in London. Is there a future planned for this show? In England, no, he made his season. In contrast, production was up in Japan. I saw a year ago. It worked very well and resumed. The cast was entirely Japanese with a great Japanese star in the role of Marguerite. It was very interesting to be there, to see the process, the public reaction. A production also promises to Prague. And Pirate Queen ? Here in Japan they have their own production in November 2009. It was extraordinary. The only thing that I have asked is that the orchestra is on stage. From there, with the Irish choreographer, Carol Leavy Joyce, they mounted a troop of fifty artists. It was incredibly well done and I think they will resume. Recently, there was a rumor about a possible film adaptation of Miss Saigon ... We met many times with American producer and director with the potential that a film will be released in France soon. I can not say anything more but it has never been as advanced talks. I can say that Cameron is also related to an English production for an adaptation [film] of Les Miserables as it has always felt that this should be done in Europe, unlike Miss Saigon . The few recent successes in film adaptations have probably given the producers wanted to focus on these shows successful. A word on Susan Boyle? We had our year-end gift to Susan Boyle. He wrote a quick note to say we were delighted that the song has changed her life as the show has changed the lives of those who were involved in Les Miserables . What is unfortunate is that nobody in France knows that it is a French song. It is never specified. I always said to journalists that questioned me about it I would not intervene because it was more a social phenomenon than an artistic phenomenon. What is certain is that her voice is undeniably a great musicality. What is rare is to see a meeting between a song and an artist. When she sings "I Dreamed A Dream", there is a sincerity in particular we will find no other song. That aspect touches me. I heard it sung so many times ... And yet the encounter between this character and this song which tells his life is exceptional. This translation was automatically generated by my Chrome browser, btw. Apparently those two directors he hired for the tour don't have the level of taste Caird and Nunn do. They may know him and the music very well, that doesn't automatically translate to a better job. On the whole, from what I've seen and heard, they did a good job. Compared to the original, it pales...at least musically. *Sigh* |
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| beyondthebarricade |
Yes, definitely, I agree. I liked the original directors' (Nunn and Caird) work. It seemed more tasteful. In my opinion, the original staging and orchestration seemed better.
I know it has been mentioned before, but they don't need to change parts of the production just because it's the 25th Anniversary, or because they want a change. I'm getting the feeling that they may be too caught up with creating a new, revamped production that they don't even see that their changes could be to the show's detriment. And the bit about Susan Boyle. What's Claude-Michel trying to say, no one's sung IDAD better than Susan Boyle? Good grief. I doubt she even fully understands the character, and Fantine's background, and the events that happened leading up to the song (or in the book, the part after the sacking where she feels depressed and alone). Why does every composer feel the need to alter and most of the time, distort the originals because of their commercialistic ideals? |
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| Quique |
Let them re-do it so that it impersonates, mimics something that might've been written a year ago.
They've successfully dumped all focus on the things that matter the least by ripping out the things that mattered most. Nowhere have I read anything about re-tooling a flawed work. Or improving upon something that many didn't embrace. All I've read are attempts at downplaying the brilliance of their own award-winning production in order to sell a new one. And if Claude-Michel loved the sound of the 10th anniversary concert and dreamed of the show having that sound, then what's up with the re-orchestration? Yes, the 10th anniversary concert sounded gorgeous; they successfully got rid of that heavy, so-called 80's sound (which I happen to love, btw, but didn't mind the change) and left behind the lush symphonic beauty of John's orchestration. Those changes were good. Yes, I missed the distinct synth but I understood the need for the change. Nowadays, I don't see a need, at least musically. It just doesn't make sense. But I bet those new tour souvenirs are selling like hotcakes!! |
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| Violet |
I'm only basing it on what I saw, and Alistair was weaker on all fronts. I saw Alistair earlier in his run, and I accept that most people who thought he was terrible then think he's improved, or at least got used to him. My only recent comparison is the Oliviers, and the difference shocked me. It's mainly the tone of his voice I dislike, so there isn't a great deal that can be done about that, whereas Gareth has a very beautiful tone that evokes a lot of emotion. IMO, Gareth pitches his Marius just right in terms of personality, but clearly that's a very subjective thing and I'm not going to get into an argument about it. However, there's no denying that a lot of people have been disappointed by Alistair's Marius, while most people have been very impressed by Gareth's Marius. But going back to the point about making changes. The interview I saw with Cameron suggested that he was getting bored with watching the same production all of the time and he didn't want to watch that for another 25 years. I was a little surprised he said that publicly, but in the context of him watching it many times a year every year, as well as creating many other new shows in that time, it is understandable. I'll try to find the interview, but the report was on local Manchester tv news, but I only saw it online via the news website, so it is probably long gone by now. |
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| Quique |
They're doing more for themselves which is always at the heart of most every misguided attempt at reworking something that didn't beg for it in the first place. | ||||||||||||
| l'ivrogne transfigur� |
If he is doing it as much for himself as some of these interviews and comments seem to suggest, then it seems to be a very flawed reason for reinventing the production. Even from an entirely commercial point of view. The paying public aren't on the whole those who have watched it several times a year over the last 25 years - for most it is their first time seeing it. Also, there's people on this forum who watch it extremely frequently, with the same cast, and who aren't bored of it yet. Now obviously, I can't take membership of this forum and generalise it - we are probably all rather extreme examples - but when I have been at the Queen's I have often overheard conversations between people who saw it when it first opened in the 80s and have been seeing it fairly regularly since, and who still enjoy it. |
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| The Very Angry Woman |
So anyone here know the contingency plan if JOJ is still stuck in Egypt for a while? | ||||||||||||
| l'ivrogne transfigur� |
No idea. I guess Chris Jacobsen (I think that's his u/s) gets a long run? And maybe Adam Linstead will get to go on (2nd u/s I think). Otherwise, I don't know. | ||||||||||||
| pastaeater |
Yes - but the point is that I don't think many people were expecting much from Gareth Gates; in fact many fans of the show were horrified when they heard of his casting. So the fact that he has been reasonable has been seen as a bit of a triumph, whereas principals in the west end version are expected to pretty much hit the ground running, and maybe Alistair didn't manage that. (I have never seen him perform, so I am just basing that on comments read on here). I have seen Gareth Gates (in Birmingham) and I thought he had a nice voice. Acting and personality...........meh. |
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| Violet |
I don't want to get into an argument, because everyone has different tastes and we all see different shows, but it's wishful thinking to dismiss Gareth's positive feedback as nothing more than people being relieved. Most people people I've spoken to have described Gareth as excellent, and draw specific attention to how good he was and one of the strongest performers. Yes, he probably gets more people talking about him because people know who he is, but it works both ways and do you honestly think that the people who were complaining about stunt casting wouldn't be quick to revel in being right all along given the slightest excuse? Other performers can get away with a so-so performance if they are tired or under the weather, because people just don't mention them, but people remember and tell their friends if you are famous and have a duff night.
I'm not one for spending too much time drawing attention to negatives, but having seen both Alistair and Gareth, I know Gareth is an above average Marius for my tastes and Alistair wasn't. Please don't turn this into another "Queens vs the tour" argument where we have to pick a side. I actually came back to post these YouTube links. I couldn't find a working link to the Cameron Mackintosh interview from before, but I did find these from BBC Radio Manchester. There is a lot of talk about Cameron's other projects, but plenty for Les Mis fans to wrap their ears around too. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPLEZCAa10k http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLzi_oJllFM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0E7cyMM1yA |
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| Quique |
The 25th Anniversary Tour has been confirmed for Los Angeles.
It will run 14 June - 31 July, 2011 @ the Ahmanson Theatre. Excited and nervous. |
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| eponine5 |
I saw the show in Birmingham a while ago and had been meaning to finish the overly long review that I started. But as it's looking like that might never happen, I'll just post what I have. I tried not to read too many reviews before I saw it as I wanted a fresh perspective, so I'm sorry if a lot of it is repeating what others have said. It does seem that I perhaps enjoyed it more than some other people here...
Okay, so I really wasn�t sure what to expect of this production, as I�d been trying to keep an open mind about it and had been really excited about seeing a different take on it, but some of the reviews made me very wary of what I was about to see. As with most of the people here, I absolutely adore the original production and don�t think anything could measure up to its epicness, but I decided to treat this production like something completely new (kind of) and view it the way I would other revivals on the West End. And you know what? I really really like it! Loved it, even! Once I�d shoved the revolve and black set out of my mind, the style of the sets didn�t bother me at all, and I didn�t find them any more static than any other revolveless show I�d seen. Also, as I�d seen the Broadway Revival I knew what to expect with the new orchestrations and while this still can�t compare with the originals, these ones didn�t bother me most of the time and there were even elements I thought worked really well. Of course the new orchestrations are much weaker than the originals, particularly in What Have I Done I thought, but I knew roughly what was coming so it wasn�t a huge disappointment. Most of the time it didn�t bother me that much, and there were some new elements that I thought worked well. I also just really enjoyed watching a production of this where I didn�t know what to expect, or where to look every second of the time. It allowed me to see the show as a whole in a way that I haven�t for a while, as I wasn�t focussed solely on specific actors or random ensemble antics. Also the huge theatre made it seem like a bigger, grander production. This is not saying that different and new is better, but it�s just, well, different, and I�m perfectly happy with thinking that very different interpretations/ideas/elements of the production can work wonderfully, independently of one another. Also, now when I see the show in London again I�m sure I�ll be able to see it in a fresh light as well. So yay for that! I�m not really sure how to go about this, so I�ll just be lazy and do it chronologically. I actually found the prologue very impressive. I thought the ship was pretty awesome to be honest, and while it might be a bit much on repeat viewing, I thought it brought the �wow� factor in a good way, as shallow as that may sound. I did miss the revolve a little throughout the different scenes, as there wasn�t such a sense of movement and time passing, but it felt more situated in village life with the villagers carrying torches and the like (as beauty-and-the-beast as it seemed ). Also I thought the new orchestrations worked well here, and the instruments they used in this section felt suitably rural 19th century France. The orchestrations through this and �What Have I Done� also felt quite Martin Guerre-esque which I liked, but again the original ones work better. As for the cast here, I was impressed by the ensemble, as they all sang and acted excellently the whole way through. It was lovely seeing Earl Carpenter again, who was even better than I remembered him, even though I don�t think it�s hit me yet that he�s left London, as I was lucky enough to see Jeff rather than Hans Peter Janssens last time I saw the show in London. And now excuse me while I gush about John Owen-Jones! Ah I do love him and I had missed him and he was just as outstanding as ever and he�ll always be the definitive Valjean for me. I can�t say anything more than that I think his acting is excellent and perfect in the role and of course his voice is outstanding and incomparable live. His Valjean is different on the tour than it used to be in London� I can�t pick out exactly what�s different about it� maybe it was just that he had the freedom to work outside of the London blocking and somehow it seemed... I can�t think of a word other than �wild�, although that�s not quite right either. Oh well. His �What Have I Done� was pure love, even if the orchestrations during the �yet why did I allow that man� annoyed me just as much as they did on Broadway. But the �I am reaching but I fall� bit was outstanding and so haunting. I wasn�t quite sure about the blocking for the first verses of �At The End of the Day� (or the title of the show appearing like in a film) with the beggars in a huddle in the floor. It could have worked better if they�d started softly in the chilling way that I wish they still did in London. I�d have also made them start crawling towards the audience as well, but then could well be overkill. I liked the factory set though, as I�m not sure it�s all that obvious in London where they are and what they doing. Are they actually stringing beads in the tour? I�d like to think they were. I know other people have criticised Madelena Alberto for her Fantine, but I really liked her and thought her acting was great, especially in �Come To Me�, and her singing was also good, even if �I Dreamed A Dream� wasn�t her strongest moment. I was probably influenced a little as I thought she was brilliant in �Over The Threshold� that I saw at the Edinburgh Fringe, but she�s definitely far from the worst Fantine I�ve seen. She plays it tougher than a lot of them, while keeping the grace that works so well for the part. �Lovely Ladies��wasn�t my favourite part of the show. I�ll put it that way. To me it�s an example of the new orchestrations at their worst, and the staging wasn�t as powerful without the clump of whores in the middle of the stage and the red light and shadows of the final chorus, even if it did give a greater sense of place. I didn�t see the point of them changing the �God I�m weary� line to the same melody as the chorus either. I was disappointed by the Runaway Cart. Although they didn�t move in slow motion or run around in circles (which would have been hilarious on a stage with no revolve) it all happened very suddenly and seemed to have even less context than normal. I nearly got lost when it happened and I know every word of the show! But having it take longer for Valjean to lift up the cart was effective. JOJ�s �Who Am I?� was wonderful, and it�s strange (but not bad) to have something vaguely resembling a courtroom set, as wall-like as this one was. I didn�t mind the staging of �Come To Me�, and having missed the crawling out of bed in London recently I thought it worked fine not having it here. It could have just been because Madelena Alberto played it wonderfully, and this was probably my favourite of her scenes. It was hard to get to grips with a �Confrontation� without the revolve, and here I was actually glad of the extra drums in the orchestration that added suspense to the scene. Did I imagine it or were they actually fighting over handcuffs there? *self restraint*. I�ve always found the moment where we see Little Cosette to be a very powerful one, and I thought this was even more effective because of the way they positioned her holding her broom, almost in a freeze frame, in the exact position that she stands in the full version of the logo. It did look a bit odd when the set literally moved forward with her, but that�s what comes from having no rotating stage and after that the set was convincing. Again, I'm sorry that it ends so suddenly. Maybe some day when I have mroe time on my hands I'll finish it. |
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| KatyRoseLand |
Thanks for the review eponine5, look forward to reading the rest if you post it!
I saw the tour for the second time the other day so I thought I'd mention a couple of points. I really enjoyed it and not knowing the cast or the staging kept me on my toes, and meant I thought about the actual story a lot more than I sometimes do. Highlights: -Katie Hall. I already knew I loved her but I just thought she was amazing. -Everyone will probably think I'm completely terrible, but I really like the balcony in AHFOL. I like that she goes in and that's why he sings "I'm doing everything all wrong", it makes a lot of sense and I think it just works aesthetically. -Jon Robyns. I know a lot of people have said he's miscast as Enjolras, but he seemed very comfortable vocally, except for "is freeee", and he certainly commanded the stage in an appropriate way. I thought he was excellent. I think I liked his Enjolras better than his Marius actually. -The ad-libs. Whichever ensemble member said "That's disgusting! Does that mean it's a b-----d?" when they found out Fantine has a child was wonderful. -Fantine not getting out of bed in Come to Me. It's one of those things that's always bugged me a bit. -Fantine's hair in the finale. -The inclusion of the Bishop in the finale. -Madalena Alberto - for some reason, she wasn't my favourite actress in the role, nor was she my favourite singer, but I just got the character a lot more from her portrayal than from anyone else's I've seen. -The projections in the sewer. -Earl Carpenter. Just in general. Dislikes: -Javert's Suicide. I've seen so many professional reviews saying how wonderful it is but it just reminded me of Defying Gravity from Wicked. It is cleverly done but I don't like the way the bridge disappears from the sides as well as going up, because it takes away from the falling-off-the-bridge thing, if that makes sense. -The horrible font they use for the projection of the title. It looks like a font from a children's book, like a Roald Dahl, or a "Katie Meets the Impressionists" book or something. -Their obsession with making sure everything that is to one side in London is to the other side on tour. It got quite distracting for me, that they'd obviously made conscious decisions "Wait, that happens stage right in London, let's make it stage left"... I just think it seems like a step too far. -The Thenardiers are literally the ones from Broadway Abridged. "Hahaha! Child abuse! We LOVE the Thenardiers!" and they got a great reception from the audience but for me personally, it's just inappropriate. Might post more random points if I think of any! |
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| RunawayMouth |
Some insightThe 'horrible font' of 'Les Miserables' after the prologue is Victor Hugo's handwriting from his original front title page of the book. Why it was bastardized into the 'dream the dream' on the poster is another story..... |
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| Eppie-Sue |
I like the idea of using Hugo's handwritten "Les Mis�rables", but I don't think they carried it out very well. Does it really work?! It looks a bit strange - just because he wrote it down like that doesn't make it a good font to present the musical or to be put on posters, if you know what I mean.
And, I've said this before, but did anyone else get the feeling that the show felt more like the stage version of a musical movie? Like it had already been a movie and on screen, and they wanted to put in on stage? That's what stood out to me and bothered me, really. That it wasn't a very well structured theatre production but was aiming for this ... movie-feeling. |
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| KatyRoseLand |
Re: Some insight
I just don't think handwriting should be a logo for something like this. I don't know why. Like I said, it looked like something from a children's book to me. Yes, the 'dream the dream' is weird... next to the original logo, it looks really out of place. I see what you mean about it looking like a screen to stage adaptation, Eppie-Sue. I can't put my finger on why, but I see what you mean. |
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| riverdawn |
All of these reviews are really interesting...
I'm seeing the show on Thursday and I'm getting kind of curious.
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| Quique |
I'm curious too. 
Eppie-Sue is spot on. It has that generic movie-score bombast and swooshing sweepiness in places and other aural stars and glitter. Of course it sounds "pretty" and many will love it for that. It feels cold to me. But on a rare positive note, let's be thankful that at least they did not create entirely new original orchestrations for every last bit of the show and that many parts still sound very similar to the original. Yes, the new orchs give the show an entirely new texture, feel, character, and I don't like it. But I don't think anyone is pathetic for liking them. And, above all, what's on tour right now is 24765678443899088787645432567687897898976756453654576876789998754564 better than what they did to the revival. Having said that, I'm still furious at the way Cameron and Co. have elected to push this new production--by encouraging people to roll their eyes at and reduce the original to "old." BAHHHH. |
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| SophieJB |
I hope you enjoy it tonight riverdawn!!! Just briefly.... A group of us who have seen Les Mis several times, (the first time in London, when Michael Ball played Marius) went to see it in Edinburgh last night and enjoyed some of the changes, particularly the back projections, especially when they appeared to be moving through the sewer! The barricade seemed pretty small and lightweight compared to the original and the last touring version we saw, but it can't be easy transporting all this stuff for short stays all over the UK. We all agreed that Susan Boyle sings I Dreamed A Dream better than the current Fantine, who we felt didn't do a particularly good version, but her acting wasn't bad and we felt her Come To Me was better! Another whom we felt was a wee bit weak (maybe he had a bit of an off-night) until he did his last song was Gareth Gates, who looked quite striking, but his voice didn't sound strong enough for Marius and he didn't really stand out enough for us, maybe we were expecting him to be a stronger character as we already knew him from his records and Joseph etc. The Th�nardiers were well cast and both were strong characters and received loud applause. Everyone agreed that the star of the show was John Owen-Jones, who was absolutely outstanding and after he'd sung Bring Him Home, I thought the audience was never going to stop applauding and cheering and it was well deserved. All in all we enjoyed the revamped show, but the original version we first saw, will never be beaten, no matter how much they change Les Mis! Almost forgot to say I'm going again next week, just with my other half this time and he's not seen Les Mis for a few years! |
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| Mistress |
[quote="SophieJB"]
 
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| riverdawn |
Ok, so l'ivrogne and I went to see the tour in Edinburgh this afternoon, and I guess here's putting my thoughts into writing (and to preempt any comments, I will state in advance that these are just my opinions and of course do not aim to be the be all and end all). It was fun and I'm glad I went. The audience was weird and clapped at the most bizarre moments (read, basically at ever possible moment, and some that were entirely not possible).
As much as possible, I tried to approach the tour production as a different production and not to constantly compare it to London... but of course invariably I can't ignore the fact that there's another production to compare it to. So, I think I'll first write the things that I liked and disliked just considering it as a production in and of itself, and then I'll write a bit about how I thought about the comparison with London. So, first, the Good (and this, again, is just in and of itself, not necessarily things that I liked *more* than London, but just that I liked as a production in and of itself): - I thought for the most part the sets were quite effective and beautiful (with a few exceptions to be noted later). I particularly liked the set of the factory. - I thought Earl Carpenter was good, although I'm not sure I'm as huge a fan as some people here. - I thought John Owen Jones has a lovely singing voice (but keep reading for the rest of what I thought of him)... - The same is true of Rosalind James... I think she had a good voice, but have criticism to appear later. -I thought Gareth Gates was quite good. His singing was good, and he convincingly played a nervous-type-Marius. I also thought he somehow managed to portray the class difference between himself and Eponine quite well. - The bishop was good (we had an understudy Bishop), although he didn't make any attempt to look older, so it was quite a young bishop. - I thought several of the students were quite good, especially Feuilly. I also thought Grantaire was an interesting portrayal. I'm not yet sure if I liked it or not, but it was well thought out for the most part. - Little Cosette was good. Ok, now the Bad: - The new orchestrations. I'm not very knowledgeable about music, but where I noticed the differences, I didn't like them. To be fair, I will say that we were sitting right next to the speakers, so the music was sometimes a bit overpowering and that might effect my perception of them. -The Thenardiers, especially Thenardier himself. He was manic, weird, and they were both decidedly not even remotely funny in the bits where they are supposed to be funny. Honestly, I thought it was just bad, especially his DED. - John Owen Jones. Yes, he has a lovely voice, but his acting was just awful! He was so over the top it made Bowman look subtle by comparison. There was weeping, sobbing, screaming, hand gestures etc.... during BHH he never stopped moving his hands the entire time. It was strange and unusual. I really couldn't connect to his Valjean in any way. Again, he sang beautifully, so I'll give him that, but other than that I really disliked him the entire time. - Fantine. I really disliked everything about her portrayal, especially what she did at the beginning of IDAD. I felt she looked almost insane... there was something in her performance that reminded me more of Ophelia than of Fantine. - I really wanted to like Jon Robyns, but his performance for the most part fell somewhat flat. This was obviously in part because he just wasn't as strong vocally as David (or as Mark, frankly), but actually not just that. The cafe scenes were his best part, where he seemed to command the students quite well. However, it all kind of fell apart at the barricade. His "the people have not stirred" was feeling-less and mechanical and felt like a recitation. For a scene called "Dawn of Anguish", there was absolutely no sense of anguish at all. Also, his interaction with Grantaire during DWM was strange, because after Grantaire sang his bit, he went off to the corner crying, and JonJolras came over there and just directly gave him a hug and comforted him. There was no sense that there was a tension between them and they reached some sort of agreement before hugging. (Also - and this is entirely a minor criticism - but he really really can't march to save his life.) - While Eponine had a good voice in and of itself, and I think in principal she is quite talented, I really felt it didn't quite suit the character. I also got no sense from her acting that she was actually in love with Marius. It just made the whole thing a little strange. -In terms of the set, there were a few things that really didn't work for me. First, the Barricade itself. I don't care that it was smaller, but it was literally full of holes, which made it entirely unbelievable. I mean, if I were the National Guard, first moment Enjolras stood there, I would fire through the *huge* holes in the barricades and take him out. It looked completely unsuitable for withstanding basic bullets, let alone grape-shot. Second, the fact that Empty Chairs was sung with...well... no chairs or tables. I think that scene is usually remarkably effective, but this really took away from it. And third - I really didn't like Javert's suicide. It took me a while to even figure out what was going on, the way they did it, and I thought it really looked even more silly than Javert flailing around on the stage. So, in summation and comparison: Thinking of the tour as a production of itself, I thought there were quite a few elements that worked (though - to be clear - not as something that would ever *replace* the original, just thinking of it as an alternative production). I think many of the things I didn't enjoy actually had to do with specific cast members, rather than with the production itself... so I actually think with a better cast I might have liked more parts of it. I think the main problem I had with it, however, is that basically it seemed like a "de-epiced" version of Les Miserables. They seemed very concerned with making everything naturalistic, both in terms of the set and in terms of the acting, and the result was that it really lost the sort of epicness and as a result also the amazing cathartic power the original has. When I finish seeing the show in London, I feel great, because even though it's sad and everyone dies, there is this element of nobility and epicness to the death. And here I really didn't feel that. In a sense I felt a lot more of the "God, what a pointless set of deaths". I really didn't get any sense of catharsis at all. Let me put it this way - if in August, when I saw Les Mis for the first time, I would have seen the tour version, I would probably have gotten exactly what I had expected to get that afternoon: an enjoyable 3 hours, after which I would have left the theater, crossed "Les Mis" off of my list of shows to see, and would never have thought about it again. Meaning, it was fun, but there was nothing about it that would have made my jaw drop, my breath catch - or that would make me go back over and over again to see the same show. I guess that mostly sums up the difference - but another word about the set design. As I mentioned, for the most part I liked the new sets, when evaluated in and of themselves. That being said, I think they really can't compare - impact-wise - to the London sets. I really think that the London sets are so incredibly strong, they do so much with so little, and they constantly create the most powerful and breathtaking moments (the workers in the fields during the prologue, the impact of the dark stage with just one spotlight during the solos, the barricade's entrance, the barricade turning around with Enjolras lying dead, the church in the wedding scene etc.) - and I really felt that the tour sets just don't create the same impact. Again, they were more naturalistic, but in being so they took away from some of the amazing emotional and visual power of the original. So, to sum up, I think it's an interesting production. I'm glad I went to see it. I think there are parts of it that might actually work quite well with a different cast (and if it does make it to my side of the Atlantic then I'll look forward to seeing it again with what I assume will be a different cast). That being said, I thought that a) with the current cast a lot of things didn't work and b) that even if the cast were perfect, I just really felt it was quite a "Watered down" version, lacking much of the incredible energy and power that the London version has. So, those are my thoughts, and again, remember, they are just opinions.
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| mm10 |
That put a smile on my face
It's really interesting reading everyone's reviews - I'm not seeing the tour until July and starting to get really curious. |
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| Eppie-Sue |
riverdawn, thank you so much! That was a very quick and very clear review. I think I agree with almost every point you've made. I never got around to reviewing the tour after I'd seen it in January, and I don't think I ever will, but especially this bit:
Yes. Just - yes. |
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| l'ivrogne transfigur� |
I've just got back - I will review a bit at some point tonight or tomorrow. There were some bits I liked more than last time, and some bits I liked less, but I'm afraid my overall opinion has remained fairly similar. | ||||||||||||
| MizH |
I was there too this afternoon. The sound was fine, but I was sitting in the middle of the row near the stage.
I agree. I thought Madame Thenardier was OK, just not scary enough in Castle on a Cloud, but I disliked Thenardier.
I loved him, but I've always loved his Valjean. I found his acting heartfelt, especially the bit where he confesses his past to Marius. It takes a lot for me to like Bring Him Home, but I could listen to JOJ sing it all day long. The hand gestures didn't bother me. Don't all Valjeans use exaggerated hand gestures there? Definately my favourite Valjean (of the ones I've seen), along with Phil Cavil.
She's another one that I liked a lot. I wasn't keen on the bit at the very start of IDAD, but once she got into the song, I thought she was great. She didn't sound like a traditional Fantine, but I loved her voice. I liked her particulaly in Lovely Ladies/Fantine's arrest.
I didn't expect to like Jon Robyns. I disliked him as Marius, but I thought he was excellent as Enjolras. I thought he was a strong leader, and his acting and singing were good. Enjolras isn't a character I pay a great deal of attention to, so that's really all I look for. On another note, Jon and Adam Linstead were hilarious as the waiters in Beggars at the Feast. I may write more tomorrow or at the weekend if I have time. |
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| riverdawn |
Really should go to sleep, but just to comment on this: no. Most Valjeans I've seen (not that I've seen that many) sing BHH in a very understated way, first sitting, then maybe praying (or kneeling and praying). Even Bowman, whose BHH gestures I have criticized repeatedly, sings the entire song without gesturing, and only gestures (albeit quite ridiculously IMHO) once he gets to "If I die..." JOJ did not stop moving his hands from place to place for the entire duration of the song. Obviously this is one of those matters of opinion and I'm certainly glad that you enjoyed his performance, so this is not by way of starting an argument of any kind. Just wanted to clarify the point.
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| MizH |
I really should start paying attention to BHH more often! It's not my favourite part of the show, so I tend to zone out until the song's over. Now that I think about it, David Shannon sat still and played it understated. I should have mentioned Earl Carpenter yesterday. I thought he was excellent. |
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| pastaeater |
Riverdawn - thank you for your review. You really have summed up my feelings about the tour almost exactly, but you have expressed yourself much better than I could. Somehow the whole experience, although enjoyable, had little impact on me...... I'm glad I've seen it but I don't think I would bother to go again.
Having said that, I actually disliked the London production the first time I saw it, and honestly only bothered to go and see it again because I was so astonished by Thaxton's extraordinary portrayal of Enjolras. Of course once I saw it again, the production began to work it's magic on me, so maybe I should give the tour another chance too...... |
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| l'ivrogne transfigur� |
I know I said I'd review last Thursday's show, but I got a bit stuck describing stuff and then I rather lost my motivation.
However, as it turns out I'm going to see it again on Saturday. There was a ticket going free, and well... I couldn't let it go to waste, could I? Anyway, I think I shall wait until then and combine reviews. Just so you know I haven't abandoned it completely
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| Eponines_Hat |
I'm sure this must have been discussed on here earlier, but..... has anyone else noticed how bad the tour EPK is?? IDAD sounds terrible (tho, I thought it was pretty bad live) and it seems to be cut weirdly (similar to the London EPK but not as well)
It's such a shame Katie can't be heard on either - she has a gorgeous voice! |
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| Eppie-Sue |
Or Earl. That is a JOKE, isn't it?! They show him even less than in the London EPK. But no, it's just John Owen-Jones here and strange new orchestrations with people running around being OTT there. |
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| Wandering Ranger |
just on the tour, is it me or does Gareth Gates' voice lack gravitas? Dont get me wrong he is miles better than I thought he was going to be but the ODM segment they played plus the Empty Chairs solo is a little lacking in vocal power. | ||||||||||||
| Eppie-Sue |
Hm. I thought his voice was lovely, it was more his interpretation (or, the lack thereof...) that I had problems with. He didn't blow me away vocally, but he was definitely good. To be fair, I had more problems trying to figure out why Jon Robyns had been cast. That's a role where I want a full voice, where some gravitas is needed. Or Fantine. And both didn't have that. 
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| Eponines_Hat |
I actually had this in my original post and took it out coz I thought I was having too big a bitch
But, yes, especially the "Meeeee" in ODM from the EPK sounds a bit weak and whiny. I quite liked his voice as Marius, but as Enjolras? I just don't get that casting decision. The thing I found most interesting about the very ordinary vocal performances on the EPK is that these are professionally recorded audios. As in, they could have had 10 takes and some engineering help, and this is the best they could make it sound????? Just thought the EPK looked cheap and confusing and not very epic. I think the Lonodn EPK @$@^s all over it. Did like the close ups of Eponine in the tour EPK - always wished they had done that for Nancy in the London one because her face during OMO breaks my heart |
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| Orestes Fasting |
Just got back from the last Paris preview. It's a mixed bag--the overall presentation is seamless and what I'd expect from an official Cammack-backed production, the cast is uneven, the projection work is well done, the lighting needs work, the orchestrations are better than Broadway revival but not as good as the originals. The overall conceit seems to be not so much differentiating the tour from the original London production, but taking away the black-box feel of the original production and putting all the scenes in context. It usually works (there are a couple scenes where the context is WTF-y), but the biggest problem for me was that it set up audience expectations that were subsequently not met. If this is taking place in Paris and Javert sings 'Stars' on the Pont au Change, why do the slums look like Victorian London? If this is anchored in real space and real time, why does the lighting only have two settings, 'dusk' and 'midnignt?' Stupid continuity questions that are irrelevant with the black-box design, but with the tour you're suddenly asking yourself how much time is passing between 'Look Down' and the final battle, when it's day and when it's night, etc.
They reused some of the projections from the US mini-tour--including, unfortunately, the WTF-y smokestacks during IDAD. But the projections have definitely been spruced up and elaborated upon; the sewer ones were downright impressive, there are a lot of abstract backgrounds that I think come from Hugo's drawings, and there's a more omnipresent feel to the projections, so they feel less like an easy tacked-on background. A few set pieces reused from the US mini-tour, including the Montfermeil inn set, which still looks like something out of Pan's Labyrinth. They didn't reuse the mini-tour DYHTPS set/blocking, which was one of my favorites, but it's the same idea: using sets and projections to make it look like a very large crowd of people is streaming through a very narrow space, even when you've only got a dozen people. Basically, they've got a great idea going and they need to tinker with it more. And get RID of the Bway revival orchestrations for What Have I Done/javert's Suicide, ugh. |
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| Quique |
^ "WTF-y"...Hehehehehe.
By the way, how is the finale done? I was listening to an old audio and the intensity of the music and mentally playing the scene out alone moved me to tears. I read somewhere that it's one of the few scenes that both the original and new creative teams agreed were definitive (as if the whole production isn't, grr). Do they still march forward slowly and do the lights fade out like in the West End version? Anything that struck you as better or more effective/not good or less effective than the original staging of that scene? |
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| sohopad |
Just listened to JOJ, Gareth Gates and Rosalind James singing from Les Mis on a French Radio station.
Fantastic!! The production seems to be going down a treat out there. |
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| Quique |
Not sure if it was the same radio show but I just listened to one from the U.K. in which Gates, Owen Jones, Lindsay, and Whyte sing in tribute to the show.
The announcer said they would be accompanied by the BBC orchestra playing a whole new score by Stephen Brooker and Stephen Metcalf. Needless to say, I shuddered. But not for long, as much to my great surprise (and relief) the score played was indeed the revised version but also incredibly close to John Cameron's. It was practically his as any differences were limited to very minor things. "At the End of the Day" is back! At least the original version. No more tacky sounding, whistle-like brass at the start and the excessive timpani has been removed. John's exciting and brutal bowing strings are back! "I Dreamed a Dream" has also been restored significantly. The small changes present still are actually quite nice, like the new mournful french horn heard during "He slept a summer by my side." Most other differences serve to enhance John's original and there is no ugly sounding music box noises as in the revival. "On My Own" has been further restored as well but not much. The new string composition may sound very pretty but it and along with the new comp as a whole take much away from the song. And like stated previously, it's now exactly what the song doesn't need to be...a sobfest. There are weepy violins throughout. All sense of inner struggle, of torment, and irony are gone. All that's left is "poor me." But this isn't a time to complain but a time to rejoice for they've restored a lot of the score. Something I truly believed was irreversible at this point. Of course it can all go wrong and they might elect to use the revival score for the upcoming U.S. tour but if they stick with this current one, I'll be very, very, very happy and will look forward to the tour more than ever before. Oh, and they really shouldn't credit anyone but John Cameron because it's essentially his work. Both Stephens merely dress it up a bit and they do it unobtrusively unlike their previous versions. Me happy.
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| ivopera |
I am French. I saw the show very often in London and Paris when it was in Mogador 20 years ago.
I must say I was a bit worried when I read many posts here but I found the new show extraordinary and with more strenght than the original. The new orchestration is mostly good. What I disliked a bit: - the first part seems to be played a bit more in a rush (musicwise) - Fantine is not good at all in my opinion - Marius is not Michael Ball and lacks the emotional power of Michael John Owen Jones is absolutely incredible and just is Jean Valjean. I saw last Friday performance and go back this evening
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| Quique |
It's always interesting when people say this version is stronger because a whole bunch of questions come to mind. I'd love for someone who feels that way to explain how the new production is an improvement over the original. That's the thing that sort of irks me--nobody provides examples, whilemany here post detailed reviews on the current London production and cast.
I hope I'm not coming off testy or as if I'm demanding explanations. I'm OK with people liking the tour and with differing opinions. But, being a rabid fanatic, it's FUN to discuss this show and it's like a teaser when people come on here and rave about the tour but fail to tell us why/how. It's like...OK, and, and AND??? Go on....lol. |
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| ivopera |
I can try to explain but it is already quite difficult to explain such feelings in French, so in english it is quite a challenge!!
First of all the sense of place is improved by the use of this wonderful paintings/drawings from Victor Hugo. There is an incredible fluidity from one part to another and the quality of the decor, ambiance is such that you do not need to put "Paris 18..", Montfermeil".. as it was done in the original version (which by the way I also loved. Les Miz orginal prodiuction has been a huge huge success, certainly due also to the quality of the staging. But 25 years have passed, the audience has evolved, and a new staging was a good idea. The beginning is striking and very representative of what these "bagne" was like. The precision of the details are striing, for instance the little boy coming with a coin in the prologue, letting it fall with Valjean putting his foot on it, excatly as in the book. Lovely ladies was not a part I liked in the first staging, a bit "chicago style" losing the emotional effect of the scene. Here, the staging is more hard, less fun, this bloody girl suffering on the left, a Fantine completely lost, I found it really well done. The way Eponine arrives and is blocked by this huge barricade was very impressive in my opinion. The part in the sewer is very well done. I love also the link between turning and empty chairs, with all these ligts left on stage, which Marius will take at the exact same time as his dead friends. |
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| Eppie-Sue |
The barricade was huge? Huh. I was rather put off by it. It looked tiny compared to the London one, and there were holes everywhere...
About Turning and ECAET, I'm almost glad to see someone liked that. I thought it was terribly tacky to have the little girl running around between the women in Turning, all dressed wonderfully posh and looking like they belong to the richest part of the bourgeoisie. And then putting the candles down and making Empty Chairs not about Marius, but about the students, doing some strange stuff where they all look at Enjolras as if he irresponsibly led them to death, and then blowing out the candles on a lit stage. I disagree pretty vehemently with anyone who claims Les Mis�rables needed new staging. It really doesn't. The calmness of the staging at the Queen's, the depth, the black box, the barricade rolling on stage, the choreography in One Day More, no backdrops, all that works beautifully every night, and the audience is blown away by it every night. It's certainly alright to go for a new version and to try out new things, but the old show is not tired at all. And I very much dislike Cammack for claiming he was tired of it. It's the longest running production in London for a reason. It still works so well, and I'm dreading the fact that they seem to want to turn it into the tour. It lacks respect, IMHO. It's a new staging, but it's not the new version of Les Mis. It's simply a different staging. They didn't develop and advance the original production, they went into the development of the tour with the thought "Oh, let's make it completely different from the original production!" |
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| ivopera |
No I did not say that the production had to be changed, once again it was beautiful. But I thint it needed an other version as a complement. I think that the fact that several versions turn around the world for the same musical is a good thing. Of course the original staging is wonderful but the musical is before all what was written by schonberg and it has to live independently from the staging. If you take operas like carmen or Faust, each opera house will have its own production and it is great. I would love to see les miserables at the ROH with some opera singers for a specific production for 10 or 15 nights.
I also would like to underline that I liked the new orchestration (turning, javert's death and soliloquy of Valjean...). BUT I found (in Paris) that the music was to loud sometimes. |
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| Eppie-Sue |
I didn't mean you in particular, sorry! I just wanted to add that I'm tired of those people that are claiming the staging in London is outdated and old and boring and needed change. Sadly, Cammack is one of them. I think Quique said it already, actually. | ||||||||||||
| Orestes Fasting |
Yeah, I'm not really sure whether the reorchestration or the Th��tre du Ch�telet's sound system is responsible, but the tour orchestra is far too loud and leans a little too heavily towards bombastic sometimes. I do like a heavy ponderous majestic Les Mis, but this came a liiiittle too close to sounding like the Star Wars soundtrack at times. (Not knocking the SW soundtrack, which I adore, it's just not an appropriate style for LM.) That's my only major criticism of the new orchestrations though. Well, that, and I hate the modifications to Valjean's soliloquy and Javert's suicide. I'm incredibly relieved they didn't use the Broadway revival orchestrations and seem to be going mostly on the original version. |
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| eponine5 |
I never made it to Turning/Empty Chairs At Empty Tables in my review, but I also really loved those two songs in the tour. I can see how people might find things like the candles tacky, but I didn't think that at all and I loved the overall effect, which was very haunting and beautiful. Maybe I just like tacky and overdone emotion, but as I said, that isn't how I see it.
Actually, this makes me think that this way of expanding and externalising the emotions in Les Mis is the main difference between the tour and London productions. The tour seems to take the all the power of the original production that is achieved through a 'less is more' design and instead shamelessly paint it all over the stage in a big, lavish, colourful production. Suddenly the more abstract and stoic Les Miserables with it's modern (at the time) theatrical look has become an elaborate 19th century vision that, yes, could be seen as tacky and overdone. Personally I loved both, but the two productions appeal to very different tastes as they use different kinds of beauty. I completely agree with ivopera that the tour has a greater sense of time and place with it's grand, sweeping sets and I think it feels a lot more like the older, more traditional musicals. In contrast the London production emphasises the universal story of Victor Hugo as the characters wander in and out of this black void that could exist in any time and any place and in this sense the design is more iconic. I prefer the original production for its perfect simplicity and the reason why it has been running for so long probably has a lot to do with the simple, universal design. I would be devastated if somehow the new one replaces the old one and the original is no longer considered to be 'the' production, but I think it always will be. At the same time, I was thrilled to see a different production of it and I would happily see the tour again, not because it's new or better than the original, but because in the end I love the musical Les Miserables and Victor Hugo's story and I think the tour and London version highlight different aspects of it. Also, I don't believe that Cammack or any of the creative team think the original is outdated and boring no matter what they say, and I will continue to believe that he simply said it to market the tour. It's fine that they wanted to create a new production, and he explained that any regular musical would have had countless restagings by now because regular musicals close after a few years and live on through being reimagined revivals. They couldn't have launched a new production of Les Mis saying 'the show will never be any better than it is now in London, but since you're not there here's this other version that might be good too'. |
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| Quique |
Like Eppie said, it would've been awesome had they taken the original production and improved upon it, instead of shunning it and pretending it never existed.
Example, they could've added a lot--like the interaction with the boy and his coin--without the need for a whole new design. They could've even incorporated the projections easily. The original designs already had scrims that could be projected upon. Or they could've replaced those with higher tech ones or whatever. Of what I've seen of the barricade, it looks ugly to me. Like someone's fence with trash stuck on it or something. If they really wanted a simpler design, they should've done something along the lines of the Swedish, 1996 production where a wall made of stacked boxes and other stuff made for a majestic and almost equally impressive barricade. I have a question: Is the ODM choreography featured in the tour EPK what is actually used? If so, I hate it. What is the point of that weaving motion? They need to realize that EVERYTHING in live theatre is there to represent part of a whole. A good production integrates its different elements so as to work seamlessly and not bring attention to itself. That silly movement is sooo distracting. The original movement of marching in place and periodically stopping and then forcefully lunging forward as a group is so effective and so thrilling. It's changes like those that make no sense to me as they don't add a thing but take away plenty. |
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| Orestes Fasting |
I would rather have a whole new production than a radical "update" of the original, really. At least this way they're admitting flat-out that it's not the same production and that the changes they've made are not about "improving" the original but about creating a new design with a different goal. I don't think the original needs improving or (shudder) replacing, but I do think it was getting a little old to have all these replica productions shipped all over the world while the original is still there in London. I would like to think that's how Cameron Mackintosh was thinking too when he imagined the tour. I don't want to believe the dreadful rumors about replacing the original with the tour design, and I'd like to think they're baseless--Cammack mentions in the tour brochure that the original London production probably has a few decades more in it, lol. And I am glad they're doing a complete redesign for the tour instead of just tweaking the original like they did for Bway revival, because the original design has such a simple and elegant concept behind it. Black box. Revolving stage. It takes place in a contextless, universal space. Any modification or "improvement" to that, especially in the way of adding context, is just going to weaken the base idea and produce a pointless muddle.
It's also worth noting that they didn't completely chuck the original out the window. It's a very similar show in terms of the way it uses its space and the (physical) perspective it takes on the scenes, just without the black box and in context. The blocking has been modified for the new sets, of course, and they seem to be amusing themselves by putting things stage left where they used to be stage right and vice versa, but the grand outlines are still there. It's almost like an alternate version of the show, a "what if?" The underlying conceit is radically different, but the form of the show is often similar. |
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| Quique |
You're right. I guess it's me trying to find a middle ground--one that would satisfy me and anyone who loves the original production and their insistence on a new one. But now that I really think about what I just said...what an awful idea!! XD Adding stuff to the original would definitely disturb the elegance and balance. Ay mama, I think all these sleepless nights (final exam time!!) are taking their toll. 
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| riverdawn |
I agree with Orestes that it's better to do a completely new design for the touring version (not to replace the London original, of course!) instead of simply "updating" the original design. I think I would have been more upset to see a "sort of like London but not quite" design.
I also agree that the tour is a big colorful splashy design, and that in a sense it is more traditional, rather than being sort of "cutting edge modern". In fact, I think Eponine5 said about the original that it is "modern (for the time)", but I actually find that the original London design still has a very modern feel for me. I saw it for the first time this year, and it did not feel at all out of place for me with new theater or musical theater productions that I've seen this year. However, I do think there were points in the tour design where they really seemed to very deliberately want to do something *different* from the London design, consciously, and in some cases I found this was for the detriment of the moment. The most glaring example for me was Empty Chairs, in part because for the entire design and staging they had been a lot more explicit and less symbolic than the London staging, and then suddenly in this one song, to do it without the cafe scene, without the chairs and tables, and going for this symbolic candle moment... it really detracted (again, for me) from what is usually one of my favorite scenes in the show. But all in all, so long as the original London production continues to run and is not replaced by anything, I think it's nice to have a different staging going around, albeit I didn't like specific things about the particular one they are doing. |
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| Quique |
Agreed. I tend to muddle my own opinions with my ranting, but I've always been OK with new stagings. It was the creative team's commenting on how their aim is to replace the original with the tour that had upset me. And part of it is also just a matter of preference but I'm sure I'd be less riled up had they not made those comments. |
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| Eppie-Sue |
So, I found a review from Paris online, and I thought I'd share this, as I found it interesting:
That's... not true, is it? I wasn't sure what to make of it, because I know I've read about the red flag in combination with the French Revolution, too. And it's definitely a red flag in the book, but there's always the possibility that Hugo screwed up, of course. So I was lazy and checked Wiki. And Wiki tells me:
As for the evalutation of the performers in that review:
I, for one, love that Earl gets the praise and attention he deserves. As for the rest... I agree with quite a bit. Not with the Mme Th�nardier bit and Katie doesn't sound squeaky to me (that would be Jon, actually), but alright. Interesting that there's no mention of Rosalind James or Ashley Artus, but a huge bit about how the music is "shallow". Is it shallow? I've heard opera that's more shallow. Maybe it's the sound system in Paris, or the modernisation? I definitely don't think you could call the original orchestration shallow when played with a full orchestra. |
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| l'ivrogne transfigur� |
EXTREMELY LONG TOUR REVIEW!!!
So, this has taken me far too long to do, and for that I apologise, but here is my second review of the tour. This review now covers Edinburgh and Paris, that is a total of six shows. Therefore in many respects it is a much more general review of the production. I�ve tried to take into account my opinions from when I first saw it in Manchester as well. This has possibly been the hardest review I�ve written � judging by some of the reactions to my previous review, I realise that a lot of these opinions might be a little controversial or unpopular, and I have therefore tried to back them up and explain them as thoroughly as possible. In some places, I have struggled a bit to get my meaning across, and this has led to rather a lot of Brick quotation. Those of you who don�t know the book, or don�t like it to be considered too important, please forgive this � I have done this simply because Hugo can write much better than I can, and I find it by far the easiest means of explaining what I am trying to say. Casts These are the casts as I can remember them. In Edinburgh on the 27th April we had a full set of principals, and, I think, Leighton Rafferty covering Luke Kempner as Montparnasse, Michael Baxter covering Rhidian Marc as Joly, and Peter Manchester covering David Lawrence as Lesgle. We also had David Covey (Combeferre) playing the bishop. On the 8th May, Katie Hall was covered by Leigh Rhianon Coggins and Earl Carpenter by David Lawrence. Michael Baxter was covering Chris Jacobsen as Courfeyrac, Peter Manchester covering Jamie Muscato as Jehan, and Leighton Rafferty covering David Lawrence as Lesgle. And this time the bishop was played by Ian Caddick (Babet). As for the girls, I'm afraid I haven't yet quite got to the stage of being able to tell you who was on and who wasn't. I looked at the cast board both times, but it turns out to be very unreliable, (or, as I suspect from Paris, is only updated shortly before the performance begins, when it�s a bit too late). However, as Katie was off on the 8th, there must have been someone in Leigh Rhianon Coggins' track, and I think Laura Tebbutt (factory girl) was also off. Joanna Loxton was the only female swing on the board, but I thought I saw Gemma O'Duffy in there somewhere. But, really, don't quote me on that at all. I may well be completely wrong. In Paris I saw the show four times, the evening performances of Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Tuesday (it turns out that there is a flat rate of 20 euros for under 28s if you get last minute tickets, and you can easily end up in seats that usually cost 100). Owain Williams was on as Enjolras on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and for those Michael Baxter was in his Feuilly track. On Friday Luke Kempner was in the ensemble as usual (Montparnasse) until the Attack on the Rue Plumet, where suddenly Leighton Rafferty was in his track � he ended up going on for Marius for the second half, and for all the other shows I saw (always covered by Leighton). David Lawrence was on as Javert on Friday, with Lesgle covered by Peter Manchester. Jonathan Alden was off on Sunday and Tuesday, so the Foreman was played by David Covey, and the rest of his track (Brujon) was covered by Peter Manchester. Leigh Rhianon Coggins and Victoria Farley were, I think, both off for all the shows except Tuesday when Victoria was back. (I�m still not very good at recognising the girls on stage, so I may be wrong, but this is based on a mixture of observation and conclusions drawn from the cast board, which seemed always to be a day behind.) JOJ I am not going to deny that he has a very good voice, and from an entirely vocal perspective I really enjoyed his performance. But I didn't like his acting at all. I am not just saying this to have a controversial opinion, honestly. When I saw him in Manchester, I thought that it was rather over-acted, but there were some moments I really liked alongside those I really didn't like. And most of it was adequate. To compare to the London cast, I preferred him to Bowman, but he was quite a way behind Jonathan etc. In both Edinburgh shows, I'm afraid I actually disliked him, and I think that I would rather have seen Bowman. Although I don't like many of Bowman's acting choices and character interpretations, at least his actions can be seen to stem from his criminal past and the bishop's forgiveness. With JOJ, I found myself wondering what the relevance of the whole prologue section was. Yes, there were moments of uncertainty, struggle and conflict, but as far as I could see, these were entirely related to Cosette. With regard to his having been a criminal, he seemed completely unconcerned and ... assured. When I saw him again in Paris, I didn�t mind him so much. There are a couple of moments with him that I really hate, but on the whole he was tolerable and it became much more his general style that isn�t really to my taste. So I think I am heading back to my Manchester view of thinking he was quite good but not at all understanding the hype about him. Just to briefly mention the things I didn�t particularly like about him. In My Life. I had problems with Katie in this song as well, which I shall discuss later, but from JOJ�s point of view, I really didn�t like how he sang �In our time, in our turn�. It came across as if he were really angry with Cosette for daring to ask, and while I suppose there could be seen to be an element of defensiveness in that attitude, I would much rather see this:
And then, purely in terms of his acting style, it is SO over the top in places, although again, this bothered me less in Paris than in Edinburgh. The breaking down and weeping with the bishop though, for instance. It just seems totally unnecessary and in-your-face. And his BHH, which, at least in Edinburgh (I closed my eyes in Paris because I really enjoy listening to him sing it, and prefer not to watch too much...) consisted of constantly OTT gestures. All the way through he would wave his hands a bit, then bring them into a praying position, then wave them about again a bit etc. It really took away from what was otherwise a very strong vocal performance. Finally, without wanting to make this in any way a personal attack, I have to say that I felt I could see too much of the John Owen-Jones I see on his twitter in his Valjean. And, suffice to say, I don�t feel that the two are very compatible. Earl He was by far the strongest actor on stage when he was on. While I have never been a massive fan of his singing (not that it's bad at all - just not the best I've heard), it was so refreshing to have his acting back. And the low note of the cha-in was loud and strong and oh-so-long. It felt like it almost made the auditiorium shake. It was amazing. Although, the last couple of shows in Paris he did seem to be losing his voice a bit, which was a shame. The highlight of his performance has to be right at the beginning - his face before 'No.' It is such an Earl!Javert face (in the same way as that little moment at the top of the barricade in the London EPK), and I absolutely love it. His Javert really has it all held together. There's never a moment of uncertainty or doubt (well, until the Suicide of course, but even then he manages to remain very dignified which I prefer to those who completely, well, lose it). And it comes across really well. Unfortunately, I think Javert suffers most from the new orchestrations - he has the silly entrance in the robbery, Stars and Suicide are both ruined etc. But I still really, really enjoyed his performance, and can't find much to criticise. I never fully appreciated him while he was on in London, but there's just so many little things that make his Javert really stand out and seem so real. David Lawrence I knew that Katie had been off on the 7th May, so I wasn't too surprised to find an u/s Cosette on the 8th. But I was very disappointed to find that Earl was off too. Particularly as I had really disliked David Lawrence's bishop in Manchester. However, I have to say that I was very pleasantly surprised. For a start, he looked very Javert. Probably more so than Earl. There was something about the wigs that actually kind of suited him, and he very much had an air of the wolfish side of Javert. Also, when he sings, he does something rather odd with his mouth, like it goes all wonky and off to one side. But that actually worked quite well for Javert. Vocally, on the whole, he was good. He went for the bottom F in the Confrontation, and it was there if rather quiet. Unfortunately, his 'reprieved' was also rather weak, but other than that he was generally strong. I loved him in the Confrontation, actually. I don't know how to describe it, except by quoting this passage of the book:
While he was by no means perfect, so much of this Javert, which is so hard to translate successfully onto stage, was there in the Confrontation. There was, perhaps, a bit less of Hugo's "grandeur" but a lot of the idea of a "fanatic" and you did get the impression of "hideousness" and "all the evil of good". And that's what I liked about David Lawrence - his Javert, while never appearing as the 'villain', as which I would never want a Javert to come across, was still throroughly unlikeable. And it worked. His second half was perhaps a bit weaker, although I really liked him in Valjean�s Revenge. He was fighting a bit, which I don�t usually like � I prefer a Javert to be calmer and in control and all, but he really came across as if he was fighting for his dignity, which actually worked surprisingly well. I wouldn�t have been surprised had he said �You annoy me. Kill me rather.�/�I find this embarrassing. I�d rather you killed me.�/�I don�t like this. Kill me, instead, why don�t you.�/�You irritate me. Kill me instead.� depending on the translation (Wilbour, Denny, Rose, Mcafee respectively). [Heh. Sorry, I just find the various translations of this line quite interesting...] I thought that on the whole it was a very strong performance. In Paris, I thought that he was perhaps vocally a little weaker than he had been in Edinburgh, particularly on some of the bigger notes (the reprieved still wasn�t really there), but I still enjoyed his performance, and I think my opinion didn�t really change much. Also, I felt both in Edinburgh and in Paris, that the balance between the performers and the orchestra wasn�t very well managed � I often found that I actually had to listen to the performers to properly hear them above the orchestra, and I thought that both Earl and David suffered from this most among the cast, David in particular. Madalena Alberto I really didn't like her in Manchester, her acting or her voice. But after hearing some positive reviews and liking her voice a little bit more on the EPK I was beginning to wonder if I was being a bit harsh last time. I wasn't. riverdawn's comparing her to Ophelia is, I think, in many ways very fitting. The worst moment was probably the bit before IDAD, but all the way through her acting didn't really make any sense to me. She just came across as rather crazed (but not in a Fantine-y way at all), and there was none of the dignity or pride there. Neurotic might be a good word to describe her. Also her voice is really ... strained and squeaky in many places. It sounds ridiculous to say that Fantine's part is too high for her, but that was how it sounded. In some ways, she sounded a bit like a female version of Jon Robyns, but rather worse. She really cannot belt, and yet continues to try. And it�s just an unpleasant sound to listen to. Also, I know this certainly not her fault, but can I just say again how much I dislike her hair? Fantine's hair is a large part of her character - she has a rather vain streak, and the loss of her hair is, in many ways, what starts her on her decline to prostitution. If I had hair like that, I wouldn't care particularly about losing it, or rather, her hair doesn�t look as if she has taken much care over it. Th�nardiers They were absolutely awful. Really. I am at a loss to describe quite how bad I thought they were. Although, having said that, I am very willing to say that a lot of this may well be down to direction. I don't want to direct this entirely at the actors. It was a lot more what they did, rather than how they did it, that I had a problem with. The approach to the characters seemed to be to take away any sense of menace or evil. In an ideal world and if it was my musical, I wouldn't make the Th�nardiers comical at all - as far as the book is concerned, these two characters are pretty much as evil as you get. However, I understand that for the purposes of a stage production, especially one with however many on-stage deaths, you need a bit of comic relief. And in some ways it does work quite well with the Th�nardiers (in London), because a lot of the comedy often helps to emphasise their evilness. Yes, we laugh, but at the same time it is quite a dark sort of humour. However, on tour, anything sinister or menacing or evil about them is completely lost. They, especially Th�nardier, come across as complete idiots. In my opinion, they weren't even very funny, either. In London, yes, I don't tend to laugh much at the Th�nardiers because I've seen it too much for it to be truly funny, but it still makes smile and I understand why everyone else is laughing so much. And the ensemble certainly do still make me laugh. But I felt that on tour the humour fell completely flat. My sense of humour is very much in line with real life - the closer something is to real life, the funnier I find it, in general. These were just too ridiculous to be funny. And then there was also the fact that they just simply were not the Th�nardiers. I really don't think Ashley Artus can sing, but I imagine that he wasn't cast on his singing ability. Lorraine can't sing either, and it irritates me at times, but on the whole she manages to pull it off - however, she doesn't have to sing any big solos. I can live with a Mme T who can't sing. But DED was completely ruined. And apart from the not being able to sing thing, it was again the whole approach to the song. To my mind, that is the one place where a Th�nardier should absolutely not be comical. It really shows just how low and evil he truly is - I mean, he's down in the sewers robbing corpses... It's hardly getting drunk in an inn. And yet, he still seemed to play it for the laughs. Just the way he phrased each line, and the way he looked. It was absolutely awful. And he said all the stuff about God being dead like it was some awfully witty joke on his part. Just no. The Saturday performance was signed - and the guy doing it was absolutely hilarious. He was doing all the actions in time with the music, so it often looked like he was just doing some sort of crazy dancing. And his face was a picture at times. On the whole I managed to ignore him, although I have to say that he was highly amusing in the Soliloquy. But anyway, he acted DED much better than Th�nardier. His face showed much more of what I would expect to see in a Th�nardier than Ashley Artus did. Which is pretty sad, really. MotH is just ... oh, I can't explain how awful it is. Everything about it is just so wrong. And the general characterisation. Sorry, I think I'm going to have to quote the Brick again:
Of course, I realise that in the realms of the musical a lot of this either cannot be brought to the stage, has been deliberately ignored, or gets lost under the layers of comedy, and I have skipped a lot of the parts which are particularly irrelevant to the show on this basis. However the essence of the characters should still very much be there. And can be there. I don't think the London production has got it quite right in some aspects either, but it is miles ahead of the tour. For a start, just look at Madame Th�nardier's appearance. Hugo is extremely clear that she is in no way attractive. In London, the character comes across like this. They give her a dirty costume, black out some teeth and she has make-up which is certainly not intended to make her look pretty. In contrast, Lynne Wilmot has a perfectly decent costume, and is made up to appear very attractive. The same applies in the Wedding - while they are both dressed up, Lorraine remains looking ugly (and the pantomime make-up), whereas Lynne looks pretty, with perfect face and hair. Hugo also goes to great lengths to emphasise her total lack of sex appeal � �the idea of calling her a woman never would have occurred to anybody� - so why does the tour Madame Th�nardier (and her husband) think that shoving her breasts into anyone's face will keep them happy? And they're not at all subtle about it - they have Th�nardier in the 'upstairs room' directing his wife to do it in the Bargain, and when Valjean ignores her she just keeps doing it, and shaking them around. Apparently that is a) suitable and b) funny. It's not. And then she goes all coquettish and flirty, lying across the table in front of him and all. And just NO. Then there's Th�nardier, who is a hundred times worse. Once again, Hugo doesn't leave much doubt as to what sort of a character he is - basically a thoroughly nasty piece of work. He also emphasises that he is clever. He is sly and scheming and willing to stoop to pretty much anything. He absolutely does not steal a blind man's shoes and canary while sitting on his lap and find the whole thing terribly amusing. Ashley Artus plays the character as a complete imbecile most of the time. He comes across as completely lacking in any sort of intelligence or sharpness. I entirely got the impression that he played Th�nardier as a comical character � as in, the character was being deliberately funny. This was very obvious in places like MotH, where his sole purpose seemed to be to entertain the guests with his idiocy, but even in the Bargain, for instance, I simply couldn�t shake the feeling that he was entertaining himself, and found himself very amusing. There was this constant glint in his eye of the person who is intentionally making a fool of himself for his own entertainment. And in what world does Th�nardier take a purse from someone�s pocket, and then proceed to skip along the stage swinging it in time to the music?! He really did come across as the class clown. There was absolutely no subtlety to his performance, just supposedly funny comedy rammed down your throat. The other thing that didn�t make sense to me with the Th�nardiers was their relationship. According to Hugo, Th�nardier is very much in control and his wife just does what he tells her to. Of course, this doesn�t translate into the musical, where it becomes much more of an equal partnership, and, indeed, it often seems that Mme T is in control, with lines like �He�s not fooled, told you so, tell Monsieur what you�ve come here to show� etc. However, they nevertheless hardly have a sweet, loving relationship. Neither do they absolutely hate each other � they are a very evil pair, and they do work together in many ways. Hugo also talks about Madame Th�nardier being jealous � and this, at least, is something that very much comes across in the London production. The way they were portrayed on tour didn�t make any sense at all, in and of itself, let alone with reference to the book or general characterisations. There are several points in MotH in which Th�nardier leans over and kisses his wife very theatrically, which could perhaps be passed off as a performance for the guests, although he does in fact do it when he comes down before anyone arrives as well. But on the whole, they seem to get on reasonably well ... so why is she then so bitter and angry in her verse? That doesn�t come across in a particularly understandable way. Then, why do they insist on making out at every opportunity? That doesn�t make sense. And when Valjean comes in at the Bargain, you have, for a bit, Th�nardier telling his wife what to do from upstairs. She is clearly not too happy about this, but then he makes lots of pleading, praying gestures at her. Surely Th�nardier would never do that? I�m sorry, but the pair of them on stage are just total �Ugh.� Gareth Gates I've got to like him a bit more each time I've seen him. Vocally, he's absolutely fine. I always wish I'd listen to him a bit more, though - there's always something going on to distract me a bit (especially in ECAET). I still find it a bit hard to connect with his acting. He makes some rather strange faces at points, which I find very hard to understand, and I also often felt that he was acting the lyrics rather than the character, if that makes sense. My biggest criticism of him has to be his relationship with Eponine � to me, it just doesn�t make sense. I noticed in particular on Thursday, although I assume it�s always like this, that he was very annoyed by Eponine hanging around him. They meet by practically running into each other centre stage, and after singing his first line, he turned in the audience�s direction, i.e. away from her, and made a face that clearly said �Oh no, not again.� Personally, I�m not particularly keen on a Marius who does this � I prefer him to be rather more oblivious. (In fact, I would love for a Marius to forget her name one day � �Hey, ... [mumble], what�s up today?�. But I don�t think that�s going to happen.) However, it�s a perfectly valid interpretation, and is certainly way better than the �Marius and Eponine are BFFs� approach. But then after this his attitude towards her kept changing. It was as if they were best friends when it suited him, and he didn�t care the rest of the time. In Eponine�s Errand, it very much came across as if he was manipulatively using her. I�m sorry about all this quoting, but, well, as I said, Hugo writes much better than I do:
Now, of course, here even more so than in the other instances, the book cannot be applied straight to the musical. The relationship between the two is very different � in the book this is only the third time they�ve met, and the second time they�ve spoken. In the musical, they are, of course, implied to have known each other better and longer. And, of course, Eponine is presented very differently in the musical in a lot of respects. However, even simply from Marius� point of view (seeing as this section is about Gareth and not Rosalind), there are a couple of obvious things here, which stand out. First is that Marius doesn�t have the intention or the idea of asking Eponine to find the address until she brings it up herself, and practically tells him to. And the other is that he doesn�t appear to notice, and certainly doesn�t react to her changes in mood. There is no awareness there of what she feels for him, or the position in which he is putting her. He is merely using an available means that has been suggested and offered to him to find Cosette. With Gareth�s Marius, particularly in this scene, I got the impression, whether it was deliberate or not, I don�t know, that he was very aware of Eponine�s situation. He asked her to find her, offered her the money. And then, when that didn�t work, he changed his attitude and suddenly appeared as her best friend on �Eponine, do this for me.� Now this was either what I was talking about before � Gareth acting the lyrics more than the character, or he deliberately meant it come across as a bit manipulative. But either way, I didn�t really like it. Yes, maybe he was too much in love with Cosette to care about what he was doing to Eponine, which might go some way to �excusing� his behaviour. But I still don�t think it worked for the character. And then the other thing I really didn�t like about his Marius, which is also his relationship with Eponine, is his reaction after ALFOR. I said this last time, and got criticised quite a bit for it, but I stand by it. I don�t think he should be devastated and sobbing and crying out �No!� and burying his head in Eponine�s hair. Of course he is going to be affected by it � I�m not saying he shouldn�t care. But I think it should be much less personal. I think that the whole �barricade experience� for Marius should be mostly about Cosette. Certainly in bookverse, he is there solely in order to die. But that aspect is also definitely there in the musical � because she�s leaving and he doesn�t care �if I should die, now she goes across the sea.� Anything else that happens is rather secondary � the death of Eponine would certainly affect him, but it would much more be the shock of something like that penetrating beyond his own despair. The fact that it�s Eponine is a bit irrelevant � he�s not, I don�t think, in his senses enough to appreciate the fact that a �friend� has died. It�s more the reality of people he knows dying on that barricade. And even if you do want to see a more personal reaction there, I still think it was rather over the top. But, after that mini-essay, I am quite willing to say that I thought he was, on the whole, one of the stronger members of the cast. His singing was very good, if not the strongest, and I have definitely preferred his acting each time I�ve seen him. Having only seem him for half a performance in Paris, I don�t have much to add to the above that was written after seeing him in Edinburgh. I didn�t notice that he was ill when he was on, and it seemed like a perfectly normal performance (until Luke disappeared at least). But I did notice something that I think contributes to why I just can�t quite connect with him. Yes, I still think that he acts the lyrics more than he does the character, and yes, I still sometimes find it hard to understand his facial expressions, but I think that there is also a very distracting element to his performance. And that is, that he can�t stand still. And this isn�t in a David Thaxton way, a sort of I�ve-got-nothing-to-do-so-I�m-going-to-play-with-my-hair-and-my-clothes way, but when he�s singing he kind of ... sways. Like when he talks to Eponine for instance, he�s constantly leaning into her and then back out, and then doing it again. It�s a small point, and nothing particularly worthy of criticism � indeed, I didn�t really notice it at first, but I think it is something that does take away from his acting as a whole. Subconsciously I think it can be quite distracting, and it perhaps diminishes the realism of his performance. Luke Kempner Luke was one of the most adorable Marii I�ve ever seen. I can�t tell you what exactly it was about him, but he was just incredibly loveable in the role. He is, perhaps, a slightly weaker singer than Gareth, but I did prefer him in the role. I also thought that he worked better with Katie. One of the things I don�t like about the tour is what they do to the relationship between Marius and Cosette. I don�t know if it�s an attempt to explain the whole �falling in love in a day� thing, or trying to appeal to 21st century audiences, but I feel that their relationship is rather too sexualised in this production. Perhaps Hugo went rather over the top with all his sublime romantic idealism � head over heels in love at literally a glance, pining away for someone who�s name you don�t even know, not thinking to find out the others name until everything else has been said, exchanging only one kiss before the wedding... But I think the essence of this should be kept in the musical. Especially given the fact that it must inevitably be romanticised to some degree through the fact that they do have only one proper encounter in which to fall in love. What I did like about the tour in this respect is their meeting in Paris. Whereas in London, Marius knocks the basket from Cosette and there�s a moment, and then they return pretty much to normal, in Paris they can�t really take their eyes off each other. As I said in my Manchester review, this does detract a little from the relationship between Cosette and Valjean, because the attention and interaction that is otherwise directed to Valjean is given to Marius, but otherwise I think that scene works really well. There�s this uncertainty there, and the nervousness and the innocence and it works well. But then, in my opinion, all this is completely ruined by AHFOL. I�m not keen on the whole balcony thing and Marius throwing stones at Cosette�s window, but it works well enough. But from the point when she comes down and out the front door, they stop really doing anything. In London, for instance, they stand up, sit down, kneel, walk around the stage, use the space, etc. On tour they just face each other, and as the song progresses they get closer and closer. I suppose this may partly be due to the amount of space they have, which is related to the lack of revolve � the gate and the imaginary wall that is attached divides the stage in two diagonally, so they do have less manoeuvring room. But this blocking ends with the two kissing the minute they stop singing. I don�t like this. For a start, I guess I don�t particularly like the fact that they kiss at all. Given the fact that the musical only gives them this one meeting, it seems more appropriate to me, and more �Marius and Cosette�, for them not to do so, to wait until the Wedding, where the moment then has much more significance. Also there is the way that immediately after this, Cosette grabs Marius� hand and practically drags him off stage. While there is nothing wrong with this in itself (and I quite like the way Cosette has to tell Marius what to do, whether it�s particularly in character or not) but given the preceding events, it doesn�t really help the �this is a very innocent relationship� thing. Watching that, I can�t really feel any doubts about what they might be getting up to offstage, and it�s not something I feel Marius and Cosette ought to be doing:
Once again, I don�t expect the musical to delve quite so far into all this romanticism as Hugo does. But I still think that there should be, at the most, a very minimal sexual element in their relationship. And the third reason I don�t like this blocking, is that it seems to simply build up the sexual tension throughout the whole song. There�s this element of �He/She is so attractive I simply cannot keep my hands off him/her any longer� as they edge closer and closer. And that really is simply not Marius and Cosette in any way. Now, the reason this has got anything to do with Luke, is that I thought he pulled this off much better and more convincingly than Gareth did. He was really adorable when he met Cosette in the Robbery, but I think Gareth also does that bit very well as well. They both manage to come off as a sweet, nervous, slightly bewildered Marius. However, from there it changes. The problems I have listed above do, on the whole, apply to Gareth�s Marius. But with Luke, it just came across like he had all this love and affection in him, and it was overflowing, and he simply did not know what to with it all except to kiss Cosette. It just seemed like such an instinctual thing, not an �I want to kiss her� but �I want to express all my love�. And it was utterly adorable. I�m sorry, I keep using that word in relation to him, and it probably sounds really patronising, but he really was. Also, with regards to his relationship with Eponine, he was much ... warmer, I guess, than Gareth. As much as I may have criticised his relationship with Eponine earlier, I do like the fact that, on the whole, he keeps her rather at arm�s length. It is just that, because of this, the moments where he doesn�t rather ruin the whole thing, and confuse me a lot. Luke was more consistent, but also more friendly. For instance, when Valjean comes in after the attack, you can see the backs of Marius and Eponine on the other side of the imaginary wall. They are holding hands some distance from the gate (I�m a bit dubious about this, but it works alright), and then when Valjean talks to himself, Marius goes to the gate to talk to Cosette (as in London). When Gareth does this, he just lets go of Eponine�s hand and runs to talk to Cosette. Luke lets go, but says something to her and is more reassuring. In many ways I prefer Gareth here � it�s the whole obliviousness to what Eponine is going through that I was talking about earlier, but Luke managed to pull it off in a similar way to the thing with Katie. It�s like he�s got all this affection in him and it just overflows onto everyone else. Before he goes into the garden, the same thing applies � all through In My Life he is quite affectionate with Eponine, and it really does come across that his love is just spilling out onto whoever happens to be closest. And I�m surprised that I like it, actually � usually I�m not a big fan of any sort of friendship between the two, certainly on Marius� side � but with Luke you just kind of wanted to pat him on the head and say �Aww�, and I really liked it. Also, while talking about Eponine, he didn�t do the OTT reaction to her death. He just sat there, clearly upset, kissed her on the forehead, and held her close for a bit. Even this is perhaps a bit more than I would like to see � I prefer to see a Marius just completely shell-shocked by the whole thing, who clearly doesn�t have an idea what to do, or even really what has just happened, but in comparison to Gareth at this point, I prefer Luke by miles. Also, interestingly, there was one line he delivered differently. I don�t know if this is a conscious decision or a �mistake�, but when Eponine arrives on the barricade, Gareth says �I know her.� Luke said �I know this boy�. I�m not sure if it makes a huge difference, but I thought I might just point it out. So yes, I really, really, enjoyed his performance. He was one of the understudies I had been hoping to see, and I�m very glad that I got the chance to do so. Katie I really liked Katie�s Cosette in London. She played it in a very sweet and innocent way, and made it work. It�s easy for that interpretation of Cosette to come across as being a bit bland or characterless, but she still managed to make you really feel for the character, I thought. On tour, and I noticed this in Manchester, her Cosette has gained a bit of an edge. She has become a little less sweet and gained more of a temper. At the end of In My Life, for instance, she goes inside and slams the door � something her London Cosette would never do. Personally, I don�t particularly like this, because it seems to take something away from the loving relationship between father and daughter, but on the whole it worked alright in Manchester. However, I have to admit that I was very disappointed to find that it seemed to be played up even more in Edinburgh. Her In My Life started absolutely fine � there was definitely that sense of innocence and wonderment at what she felt. But the minute Valjean came on stage she made a face and turned away very petulantly. She maintained this rather sulky attitude while he sang, and didn�t even seem to listen much to what he said. To me, this portrayal doesn�t really work for Cosette, particularly when the middle section of the song is restored. Also, on �In my life, I have all that I want...� she suddenly became very sweet again, only to turn away rather moodily on �in your eyes I am just like a child who is lost in a wood�. This mood change didn�t work, and came across rather manipulatively, which isn�t really Cosette. I can understand a Cosette being sulky after Valjean has refused to tell her anything, I don�t particularly like it (see what I quoted with relation to JOJ in this section), but I can understand it. But it seems totally out of character for her to behave like that before even giving him a chance to explain or to give her the answers to her questions. In Paris, I wasn�t so bothered by this � what had come over as a sulky teenager in Edinburgh seemed more like simple frustration. That is, until the show on Tuesday, when, while she was sitting on the bench with her back to Valjean, she sent him a really nasty look on �Believe me, were it within my power� � I don�t really understand how he could deserve this at all, or why Cosette would give him such a look. And unfortunately it rather spoiled the whole thing. However, these reservations aside, on the whole I did enjoy her performance. In general, she still retained that sweetness and innocence that I liked in London, it was just perhaps a bit tainted in places. There is also the issue of AHFOL which I have addressed above, but I thought that on the whole she managed to make it work reasonably well. She is still certainly one of my favourite actors on tour, and I still really like her voice. So this criticism isn�t massive. Unfortunately, though, in Paris, I think she was feeling rather under the weather. Going by the cast board, I�m guessing that Victoria Farley (2nd u/s) was on on Thursday, which would suggest that Katie hadn�t been well, and from Friday to Sunday both Cosette understudies were off. Katie�s voice really didn�t sound too good, and she cracked on the top C in Every Day on Saturday, and on the F sharp on �silence� in In My Life. I do not know anything, of course, but I suspect that she was a bit under the weather and had had to go on due to the absence of covers. But taking this into consideration I thought she did very well. And by Tuesday�s performance, she seemed a lot better � I suspect that the day off helped � a four show weekend is, I am sure, awfully hard to get through, particularly with a voice not at its best. Leigh Rhianon Coggins Leigh was the other understudy besides David Lawrence whom I wasn�t particularly keen to see. Not because I thought that I wouldn�t like her, but simply because I like Katie, and I would rather have seen one of the other female roles covered, and given the fact that I do like Katie, I was quite likely to be disappointed. However, I thought she did very well on the whole. I haven�t got a huge amount to say about her � in many ways Cosette is a hard character to go very wrong on. I am yet to see a Cosette I don�t like. I thought she looked perhaps a bit old for the role, although that may be due to the fact that Katie does look (and is, I suppose) very young. It�s not a huge issue, but it was something I noticed. Also, I have to say that she didn�t pull off the wig as successfully as Katie does. Katie really looks adorable in it, and the hair actually looks very natural on her to an extent that it didn�t with Leigh (and, judging by pictures I�ve seen, this applies to Victoria Farley as well). I don�t know if maybe it was designed more with Katie in mind, or if she just wears it better or what. But again, it�s not a massively important point. Vocally, I thought that Leigh was very good, and she had some gorgeous top notes. Seeing her a week and a bit after having seen Katie �at her worst� in terms of her sulky, stroppy teenagerness, I thought Leigh�s Cosette came across very well in that regard. Of course, there were still the limitations imposed by the blocking, but I thought that she was a more sympathetic character at that point. Jon Oh, Jon. I so desperately want to like him, and I don�t even know why. Yes, I liked his Marius but I was never massively keen on his singing, and I was never particularly attached to him in London. But I just feel so bad for him as Enjolras. I think he was completely miscast, and he is just simply not Enjolras. And not in the way that it could be argued that Mark Dugdale isn�t Enjolras � there are areas in which he isn�t, but he makes the character and the role work for him, and he is a fantastic Markjolras. Jon is just rather all round fail. And I feel really bad for saying that. I don�t really know where to start in reviewing his performances really. Unfortunately, the fail starts with his voice. It is not strong enough by a mile for the role. There are moments when this isn�t noticeable � when he came on in Paris in Paris, I thought that he was in quite good voice, and while still no David Thaxton or whichever strong-voiced Enjolras you might choose, it didn�t seem too bad. I thought that maybe he was better than I had remembered and given him credit for. But when it got to the caf� scene, it turned out that this was unfortunately not the case. All the section from �The time is near...� was alright but not particularly strong, but that could be a choice. But then there was absolutely no step up at all for �Red, the blood of angry men...�. It was a total anti-climax and highly disappointing. And this held true for most of the performance � while his voice was never particularly strong, it wasn�t too noticeable at many points, but then it was extremely obvious that he couldn�t make it stronger at any of the climactic points, and his Enjolras lost a lot of interest and credibility as a result. And then there�s his acting and characterisation. Oh, I don�t know, it�s just wrong. He doesn�t really have the necessary stage presence at any point � he doesn�t have that simple air of authority that must be necessary for an Enjolras. And for the rest, he�s mostly just angry. At no point do I really understand what he�s fighting for. It comes across to me like he has some sort of personal vendetta he�s trying to carry out or something, not a �Let�s fight for our principles� thing or even a �Let�s cut the fat ones down to size� unless one of those fat ones is someone a rich uncle who stole his inheritance or something. Perhaps that�s me misunderstanding his acting, but I couldn�t help feeling that that was what his Enjolras was feeling. Also, there wasn�t really any interaction with the other students. Not really any suggestion that they were friends or comrades or anything. This isn�t entirely his fault, of course, it�s a mix of him, and the ensemble, and the direction, but it really didn�t come off very well. I found myself wondering who this guy was, and why he was leading all these others to certain death. There were moments I liked, and others I didn�t mind too much, although I�m afraid I don�t think I can really remember any specific examples at the moment, but the overall impression I got was simply wrong. And that�s about all I can do to explain it. As I said, he�s simply not Enjolras. The other thing that I don�t like about him is his interaction with Grantaire. I do perhaps attach far too much importance to this than is strictly necessary, but nevertheless, Jon is awful in this regard. At first I wasn�t too sure about Adam Linstead as Grantaire, but I�ve come to like him (more about him later), and I think he really does try to get the relationship right. But it simply doesn�t work with Jon. I think that the problem is that Jon makes the relationship too mutual, when it needs to be much more one-sided and imbalanced. The impression I get of the two of them when Jon is on is that, at a point pre-musical, or maybe even conceivably just before the caf� scene the two were best friends, perhaps Grantaire was even Jon�s second in command, then he did something to massively piss him off, and they spend the rest of the show arguing and being petty about it, before making up at the end. That�s not what I want their relationship to be like at all. The point is that Grantaire has this admiration and love for Enjolras because he is so high above him. Although Enjolras� attitude and feelings towards Grantaire may be debateable in the book, for this relationship to come across in any way successfully on stage, Enjolras needs to not care. The angst is all on Grantaire�s side, it�s about what he feels for Enjolras, what he wants from Enjolras, and what he does for/because of this. Enjolras would not argue with Grantaire � it is not worth his time or his energy. I cannot imagine he would be particularly bothered by Grantaire in the caf� scene either � it�s only worth his time if it disturbs him or disrupts what he is trying to do. Instead you have Jon who gets very annoyed with Grantaire the minute he opens his mouth, which doesn�t keep the distance between them, and makes him just as involved and �unlucky in love� as Grantaire. Then you have them walking on stage together mid-argument during ALFOR, which, again, makes him too involved, too invested in the relationship. And then you have Drink With Me, which probably deserves a rant of its own. Jon spends the first verse at the top of the barricade having a nice, friendly, chat with Courfeyrac. When Grantaire sings �Can it be you fear to die?� he gets a large, angry reaction from the other students (particularly one of them, and I want to say it�s Feuilly, but I�m not 100% sure on that), and Jon comes down and intervenes. I think Adam then addresses the rest of the verse pretty much at him, but I may be wrong. Gosh, my memory�s bad considering how closely I always watch this. In Manchester when I saw this, the next bit involved Jon drinking. As far as I am concerned that is probably the biggest mistake an Enjolras can make. In Edinburgh I was relieved to see that he didn�t, although I still didn�t like the way he handled it. At the end of his verse, Grantaire goes off in a bit of a huff to the corner. In Edinburgh, Jon hesitated a little bit, then went over to him and comforted him, getting one of Adam�s slightly odd round-the-waist hugs. Now, I don�t like this. And the reason why is the comforting thing. Enjolras isn�t there to comfort Grantaire. If Grantaire wants anything from Enjolras, he has to earn it. I love the way David Thaxton plays this at the moment � he doesn�t say anything. He literally just stands there, and Grantaire gives in and gives him the bottle, and that�s when he is �redeemed� � he has been able to rise up, and so earned some of Enjolras� attention. However, the scene can still work with talking involved � see the old London blocking that is still sometimes used, see Mark (and Killian?). However, none of this is comforting. Jon basically went over there in order for Grantaire to hug him. It looked like he was doing it entirely for the sake of Grantaire. And his moment of hesitation looked like he was deciding that his friend�s hurt feelings were worth more at that moment than whatever argument they had been having, and that he was willing to put it aside in order to comfort him. And, well, that�s totally wrong. But at least he didn�t drink. Now, I only saw Jon once in Paris, on Tuesday. I had heard that he was back to drinking, and sure enough, drink he did. And DWM as a whole was possibly the worst E/R thing I have ever seen, certainly on his side. He came down as usual on Grantaire�s verse. Then, as Grantaire sang, he reached out and tried to take the bottle from him. Adam just moved his arm so that it was out of Jon�s reach, and finished the song � �Is your life just one more lie?� He then went off to his corner as usual and, without a moment�s hesitation Jon followed him, took the bottle from him, took a swig, got a hug and walked straight off again. And what the hell was that meant to be? The problems with this are practically infinite. First is the obvious � Enjolras doesn�t drink. Yes, there is some fanfic that can make a plausible case for it, but even those very rarely leave me convinced. And certainly in the musical he can�t, and absolutely not as a result of anything to do with Grantaire. He just doesn�t. Secondly, what was the whole let�s-wrestle-the-bottle-from-Grantaire-while-he�s-singing thing about? Did he think that taking the bottle from him would shut him up? � but if he didn�t want to listen to Grantaire he wouldn�t, he didn�t have to be there. And I�m sure it wouldn�t have been impossible for him to shut Grantaire up with a word or a look. Or he was going to do the whole drinking thing earlier, and was only stopped by Grantaire himself. See above reasons for Enjolras not drinking ever. Also, when he drank in Manchester, it did at least come across as some sort of conciliatory gesture. As far as I can remember, when he went over to Grantaire there was some interaction pre his taking the bottle. It looked like it could be some negotiation, some sort of deal they were sealing, a compromise being made or whatever. And while this is still totally wrong in my book (and Hugo�s) � if Grantaire isn�t going to raise himself up to Enjolras, Enjolras isn�t going to lower himself in anyway to reach down to him � it is at least understandable on a certain level. However, there wasn�t even this on Tuesday. It completely looked like he went over to Grantaire with the sole purpose of taking a swig from his bottle. And words simply cannot express how utterly wrong this is. There were two ways of interpreting this. Either Enjolras was simply desperate for a drink, and saw taking advantage of Grantaire as the best/only way to get this. No comment. Or he saw that he had somehow managed to upset Grantaire, and that he ought to make amends, and this was his symbolic way of doing it. And that is so screwed up it hurts my head. It just totally looked like Grantaire had spent that verse accusing Enjolras of, well whatever. Leading them all to their deaths? Not caring about his followers? And Enjolras suddenly had a revelation that he was in fact responsible for everything, and thought he had to make it up to Grantaire. And therefore decided to drink from his bottle. And I was so massively disappointed � I had thought Jon had got past this, but apparently not.
Enjolras doesn�t show sympathy for Grantaire, he doesn�t comfort him. It has all got to come from Grantaire or not at all. And Adam didn�t have a chance to do anything, because there was Jon in front of him, drinking from his own bottle. I�m so sorry that this review of him had to come across so negatively, but he is, as I have already repeated, simply not Enjolras. Yes, he is definitely miscast, but still. He didn�t seem to show any sort of understanding for the character. Oh, and he did strange things like kissing Marius on the head after ALFOR. Er, what? Owain Williams I was very excited to see Owain as Enjolras. From what I had already seen I thought he was one of the strongest members of the ensemble, and I really liked his Feuilly. Vocally, I thought he was very strong as well � he managed to totally sing Jon off stage with his lines �Let them come if they dare, we�ll be there!�, which was louder, purer, less squeaky, and higher than Jon ever has to sing, with the exception of the �is free�. So I was looking forward to him. Unfortunately, I was, in many respects, rather disappointed. Certainly vocally. He lost the strength that I thought he had as Feuilly, and, as Enjolras, he sounded rather too much like Jon. I don�t know what the problem is � perhaps it is a question of stamina, or the tessitura of the part which requires much more sustained high singing in parts, although it never does much that is particularly high. It felt almost like his enthusiasm caused him to lose his support, leading to what Eppie-Sue might describe as �a lot of air behind the notes�. I don�t really know how else to describe it. So, yes, I was rather disappointed on that front. Although, having said that, I still enjoyed his vocal performance more than Jon�s. He was certainly less squeaky and strained, and the energy |
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| l'ivrogne transfigur� |
(ha. It seems to be too long for one post...)
was there, which is something that often felt a bit lacking in Jon�s voice. To compare their Final Battles... They both go for the B flat �is free� � Jon sounds like he has to really concentrate to hit the note, which comes out without much power, sounding not particularly pleasant I have to say, and generally a bit unexciting. Owain was also not particularly comfortable with it, and it wasn�t the most pleasant not I heard him sing either. However, the difference was that with Owain�s performance, there was some of the Thaxton attitude (he might even have done something small with his hands), in that you could tell he was throwing himself behind it, and there was the energy, enthusiasm, determination. With Jon, you felt that he was singing it because he had been told to. In terms of Owain�s acting, I am very mixed. I first saw him on Friday, and I thought he was fine but nothing special, better by a mile than Jon, but still behind the London trio. Then on Saturday I really enjoyed his performance, and I wasn�t surprised to find out afterwards that he has indeed read the book. I could tell that there was understanding of the character there, and while not all of his acting choices were perfect, there was very much an essence of Enjolras. He had quite a lot of the calmness and control that is so visibly lacking in Jon. And then on Sunday, this seemed to be lost again. His enthusiasm seemed to be directed more into anger and a bit of violence. After Gavroche�s death he stood there shaking the barricade (and it�s a testament to the weakness of the barricade that the whole thing shook!). I don�t know if the fact that we were sitting much further back and up made a difference � perhaps what I enjoyed in his Saturday performance was due to a lot of subtleties in his acting that got lost. His Enjolras was perhaps rather over-confident and arrogant at times, which detracted from the whole a bit. I find it quite amusing to compare Jon and Owain�s marching actually. I am not particularly keen on the DYHTPS blocking � it involves Enjolras marching with a gun leading a train of couples on a kind of snake-like pattern on the stage. But you get a good view of Enjolras from the side, and the best way that I can describe Jon at this moment is as a pissed-off elephant. He sticks his bottom lip up, has both arms tensed by his side, one of them holding a gun, and stomps off looking moody and determined. In contrast, Owain seems almost to swagger. This is partly to do with the way his vest sits on him � it is open and kind of hangs out at the front quite a bit, which gives him the rather comical effect of seeming to swell his chest out to massive proportions. Add to this the confident way he walks and his slight swinging of his arms, and he really did look like he was swaggering. I am not quite sure which of these I prefer, but I find them both rather amusing and un-Enjolraic. I think Owain�s biggest strength was in his interaction with Grantaire. He didn�t drink at all, which was such a relief to me, and on the whole he managed the whole thing with more awareness and sensitivity than Jon. There was no trying to grab the bottle from Grantaire when he came down from the barricade, no trying to shut him up or reason with him in any way. In fact, what I did quite like, although I�m not sure whether it ought to work or not, was the way he grabbed Grantaire�s arm. It was a sort of �If you�ve got something to say, say it to me properly� sort of gesture. It somehow seemed like, not an ultimatum as such, but giving Grantaire this final opportunity to decide where he stood, if that makes sense. Then, when Grantaire went off to his corner, he remained there for a little bit, and then decided to follow him. He talked a little bit to Grantaire, and then Grantaire flung himself around Owain�s waist as usual. And Owain looked surprised and uncomfortable and took a step back, then he seemed to decide that he was ok with this for a little bit, and then clearly had enough, and awkwardly patted Grantaire on the back and disentangled himself. I thought this worked well � it clearly showed Enjolras not really getting involved with Grantaire, and while my fangirly heart loves to see a proper hug and the two best friends before they die, my head says that this approach works better. Rosalind James Rosalind has a lovely voice, she really does. But unfortunately that�s the only positive thing I can really say about her Eponine. I think that she has been completely miscast in the role, for a start. I like her voice, but I don�t think it suits Eponine at all, and certainly not when you�ve got Katie and Gareth as Marius and Cosette. I just don�t feel that they blend very well. There are some aspects of her vocal performance on which I am not particularly keen � the riffing in OMO for instance. I�m rather a purist and prefer a straight version of the song (even Nancy�s little thing on the last note annoys me slightly, for instance), and I don�t think what she does to the song is particularly right for the character either, but I�m not going to raise a massive fuss about it. It�s far from being as extreme as it could have been, and it isn�t a huge point in terms of the overall performance, and on balance, I suppose I don�t mind it too much. My main problem with Rosalind�s Eponine is much more to do with her acting. She somehow brings a very 21st century attitude to the show. There�s a lot of bitterness, cynicism and bitchiness there that I really don�t think Eponine should have. This shows through in her face, her posture, the delivery of her lines, and it just makes me not care for the character at all, and even go so far as to actually dislike her. I haven�t really got a huge amount to add beyond that � I found her, as a character, to be rather repulsive, and I felt that she rather stuck out like a sore thumb. I don�t really know how to explain why or how, so I think I�ll just leave it at that. Adam Linstead As I said earlier, when I first saw Adam I wasn�t really sure what to think. There were some bits that I really liked, others I thought were interesting but he didn�t perhaps manage to pull off, and others that I wasn�t particularly keen on. As I�ve become more familiar with his performance, I�ve come to understand and appreciate it more. As I�m sure most of you know by now, I absolutely adore Martin Neely�s Grantaire. There�s something very heartbreaking about him, and the way he reacts to and interacts with Enjolras, and I think he gets many aspects of book!Grantaire onto that stage very successfully. Adam�s Grantaire is very different, and yet I feel he is also very successful, but in different ways. He is a much harsher Grantaire than Martin. His cynicism and lack of belief shows itself in a very mocking manner, whereas with Martin it is a much more deep-seated thing that does not rise to the surface except indirectly through his actions and words. What I really like about Adam�s Grantaire is that it is so self-mocking. In many ways he plays the caf� scene for the laughs, and I often find that this is a sign of a weaker Grantaire � it is an easy route to take. However, the way Adam plays it there is this very cynical self-awareness � he knows that he is going for the laughs, and he hates it and yet does it anyway. I think this epitomises a lot of Grantaire�s situation. To once again quote Hugo on Grantaire, particularly in relation to Enjolras:
What I thought Adam got across really well was the scepticism, the cynicism, and also the contradictory nature about which Hugo talks. You could very much see the �doubt creeping� and he very much brought across this idea of him being very low and close to the ground in terms of principles and ideas. And I thought that was all very effective. However, what I missed in his Grantaire is probably the thing that I love most about Martin�s. There wasn�t the same �admiration, love and veneration� to be seen there as there is with Martin. I never got the impression that Enjolras was anything particularly special, at least not until DWM, where there was, of course, that bit more of interaction. Martin�s world so clearly revolves around David, and his feelings so clearly follow David�s own � he�s only truly happy when David is up on that table/barricade singing about all the support and how wonderful the revolution will be. Even when he cannot believe it himself, he loves to watch David doing it, and he loves to feel a part of the whole thing. And he is so totally the toad looking up at the sky to see the birds fly. In this respect, he simply is the Grantaire who attaches himself to his opposite, to all that Enjolras embodies in his absolutism and ideals. And this complete attachment to another person is what I lose from Adam. There were moments at the barricade when I really did wonder why exactly he was there, given the fact that he clearly didn�t want to be. In the caf�, I liked the way several of the students interacted with him. I thought Jon as Enjolras gave him too much attention, and on one side you had Combeferre, Courfeyrac and Feuilly who on the whole ignored him, which I thought came off alright but wasn�t amazing. On the other side of the stage there were Joly, Prouvaire and Marius. And they very much humoured Grantaire without ever getting particularly involved. I thought this worked well � it doesn�t suggest any sort of way in which they are lowered by participating with Grantaire, and yet you were certainly not left wondering why the hell anyone puts up with him. He was indeed �tolerated for his good-humour�. During DWM, the students all react quite violently to him singing �Can it be you fear to die?� I�m not really sure that I like this � I�m sure they wouldn�t be too happy to have him singing that sort of stuff, but they�d surely be used to him being annoying, and it made it look like he�d hit rather too close to home. On the subject of Enjolras and Grantaire, I am going to venture to make my first mention of the trainwreck that is ECAET. After the whole silly candles thing, Enjolras and Grantaire are very obviously the last two to walk out, and Enjolras clearly seems to hang around and wait for Grantaire. They might as well be holding hands as they walk off. I have to admit that the sight of this warms my heart; it�s lovely and makes me happy. However, having said that, I don�t like it. It reminds me too much of those soppy fanfics you get with Grantaire and Enjolras living happily ever after in heaven. It gives the relationship closure, and very happy closure, but I do not think that any sort of closure is appropriate for the relationship, and certainly not in the context of the musical. What makes their relationship so beautiful and poignant in the book is that the only possibility for understanding between them that is presented is at the moment of their deaths, when Grantaire is finally able to raise himself to Enjolras� level. In the musical, this moment is of course changed � it is mostly brought forward to DWM. Now I have already raised issues with this, in that I don�t feel that there is any sense in which Grantaire has bettered himself. I�m not going to go back over Jon, but even with Owain, the redemption and forgiveness very much came from him. There was no moment at which Grantaire did anything worthy of Enjolras� attention, no moment equivalent to the handing over of the bottle in London. It was much more a moment of sympathy from Enjolras, although much better presented by Owain than by Jon. Therefore what has Grantaire done to earn this �friendship in the afterlife�? Why should their relationship not revert back to how it was? Also, if you were to put a similar concept into the London production, where I feel that they have dealt with this issue better in terms of Grantaire�s redemption, I still do not want to see this obvious happy ending. Yes, in London they have the two standing next to each other, but is much more ambiguous � there is nothing to say that they are best friends or anything. It just somehow doesn�t seem appropriate � their reconciliation comes with their deaths and is not necessarily something I feel can be appropriately extended beyond where it gets to a point where it is no longer relevant. Bishop I managed to see three different people playing this role the first three times I saw it, and I saw two of these again in Paris, so in total I have seen David Lawrence x 4, Ian Caddick x 2 and David Covey once. I didn�t like David Lawrence�s bishop in Manchester, and I�m afraid to say that I didn�t like him in Paris either. I didn�t think that his voice suited the role particularly well, and there was something rather abrupt about his acting and his delivery of lines that was a bit off-putting. I�m not sure I can really describe exactly why. However, he had toned down the whole back-massage thing that I complained about in Manchester. It was much more based on an overall impression. Ian Caddick was good on the whole. Perhaps there wasn�t quite the gravitas I would ideally like to see, but on the whole I thought it worked well, and I liked his voice and the way he sang his part. There is one thing I do have to say about him, though, in general. He is bald, and never has a wig. Therefore in any parts of his track where he is hatless (which includes the bishop), the microphone looks really rather odd, because it is very obvious on top of his head. It�s one of those times where I wonder if it would have killed them to make a few more wigs. And if they�re going to have someone bald, at least put them in Bossuet�s track! And yes, he is a bit old to be a student, but I think David Lawrence possibly looks even older as Lesgle (I really did think he looked out of place...). Then finally, I saw David Covey once in Edinburgh. I can�t really remember much about him, I�m afraid, except that he looked far too young. Again, no wig � and he really doesn�t have the hair of an old person at all. I suppose in the context of the musical there�s not actually anything stipulating that he need be old at all, actually (except perhaps the fact that on tour the bishop comes on stage with all the dead people, and given that they no longer have Patron-Minette in curtain call, they really are all properly dead people), but somehow the scene seems to work better that way � kindly, solemn old man works better than a nice young man, I think, perhaps because he feels to me more justifiably able to hold a position in which he is can buy Valjean�s soul for God? But anyway, from what I remember, I liked David Covey, but he was nothing outstanding, and, yes, I had a bit of an issue with his age. Again, I don�t understand why they seem so anti-wigs on tour. I also have a more general point to make about the scene with the bishop, and that is about the interaction with his Baptistine and Mme Magloire. I think it adds a lot to the character of the bishop, to his importance and to the effect he has on Valjean, if these two are portrayed as in the book, not so much in terms of their individual characters, but in how they interact with him.
Now I realise that these are very small parts and I am probably overanalysing the whole thing. But, as I say, I am not bothered about getting two such minor characters right, it is simply that I think if they are played in a certain way they can enhance the role of the bishop, and the effect of the scene in general. I would say that to play them quite so obediently and submissively is not necessarily the best thing to do, but what I didn�t like on tour was that the bishop got into a proper argument with his sister. I think it adds more to value to his character if he can be seen to have earned the trust and confidence of these two. Yes, certainly, they can raise concerns. But I don�t like to see this turned into an argument, as that just seems to rather undermine him. Bamatabois I can�t decide whether I like Carl Mullaney here or not. The first time I saw him, I wasn�t really particularly bothered either way, then in Edinburgh he rather irritated me, and then in Paris I think I might have started to like him. He plays it very differently to the London Bamatabois (huh. What�s the plural?) He isn�t really very obviously scary in any way. However, he comes across as a very spoilt child. Even in Paris, this irritated the hell out of me, yet at the same time I thought it also kind of worked. So, yes, I remain undecided. Factory Foreman I saw two people in this role: Jonathan Alden and David Covey. I preferred Jonathan by far. I found that David didn�t really have the appropriate strength to his voice, and he didn�t come across as being threatening or dangerous enough. I didn�t really get the impression that Fantine was as much of a victim as I did with Jonathan. One of the touches that have been added on the tour that I really do like is that Fantine�s first customer as a whore is, in fact, the foreman. It adds a delicious irony to the whole thing, and the first time I noticed this, I loved Jonathan�s face. It was rather cat-that-got-the-cream, a �So here we are, I told you it wasn�t worth refusing me...� sort of attitude that really worked. Ensemble I have grown to like the ensemble more each time. I think that a lot of this is due to familiarity, and there are a lot ways in which I am glad I have seen this production as many times as I have. I�ve come to see a lot of enthusiasm and energy there, and while I must admit that I am not very keen on a lot of the voices in the female ensemble, I enjoyed their performances overall. However, I think there are far too many aspects where they can�t hold a candle to the London ensemble, and I think this is almost entirely down to the direction and set-up of the thing. I am not saying that they are weaker performers than the London cast, I would hate to generalise like that, but the overall performance as a group has something lacking. Perhaps the most obvious way in which this applies is in the development of the characters. One of the really lovely things about the ensemble in Les Mis is that they are not merely a �chorus� but they each have individual characters, with independent tracks, and which, in the case of the male parts, can be fully researched and developed in line with the book, should the actor wish to do so. Of course this doesn�t apply to the same extent to the girls, but there is still not the choreographed element, the group of generic people. There is still room to play bystander no. 1 or whore no. 3 as you like, and to develop it as a character. I didn�t feel when watching this production that there was any true individuality displayed, a quality that really stands out in the London production. I know that London cast members have said that rehearsal time is given to developing the characters of the students, and so I assume the same is done on tour. However, the overall effect is that they don�t really have any sense of exactly who they are. Again, I don�t expect these ensemble parts to be transferred straight from the book � there are obvious cases such as that of Feuilly, where this can�t really be done (although there is no reason why someone directing the production couldn�t decide to preserve the class distinction � it has been done in other productions). However, if you are going to go through the effort of naming the students Combeferre, Courfeyrac etc. then I want to see some evidence of these characters there. Combeferre doesn�t have to be book!Combeferre, but I want to see some of the essence there, an awareness of the position he holds within the group, the people with whom he interacts. And even taking the book away completely, the libretto contains a certain amount of this as well. Some students are clearly made more important than others, and character traits can be seen in their lines, and I want to see these reflected in both the individual performances and the group dynamics. And I just didn�t really get a sense of this on tour. To give an example of a student I didn�t think really worked well: David Covey as Combeferre. Combeferre is in the book, and I think this is preserved to some extent in the libretto, and can certainly be seen in the London production, Enjolras� right-hand man. His character is examined in much more depth, but for these purposes I want to see him portrayed as an important Ami and the closest to Enjolras. I didn�t get this from David Covey�s Combeferre. There wasn�t the interaction between him and Enjolras that I would like to see, and that you get from, say, Gavin James� Combeferre. I never really got the impression that he was in any way more important than any of the others. And then there are a lot of aspects that are out of his control � he gets stuck at the back of the group in ECAET and is also at the back and waving the flag in ODM (these aspects of arrangement of students is something I wish the London production would do better as well, by the way. I don�t like the order in which they stand in ECAET at all). And this seeming neglect of character is there on all the levels. In the caf� scene there is a table towards the back of the stage at which are sat the students played by Babet, Brujon and Claquesous, with Montparnasse standing behind them. Lesgle also joins them at some point. These are the important people who are working and who get Enjolras� attention, while on one side of the stage you have Joly and Prouvaire talking to Marius, and on the other Combeferre, Courfeyrac and Feuilly who are, in the realms of the musical, the three most important students, not doing much at all. Then there�s moments where a lack of knowledge of character really seems to be displayed. For instance, after Valjean�s Revenge, in the place of the awkward gun-banging moment in London, they have a bit of semi-ad-libbed dialogue. A student says �Well done, Monsieur,� a second replies with something along the lines of �No, you shouldn�t have done that� (when I saw this in Paris it was either �What? No.� or �Good God� or something, but either way it�s a disagreement with the first) and sometimes there�s then a �Good riddance� or similar added on by someone else. Now, it turns out that the first student to speak is Combeferre. Combeferre would never say something like that. This is Combeferre who prefers illumination to conflagration, who asks Enjolras not to kill the artillery man. Yes, it is not a major point in itself, but it seems to me just to show a general ignorance or lack of care for the character. And I�m not trying to pin all of this on David Covey, I recognise that a lot of it is to do with blocking, scripting and direction, and I am also just using Combeferre as an example � it applies to the other students as well. Gavin manages to get so many of the little details of Combeferre�s character into his performance, his beliefs, his interactions with the other students, his relationship with Enjolras, it is all there, and I cannot believe that it is so hard for the ensemble on tour to do likewise. These comments also apply to Patron-Minette, where perhaps the situation is even worse. Of all of them, Montparnasse is given the most character simply because he is given the interaction with Eponine with which to work. The others have absolutely no discernable character at all. And this gives me a good opportunity to demonstrate that I am not working solely on an �I want to see the book on stage� basis. Take Claquesous. For better or worse, in no way is musical!Claquesous remotely similar to book!Claquesous. But look at London, where George Miller is an awesome Claquesous nonetheless. He has developed his own character, his own personality and given it to this on-stage criminal who happens to bear the same name as the ventriloquist who keeps to the shadows, goes round in a black mask and can never be caught. Totally different, and yet George presents you with a complete character. I felt that none of the members of Patron-Minette on tour had any of this development. They were simply a bunch of not very bright thugs who walked around on stage and did what Th�nardier told them to. And while all this may not be obvious on a single viewing, I think it does affect the whole atmosphere on stage. You might not sit there and think, �Gosh, Claquesous doesn�t have any personality,� but neither will the enjoyment or engagement be there as it is in London. As I have said, I don�t want to do down the ensemble as performers � I would indeed be very interested in seeing what would happen if they were integrated into the London production where it is either better directed, or there is simply a culture that has developed over 25 years of really exploring and developing the ensemble characters. The Production � sets, blocking, random stuff etc. I should really do a review of the production as a whole � not just focussing on the cast. On the whole I think the sets are good. In some scenes they are better than others, but some do a really good job of setting the scenes in a certain location. For instance I really like the factory sets, I love the set for Stars and Javert�s Suicide which is very clearly set on the Seine, and the book fan in me loves the fact that they have plastered �Le Caf� Musain� on the wall for Red and Black, even if it�s not particularly realistic. There are others I like less so � the Paris set, for instance, I simply can�t understand. I don�t understand what the random bits of building sticking up are meant to be. But on the whole, at any given moment, the stage looks very impressive. What I don�t like about the sets is the way they come on and off. To give some examples of places where I don�t like this: DYHTPS. The first verse is sung in the caf�, as is Combeferre�s verse which is then addressed to the other students, (which totally loses the sense of the lyrics, surely?). Then during the next chorus the walls of the caf� open, and the students walk out onto the street. To me, this simply doesn�t make sense, given the naturalistic nature of the sets. The London production is much more theatrical in terms of its sets, I mean, it uses a rotated barricade to form the caf�, however they remain careful to make sure that everyone goes out through the figurative doorway. On tour, with a set that actually looks like a caf�, they simply walk through the wall, and I cannot reconcile this. There are many examples where this sort of thing happens. You also get parts where the scenery is completely shifting around the action. For instance, after Stars, Gavroche wanders on to the bridge where Javert has just left, and proceeds to sing his �That Inspector thinks he�s something...� bit. As he does this he walks forward (i.e. off the bridge) as the parapet of the bridge lifts up, the projection disappears and the slum buildings move in from the side. He then exits through this Paris set. There are many examples of this where the set changes around a person who does not. Again, given the emphasis put on the realism of the sets, I find it very hard to then accept this theatricality. While in London the sets are very obviously theatrical and rather more abstract, the way with which they are interacted is done on a very realistic level. These priorities seem rather to be reversed on tour. Obviously one of the big differences between this production and the original is the lack of revolve. This is never a problem in itself � they are able to work around problems such as the need to turn the barricade around or to show both sides of the rue Plumet gate, however, it does perhaps negatively impact in other areas. One of the big advantages of the revolve is the motion it can give � someone can clearly be not walking on the spot and yet not be covering a great distance on stage, and in London this is used very effectively. Without the revolve this cannot be done, which sometimes leads to scenes becoming either rather static or requiring a lot more space. The other problem the lack of revolve gives rise to the sort of things that I have mentioned above. Due to being unable to turn the stage, a lot of the set has to be brought on and off very obviously. These problems are also, of course, due to the set being large � a lot of it wouldn�t fit on revolve in the same way as it can in London. But nevertheless, it does prevent the effect achieved in the original of readymade scenes simply coming into view. This also applies to getting people on and off stage, which, with the revolve, can be done as the scenery. A good example to demonstrate this is the prologue. Once Valjean is off the boat, he is by himself for a little bit on some road somewhere. He then has to obviously get some work and be asked to leave and then enter an inn and get thrown out in a very short space of time. In London, he walks through these scenes as they appear from the darkness and come round on the revolve. As this is not possible on tour, these scenes have to come to him instead. It works alright in the first case, although, as I said, I prefer it when he is more able to walk into these scenes himself. However, the scene manages to be set up as if it has been there for a while, and it is fairly easy for the audience to forget that you saw all these people run on stage a moment ago. They all leave the stage again and on the whole that scene works alright. However, you then see them run back on for the inn scene, and this I feel is less well-managed. They do not, understandably given the very temporary nature, create at any point an indoor set, so as Valjean approaches the inn, lots of people randomly come outside. They congregate on one side of the stage, so it can be imagined that it is a sort of overspill area, but nevertheless it is very obvious that they are there because they need to have people in an inn. This just rather jars, and, as I mentioned above, I find it harder to accept due to the realism they are trying to attain, than I would in a more abstract production such as the original. I understand that these problems are very hard to solve � I�m not criticising the tour as such, but it is an inevitable problem that arises, and a reason why I feel that, overall, the approach of not trying to anchor it in very real places will always be more successful. There are a few specific scenes/bits of blocking that I would like to mention which haven�t really come under my discussion of any of the characters. First, the boat in the prologue. As a set, this is very impressive, it looks like a boat, and manages to capture a lot of the atmosphere of a boat. As I understood it, it is a bit anachronistic, but I may be wrong and regardless, these sort of accuracies aren�t exactly what the original production is known for either (see some of the costumes and wigs for a start ...). So I think this set works well for the Work Song. Javert then comes down to tell Valjean that he is free. This is where I start to like it less � it seemed quite clear from the projections (I think one of Hugo�s drawings) and the bit of spray that was shown before the curtain lifted that they were in the middle of the sea somewhere. Apparently they are now miraculously docked, and the fact that the others are no longer rowing seems to support this. I think they have also kept the projection of the huge wave as well. Then when Javert leaves, each of the convicts picks up half an oar and walks off with it on his shoulders. So the boat just kind of breaks up and disappears. I find this very hard to swallow, nevermind the fact that Valjean is suddenly in a field. I think this really illustrates what people are trying to say when they say it feels like an adaptation of a movie to the stage. You have these abrupt changes of scene around a person which feel like cutting from one scene to another in a film, and which I personally don�t think work very well on stage. I have already said that I like the factory set � it has all the women working at a long table and the men coming in later, which echoes the way in which Monsieur Madeleine totally separates the men and women in the book. There is one moment in this scene, however, that I cannot get to grips with. Some sort of siren/whistle thing goes off indicating the end of the day and the women all get up to dump their aprons in a box and then they do something that mirrors (literally, because of course the sides of the stage have, as usual, been swapped) what happens in London. Except that in London, they are picking up their money from George. On tour they all walk up to the foreman�s table in a line, and then just come back round again. It doesn�t make sense. Yes, it is integrated as part of the discarding of aprons, but they all add in an extra loop to, apparently, shout in the foreman�s face. Also a line like that doesn�t really make sense at this point � they are not queuing for anything. It looks too choreographed and pointless for my taste. The runaway cart is done without slow motion. I think that it looked alright from in the Stalls, but it looked less good in the couple of shows I saw from higher up in Paris. The stage actually looked bizarrely empty at that point. There were several ensemble members clearly pushing and pulling the cart around, and the others just ran backwards and forwards along the front of the stage a bit, and there wasn�t really the coherent sense of direction that you would expect if they were running down a street from a cart. Montfermeil. The inn set I thought worked well on the whole. However, what I didn�t like about it was the way it comes on. It starts very effectively with little Cosette frozen in the position of the famous Emile Bayard illustration, which is a lovely touch. She then proceeds to walk forwards while sweeping, and then sit/kneel somewhere close to the front of the stage. Then, while she�s singing Castle on a Cloud, the back piece of the set moves forward and the pieces from the side move in, and once again I have the same problem with this as I do with all the other examples I�ve quoted. She moves out of the set into �nothing� and then the set rearranges itself around her. The set for MotH I thought worked well, and I would have liked the use of the two levels had it not been used for us to be able to see David Covey and Beth Davies having sex up there. Really, more than I cared to see. (Also, David comes in with Adam as the blind man, then goes back �out� again, but in reality somehow gets through the staircase to suddenly be with Beth on the stairs. Now I know you�re not supposed to notice it, but I did on a fairly early viewing, and it distracted me every time afterwards...) I�m not going to start on this song again, except to say that I liked the ensemble in general, but they didn�t quite have the individuality and development that I was talking about before. This is a case where it doesn�t even need to be a named character, but, to give examples from London, each of the travellers has a very distinct personality (beyond simply being blind), but also each of the background members, Gavin�s and Laura�s posh travellers, the table at the front, the tables at the back, each have their own little scenes and moments of humour. The set then retreats to the back for the well scene, and comes forward again as Valjean and Cosette go round and come in the front door. This is an example of where I feel the set changes are well done � it is, in many ways, equivalent to the revolve idea, except that instead of going round, it travels forwards and backwards. And Cosette and Valjean, instead of appearing in the scene, do actually walk around it, and come in through the door. Speaking of the well scene, one thing that I think was handled much better than in London was little Cosette and the bucket. In London she is clearly struggling to get big, heavy bucket off the table, pulling it until she gets it down onto the chair. But then, on �Still there, Cosette?� she has no problems lifting it up off the chair and holding it. And in the woods when it is, presumably, full of water, she also doesn�t seem to have huge problems. Yes, it�s clearly not light, but she copes with it much better than would be assumed from seeing how much she struggled to get it off the table in the inn. On tour, she doesn�t really have too many problems in the inn � it is clearly big and awkward, but she can lift it fairly easily. And then, once it is filled, it has clearly become very heavy. She also manages to knock it over which I think makes her seem even more little and scared and pathetic, and really makes you feel for her. Then, in the Bargain, there is only one table left in the inn. The kitchen has gone, the other tables and chairs are gone. I understand why they did this, I suppose � it makes it easier to get the set off, and it also looks like they have �packed up� for the night � but where did everything go? It�s not like they have a big cupboard for lots of tables and chairs. Obviously I know that this has to happen to a certain extent, (e.g. you can notice furniture and guns disappearing after the London barricade has turned, and you can see them passing their guns down the back and stuff) but here it just seemed so obvious and rather unnecessary given that the next thing that happens is the whole stage is blocked by the Paris slums acting like a curtain across the front at the beginning of Look Down. The Paris set I don�t really understand. There are just these random bits of set sticking up, on which Marius and others climb, which don�t seem to make any sense. Are they meant to represent housefronts or something? No idea. One thing I am rather fond of in Paris though is that for their second set of lines, Marius and Enjolras get out these little boxes to stand on. There�s something quite sweet about it, even if that�s not how it�s meant to come across. But it makes me smile. Also what I like in that scene is that Marius and Enjolras leave leaflets pinned to the set, and then during the robbery, while Th�nardier is talking to him, Javert goes over to these and examines them (with his truncheon). This sets up some context for his later involvement with the students, and also goes someway to lessening that feeling of extreme coincidence and Javert is clearly the only policeman in Paris feel, although how it does that I�m not sure. Perhaps by showing he has more interests besides simply chasing Valjean, and that he is not there for Valjean until Th�nardier brings him up. After DYHTPS, there is a moment similar to that in London. Eponine comes on stage to find Marius, and gives him the address. This time it is inverted though, so that she runs off and then comes back to pull Marius with her. I don�t understand how this can make sense in any way, except maybe some sort of �Ha, isn�t Marius a hopeless idiot?� manner. When Luke was first on in this scene (that must have been therefore the Saturday) Eponine ran off but didn�t come back. So Luke was left there standing into the wings a bit, and then just running after her. I think perhaps this works better, because it plays up the �Do I stay and do I dare?� element that the musical has. But either way, I still think it�s a bit odd. I said this after Manchester, and I stand by it, that I don�t like the rue Plumet set. The gate is impressive and all, but I don�t like the way the scene is built or how they incorporate the house. Part of this is due, once again, to the lack of revolve, because there is action on either side of the gate and they can�t spin it around. This means that it is used to divide the stage in two diagonally, which rather restricts the space available on both sides. And I don�t like the loss of garden. The fact that you have the house on the side of the set (which also looks like the slums, but with a front door...) and the gate only a few metres away somehow makes it look much more like a courtyard or driveway than any sort of largeish garden, whereas when you have no house, and particularly when the garden is the front rather than the side of the stage as it can be when you have the revolve, you get a much greater sense of a large area. Also, when it comes to the attack, Th�nardier and the gang get as far as getting through the gate and climbing up the house. Now, I highly doubt that in the world of the musical, Valjean lives in a shed out the back, and I would therefore assume that at this point, with Cosette in the garden, he is in the house. So given the amount of space between the house and the gate, and the fact that Eponine is in the garden when she screams (is this prerecorded as in London? If it is, then it is really very pathetic...) make his entrance on �My God, Cosette ...� seem rather implausible. I wrote a long thing about why I don�t think the set and blocking for ODM work. But I�ve deleted it because I don�t think I described it very well, and it certainly didn�t convey what I was trying to say. They�re basically going for a similar effect to what they have in London, except that, due to the nature of the sets and the production as a whole up to that point, I find it much harder to suddenly accept that you have lots of people on stage but in different places at the same point. And I�ll leave it at that � for those of you who haven�t seen it, I�m afraid I really can�t describe it, and this might not make much sense. Also, that sort of weaving you get as they march down the street (as can be seen on the EPK) looks awful, doesn�t make sense, and obscures Enjolras too much. And I don�t like the fact that the students and others are being led by Enjolras flanked by Marius and Eponine. The barricade is rather on the pathetic side, but it�s not as bad as it could be. It wouldn�t withstand one canon, let alone a round of grapeshot, but at least you could imagine that it is stronger. However, what I absolutely hate, is the fact that this ability to imagine something better is totally taken away from you, because half the students come on through bloody holes in the thing. I could ignore those holes if it wasn�t for the fact that they were actually used. A barricade is meant to stop people, so it looks ridiculous to have people actually coming through it. I�m also not particularly keen on the shape of the thing � it�s fairly low in the middle and highest at the sides. This means that Enjolras constantly has to choose between being the highest or being in the most central position, and this can lead to some odd things. In principle, I like the idea of Gavroche�s death being offstage. However, I really don�t think this was managed well at all, and I felt that I was left with the feeling that it was done like that because they had no other choice. For a start, Little People is cut. It�s cut earlier at Javert�s arrival, meaning this is no longer a reprise, which takes something away from the pathos of the moment. And then it is cut here as well, so he sings �Little people know when little people fight we may look easy pickings but we got some bite. *bang* *scream* We�ll fight like twenty armies and we won�t give up, so you�d better run for cover when the pup grows ... *bang*� This means that both gunshots hit him, which I don�t particularly like, but the whole scene in general just feels very rushed. There isn�t any atmosphere built up, the minute he�s over that barricade he�s singing and then he�s dead, and you�re left rather non-plussed by the whole thing. After the Dawn of Anguish a couple of Patron-Minette students leave with the women, and then you can see Ian Caddick randomly walk off stage during the Final Battle. This is because they have to change into police uniforms to remove the barricade and drag off the Deadjolras cart. This is quite nice because it basically just leaves Les Amis on the barricade (Montparnasse has a similar track to in London, being the first to be shot and all, so he can be assumed to be Bahorel), plus Beth Davies for some reason. However, it obviously wasn�t just Les Amis in terms of the book or the musical where they have more students than just those in the caf�, so it�s just my fangirl heart that likes this really, and also it leaves the barricade looking rather empty and unmanned. Which adds to the weakness. (Especially as they don�t have any of the female ensemble running around as little boys or anything at any point). So it�s a bit of a shame. When they die, as with all the other instances, they have got rid of the slow motion. Instead they pick out individual people with spotlights and show each of them dying in sequence. There�s some aspects of this I like � it�s nice that they are treated like individuals in this respect, and some of their reactions are really good. However, it also seems rather chaotic somehow, and hard to follow, and you lose the grandeur and nobility of the slow motion. = In fact, while I�m here, I might mention the lighting in general. This is one of the aspects of the production as a whole that needs more work, but at the barricades there were a lot of moments I didn�t understand with it. For instance, at Gavroche�s death, while he is singing, he has three white spotlights directed on him (obviously, I don�t know if he is actually there, but it�s where he is supposed to be). These don�t move, so apparently Gavroche isn�t in fact running around collecting ammunition and dodging bullets, but sitting there waiting to be shot. Also, it somehow doesn�t make sense to me to have him lit in such a way, it doesn�t work with the mood at that moment. In a similar way, when everyone has died, they have lots of spots on the other side of the barricade. I don�t understand this, I don�t see what it is meant to represent or anything. Again, I like the Deadjolras moment in principle. The idea of him being dragged away on a cart is very moving, and there is a lot that can be said for it. However, I just wish that you could see him more clearly, it is right at the back of stage and I couldn�t help feeling that the effect was lost on a lot of people. I cannot bring myself to like Javert�s Suicide at all. It goes wrong from the moment he climbs onto the parapet of the bridge, well, I suppose when he �jumps� off it. See, that�s the problem he doesn�t jump. He stands there, and then the bridge removes itself from underneath him. The back of it goes up, which would be consistent with a jump, but the front bits on which he�s moving split and go sideways. So basically, the bridge explodes. Then Javert just hovers there for a bit while the bridge moves and then a projection of water appears on the back and he moves backwards towards it, flailing all the while. But there is no moment at which it is clear that your perspective has shifted so you are now effectively looking down at him. It is only something you really realise after it has happened. And no, I�m not particularly keen on the swirly lights on the stage thing, but at least in London it is clear that he is falling and in what direction. Enough has probably been said that I don�t have to say much about the mess that is Turning/ECAET. It simply doesn�t make sense. End of. It takes away any point that Turning may ever have had. Half of them are bourgeois women who surely shouldn�t give a damn about the fact that the revolution failed, and who aren�t affected by it at all. Then you have the little girl who is cute but has to do that ridiculous turning thing with one of the said bourgeois women. And then you have, if I remember correctly, Rosa O�Reilly and Beth Davies, and Beth curtsies to Rosa (she�s in poorer clothes, clearly a lower class) and Rosa holds out her hands and they walk off together. This as they are singing �Nothing changes.� Surely the point of that little exchange is that something haschanged? Which is totally not the point, and manages to so effectively ruin the song completely. I know that when I went to see it in Edinburgh, Eppie-Sue asked me to watch JOJ in Valjean�s Confession. I�m afraid that I didn�t really have that much to say about it, except what has applied about his Valjean in general (although there was one time when he sang it really strangely, but that wasn�t repeated). However, one thing I do like about this scene is the emphasis it places on Valjean � he remains spotlighted as he walks off, and it highlights the sacrifice he�s making in leaving Cosette�s life like that. In the finale, the singing dead people come on from the sides, led by Enjolras and the bishop, and they remain at the back for the whole way through. Valjean, Fantine and Eponine then walk towards them, with their backs to Marius, Cosette and the audience. At one point, Valjean lets go of their hands and turns back around and pauses before they continue and join the other dead people. I�m not sure if I like the imagery in this or not � it�s a lovely idea to show how he feels for Cosette, but I can�t help feeling that it takes the idea of the dead people too literally, as if there is actually an afterlife just there instead of justa more general �big finale� idea, and also that it takes away something from the fact that he does in fact die very happily. The projections in general are very good, although there are some moments where they could perhaps have been chosen a little better. The main problem with them is when you get to a moment where it�s really not appropriate to have it set with a particular background, and then it does feel a bit out of place not to have anything up there. There are some scenes where they are used to convey movement. This works wonderfully in the sewers, where the stage is dark and covered in smoke so it really feels like it is all part of the projection (although, having said that, it is far more effective if you�re watching from the centre than off to the side). However, where a similar technique is used in ODM I thought it worked much less effectively as either the pacing was off, or it just simply didn�t feel natural. Perhaps it was almost because it seemed to smooth if that makes sense, it felt like you were watching it on wheels rather than as if you were walking. Another general point is that they seem to have scripted more speaking into it. There are much more moments in between singing where there are spoken lines which are clearly not ad-libs nor what I call �ad-libs� where it�s something that might have been improvised once but has now stuck. For instance, Valjean�s �Cosette? Come my child� at the well. I feel that a lot of these are unnecessary, because it is clear enough what is happening on stage, and it�s just another example of them treating the audience as rather stupid, as if they have to explain everything to us. Orchestrations I don�t like them, but having said that, I am sure they are not as bad as they could have been, or as bad as the Broadway Revival from what I�ve heard. There are many places where I don�t really notice them, which means that they are either very similar to the originals or they�re actually alright. But in the places where I do notice them, I don�t like them. There�s many bits where I feel the choice of instruments isn�t great, and there are a lot of bits where they�ve added extra lines of frills and ornamentation that seems rather in-your-face. Like they�re trying to get the orchestra to be more literal in producing sound effects, if you know what I mean. Also, the restored cuts come at the expense of not only Little People but also a lot of orchestral bridges. For instance, the intro to IDAD is cut, and in many places I feel that this affects the flow of the score. I also really don�t like the new music they�ve put in when Javert arrives at the robbery. It sounds totally out of place. I could talk about these for a while, but I really don�t have the energy any more. But seeing as most of it would be quite negative, I doubt you�re missing much. Summary/Conclusion thing So, yes. To sum up my opinions... Overall, I have to say that I don�t like it. I have given quite a lot of thought as to why this is. Various people have said to me that I don�t like it because it is not London. I do not think that that is true. I think that a better way of phrasing it is that I do not think that it is as good as London. But, yes, I am quite happy to admit that there is the inevitable comparison of the two productions when I watch it. Part of the reason I prefer the London production may be due to familiarity � but having now seen the tour seven times, I think that argument is becoming more irrelevant. I have in fact, in some ways, become very attached to the tour as well, simply because I am like that, and I actually really don�t like the idea that I will never see it again. Watching a show in detail you get to notice the little touches, get to know the cast and the production, and yes, in a sense, I will miss it. But that is all on a very sentimental level. My heart still prefers the London production in any case, and I have to say that my head does too. However, this is not so much the production as a whole, I think that what I miss is on the level of the cast and their direction. I like the concept in general. Personally, I don�t think it will ever be as successful as that behind the original production, simply due to the conflict that arises between the desire to set everything realistically in context and the inevitable theatricality involved in a production such as this. However, it certainly makes for an entertaining production, and in some places the historical and geographical grounding it gives the show really does add to the overall story. However, in terms of the principals, I feel that this cast is, on the whole, very disappointing. I love Earl, I really like Katie, although I enjoyed her performance much more when she was in London, Gareth Gates is perfectly fine if not my cup of tea, and I�m not going to raise any quarrels about JOJ � he�s not to my personal taste, but I can understand people liking him and I suppose he deserves his place there. However, I really cannot say I like any of the others in their roles at all, really. Certainly in the case of Jon and Rosalind and possibly also Madalena, this is due to their being miscast. And with the Th�nardiers I suspect much of this is down to direction. But I simply cannot enjoy their performances whatever the case may be. The ensemble I wouldn�t call my dream cast, but again, I see direction being at fault in why I don�t enjoy their performance as much as I enjoy that of the London ensemble. Well, a mixture of direction and whoever it is that decides things like having Combeferre, Courfeyrac and Feuilly at the back for ODM. My overall impression of the tour can perhaps be summed up by the word �gimmicky�, although that is not to detract from some of the �gimmicks� that do work. But I think this applies in so many aspects � simply that it is bigger but consequently loses depth. And that is depth that I don�t feel needs to be lost. So, yes, I wouldn�t say so much that I hate the tour, or even necessarily that I dislike it, just that every time I see it I come out feeling disappointed that it didn�t fulfil the potential that the show has to offer, and a lot of which I can see at the Queen�s. I hope that makes sense, and that it does reflect what I feel. I�m not really sure I can quite express my gut feelings about this production. Finally, can I just reiterate something I said right at the beginning? I am anticipating being attacked for a lot of my opinions, but I hope that I have justified them thoroughly. I am not going to apologise for my opinions � yes, of course, they are only my opinions, but by definition they are what I believe to be true, so I am not going to devalue them by apologising. This does not mean that I expect everyone to agree with me. Also, I suspect that I am going to get a lot of criticism for the amount of Hugo that I have quoted. I would like to emphasise that I by no means expect the characters of the book to be transferred directly on to the stage. I understand that they have to work with the material that exists in the show, and they have to be moulded and adapted to suit an audience watching the production. Having said that, I do want to see evidence of these characters there � I do not want to see a production about some French people who happen to have the same names as lots of characters in Hugo�s novel. As I said at the start, I have used the quotation as a means of trying to express what I want to see in a character, or to explain why I like or dislike a character by comparing them to Hugo�s descriptions, and I hope that all the way through I have been clear in what I want to see transferred to the stage, and what I think it would not be appropriate to copy, and where I think a straight-from-the-book characterisation works in the context of the musical and where it doesn�t. |
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| Orestes Fasting |
Okay. This means I have to write up my own review, so I have a baseline and everyone knows where I stand when I start arguing with you. So far I've only skimmed, but once I've got my own written up, I'll go through and read it in detail. In the meantime, could you stick some paragraph breaks in the sections (or at least separate paragraphs with a blank line)? My eyes are starting to do the "OH NO GIANT WALL OF TEXT" thing, not due to the length but due to the formatting.
I don't think our opinions on the cast are that divergent (except JOJ and Rosalind, and just by skimming I think we came away with different impressions of Gareth), so I'm mostly going to focus on doing a scene-by-scene review of the staging. Because I actually quite like it for the most part, despite its flaws. |
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| l'ivrogne transfigur� |
Yeah, sure, I'll try and sort it out a bit. (It looked better in Word ...)
[Edit: Done] Also, I might just say that most of the things I don't mention here can be generally assumed to be good. I have an awful tendency of ripping things apart, and then never praising what deserves to be praised. So a lot of this probably seems more negative than it is intended to be. |
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| Eppie-Sue |
I just read the entire thing in one go (didn't have any problems with the formatting, surprisingly) and I thought it was a very, very interesting and incredibly founded opinion, especially because you've seen them at different stages (literally: on different stage) and because, while people will always go and say "You can't please anyone" as they do when they disagree, I feel like there is a lot of clear justificiation for your opinion. From what I remember back from January, I agree on many points, and I think it's wonderful that you took the time to write this colossal review. | ||||||||||||
| pastaeater |
Fantastic review! I also agreed with a lot of what you said, especially about JOJ, Gareth Gates and Jon, but I didn't dislike Rosalind as much as many people seem to. But having see the tour so many times you have been able to give a very informed opinion, which is really interesting to read and thought-provoking. Thank you so much for taking the time to write it. | ||||||||||||
| Eponines_Hat |
Thank you for an amazing review - I just read it all in one sitting too.
and I completely agree with you! |
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| Orestes Fasting |
Okay. First half of my tour review. I'm going to do a scene-by-scene breakdown later.
In general: they're taking it out of the original production's black box and putting it in context, giving it a sense of place and time. It's an interesting idea, and combining that with Hugo's drawings was a brilliant touch. However, it still needs tweaking and adjusting in a lot of places. I've seen it five times, twice with a full cast at the end of May, twice with Luke Kempner as Marius and Owain Williams as Enjolras on Barricade Day weekend, and once a week later with Victoria Farley as Cosette. I'm not sure about the ensemble, since the cast board is rather crap and they don't even hand out playbills, let alone playbills with understudy slips in them. Sunday June 6th it sounded like everyone was feeling under the weather--the understudies had both been on a few days, they'd just gone through a four-show weekend, Katie Hall was on even though she was sick because both her understudies were out, and only JOJ was in full voice. Cast: John Owen-Jones (Valjean): Superb. Epic. Wonderful. Still needs to enunciate better. I get where some people don't like him, since the London production has Simon Bowman's Overacted Superhero Valjean contrasting with Jonathan Williams' lovely, nuanced, intimate performance. I get that if you go in there expecting a Valjean you can relate to on a personal level or picture as the nice quiet man down the pew from you in church, JOJ doesn't fit the bill. But his Valjean is a larger-than-life, mythic, dare I say Romantic figure, and unlike Bowman he has the voice to pull it off and doesn't slide into cocky "I am the hero, watch me go" Valjean, so it works. Really really well. Earl Carpenter (Javert): Superb. He is a very "standard" Javert but he does it well. On Sunday it sounded like he was losing his voice, but he covered very well and played it off as gruffness so that he could save his voice for the big notes. Madalena Alberto (Fantine): Can't sing. She can do soft and unsupported, and she can do this awful belt that sounds like an untrained fifteen-year-old trying to be Liza Minelli, and nothing in between. She's not quite as vocally grating as Jacquelyn Piro, but it's a close thing. Her interpretation is fine--not my favorite, but fine--but her voice just ruins it. I noticed that on Sunday, when frickin' everyone was sick and exhausted, she didn't try to belt Come to Me, and my desire to shout "just DIE already!" dropped tenfold. Soft unsupported head voice worked fine for the scene, it made her Fantine bearable, and I hope she starts doing it regularly. Rosalind James (Eponine): I love her voice. People have complained about the riffing, but she only does it in one or two spots, and frankly if I had a voice like hers I'd be tempted to riff too--it's really quite impressive. Vocally I would say she is second only to JOJ in this cast; she lacks dynamic range (seriously, she goes from forte to fortissimo), but her vocal power sounds completely effortless. Her interpretation is not my favorite; it's interesting, but it's rather one-note and her Eponine is not particularly likeable--and I say this as someone who finds book Eponine likeable. She flirts very obviously with Marius, and gets more and more exasperated when he keeps brushing her off and talking about Cosette, and it spirals quickly into "---- you, I can't believe I was dumb enough to fall in love with such an insensitive prick." And okay, fair enough, Marius is an insensitive prick, and no one can choose who they fall in love with. But you get the sense that Rosalind's Eponine doesn't like Marius at all underneath her unfortunate crush on him. Her Eponine is tough, capable, independent, and completely aware of what's going on, and the real tragedy is that her love for Marius lowers her--she degrades herself for him and hates it. It's a complete reversal of her situation of the book, where Eponine is this wretched aimless being whose only shot at redemption is the longing for something better, as symbolized by Marius. Gareth Gates (Marius): I really, really liked the first two-thirds of his performance. I assumed he was going to be like his US-minitour predecessor, Anderson Davis: a soft-spoken Marius who doesn't vocally let loose until Empty Chairs. Unfortunately, when Empty Chairs rolled around it turned out he didn't have the voice for it, and the higher/forte sections sounded very strained. He does a very good job of making it look like his soft-spokenness is an acting choice and generally making it work, but during Empty Chairs I realized it must've been vocal necessity more than acting choice. The reserve makes it a bit hard to get ahold of his Marius' thoughts and motivations, and I am honestly not sure whether he's oblivious to Eponine or being outright cruel to her. Also, maybe it's the hair, maybe it's the blue coat and white waistcoat, but I keep getting Napoleon vibes off him--visually, not from his acting. It's odd, but it fits. Luke Kempner (u/s Marius): Awwww, I really like him. He's vocally solid, and his Marius is just so enthusiastic. I could see him getting up and going off on a rant about the Empire and getting all worked up as in this cartoon. And whenever the subject of Cosette comes up, he turns into a Labrador puppy, too busy ecstatically wagging his tail to pay attention to anything else. His Marius is genuinely likeable, whereas Gareth is a bit more ambivalent. Katie Hall (Cosette): Incredibly lovely and sweet and adorable. The "Valjean and Cosette get angry with each other during In My Life" direction is in full force, but I suspect it is direction, because it feels a bit tacked on when Katie's Cosette is otherwise so sweet. And even when she's sick she puts in a good performance--on Sunday night, when both her understudies were apparently out, she managed to bounce back from a catastrophic crack at the very beginning of IML, on the F of "silence." It takes guts not to get shaken by something like that, but she managed, and got the rest of her high notes fine and gave an otherwise normal performance. Victoria Farley (u/s Cosette): Not bad at all, but doesn't strike me as Cosette-ish. Maybe this is just because Katie Hall does such a good job of making Cosette into this lovely slightly shy girl who's trying to work through the emotions of her first love, and her Cosette is therefore relateable. Victoria's Cosette much more generic ing�nue--and since her wig is outright blonde, it's rather like watching Johanna from Sweeney Todd sing "In My Life." Jon Robyns (Enjolras): So, so miscast. He doesn't have the voice for Enjolras, and the awful wig makes him look like a heroin-addicted Fabio. He's doing his best, but it just isn't working. He sounds fine when he can sing his part in baritone register, but as soon as he goes tenor things get kind of... squeaky? bleaty? Not very inspiring at any rate. Last night (the 13th) he was doing better at singing as many lines as he could in baritone register, but at the price of sounding particularly dire when he did have to go into head voice; his voice just disappeared in an adolescent-sounding crack on "they will come when we call." And physically he's all wrong, or at least the costuming makes him look all wrong; the blondness of the wig makes his furrowed eyebrows stand out because they're still dark, and the cut of it makes it look like he juts his jaw out when he sings, and the overall impression is just awful. I think they were going for book!Enjolras--they keep conveniently placing him so his hair is lit up like a halo, but he doesn't have the serenity or the otherworldly fire for book!Enjolras, and he doesn't have the voice for musical!Enjolras, and why would they want to draw attention to that awful wig anyway? I feel really bad for him, and I wish I'd seen him as Marius. Owain Williams (u/s Enjolras): I saw him twice, once on Saturday and once on Sunday. I loved him on Saturday. There are odd aspects to his performance; his voice is a bit thin, and either his build or the cut of the waistcoat makes it look like he's puffing his chest out in Red and Black and it looks kind of strutting and self-important. But. This boy has obviously read the book. All I could think of was Hugo's line about him having the whole barricade in his head--he knows the revolution inside and out, and is desperate to impart his knowledge to the others, and he spits out his lines like his head is bursting with thoughts and facts and strategies just clamoring to be shared. But bizarrely, none of that was there on Sunday. Maybe it's just that everyone was exhausted and he lost the animation, and the frenetic animation was what made him awesome. On Sunday he just came across as... kind of pissy, actually. Ashley Artus (Th�nardier): The Th�nardiers in this production are apparently the all-singing all-dancing scum of the earth, with emphasis on the singing and dancing. I think I might've liked him without the jolly-hockey-sticks I'm-a-panto-villain come-on-laugh-some-more schtick; he has good comic timing and he's convincing, and I suspect the purely comic Th�nardiers might be due to direction, but I can't like purely comic Th�nardiers. Lynne Wilmot (Mme Th�nardier): Too much bark, not enough bite. She screams a lot, she shoves her cleavage in Valjean's face, she's vulgar and uncouth, but it all seems very artificial and, well, put-on. Neither of the Th�nardiers is actually that funny in this version, and while in Ashley Artus' case it might be because they gave him crap to work with, Lynn Wilmot just isn't funny. Kids: Awesome! They got great kids for this production, and were smart enough to reuse them in the ensemble all over the place. Generalities on the staging: Obviously the idea in this production was to put the show in context. It has a setting in both place and time. This often works to its benefit; some things, like the prison galley and the sewers, are just Really Damn Cool, and other things provoke nerdy squeals of recognition, like Valjean's glass bead factory, or the street in Montreuil for Fauchelevent's cart crash, or the Pont au Change during Stars, or the barricade looking an awful lot like paintings of barricades in 1830 and 1848. But the place-and-time aspect also came back to bite this staging in the ass a few times, most notably the time aspect: are they seriously, seriously implying that everything between Look Down and Javert's Suicide took place within 24 hours? Also, you can't set up expectations of place and then not follow through--we've got a very obvious Pont au Change set for Stars, with the skyline of the Ile de la Cit� in the background, but the sets for Look Down and Eponine's Errand are blatantly not Paris. They're very complicated rat-warren wooden sets that look like a fantasy Dickensian London. Parisian tenement houses are distinctive--the peeling plaster walls, the rows of gaping rectangular windows. The Qu�bec production proved that it's easy to evoke that on a minimal budget, and it's striking enough that I don't think they need to visually 'translate' to an Anglo-Saxon idea of what 19th century urban poverty looked like (i.e. Dickensian London), so why the weird wooden sets instead of something meant to evoke this or this? It's inconsistent, and consistency matters when you're not in the context-free space of the original production. I do think the use of Hugo's artwork was inspired. "Put Les Mis in context" is a simple enough idea, but combining that with Hugo's art is what makes it brilliant--Hugo's mind was a weird, weird place, in ways that don't necessarily come through in his novels, and looking at his artwork (or his very odd taste in interior decoration, courtesy the Victor Hugo museum) makes you look at his writing in a different and more disturbing light. Obviously this is the musical and not the novel, but the weird proto-abstract paintings projected in the background of some of the scenes add the right sort of edge to the staging, and even in the more representative projections that are used as a backdrop and might not actually be Hugo's art (like the street in One Day More and the barricade), there's the same chiaroscuro effect that he loved to use. Heavy use of projections. This is one of several elements borrowed from a US mini-tour that played, among other places, Wolf Trap near Washington DC, but the projections here are much more elaborate than in the mini-tour. For the most part the projections are merely backdrops, and it's the backdrop usage that sees the most borrowing from the mini-tour: off the top of my head, the Bishop, IDAD, and the Rue Plumet are yoinked directly, and the wedding looks similar. (They also took the Th�nardier inn set and its background projection from the mini-tour, and used elements of the DYHTPS set.) But the projections in this tour are used almost constantly, with the explicit aim of situating the action in a particular place, and as mentioned above, they use Hugo's artwork in a few places, usually to represent the void or the beyond. There are only a couple places where the projections move, but when they do it's REALLY AWESOME. I'll elaborate more on that when I talk about ODM and the sewers. The blocking is in many respects similar to the original production. That kind of surprised me, since they were going on about how different it was, and yet the majority of the scenes resemble the original, only with more elaborate sets and props. However, I think it highlighted what they were trying to do, which was show an alternate direction the show could've taken. The design of the original--the dark stage, the revolve, the bare minimum in sets and props spinning on and off the stage, the huge barricade/slum sets lurking in the wings, the universal and almost context-free space it all plays out in--was a conscious decision, and on the tour they're trying to give the audience the same show as it would be if they'd made a different decision. The underlying sameness puts the different approach in relief. Other people have noted that there's a lot of simple flipping going on: stuff that took place stage left now happens stage right and vice versa. The insinuation is that they were just trying to Not Be Like The Original and do it differently just for the sake of it and that it didn't work, but I think it fits in with the theme of remixing the original staging: the tour is a mirror image of the original. Obviously some scenes, such as the prison galley in the beginning and the revolve-free version of Turning, have been completely redone, but the rest of the time there are no major changes to the perspective of the scenes (the barricade is still a giant wall across the back of the stage, the bridge still goes up at the end of Javert's suicide) or the composition. The parts of the prologue where Vajean gets turned away everywhere he goes are the same, with the addition of sets and props. Who Am I + the courtroom is the same idea. On My Own is practically a direct knockoff of the original setup. Etc. What they have done in places is tighten up the blocking so that people have a reason to be moving where they do besides "the blocking told me so." The Confrontation, for example, has an underlying sequence of events so Valjean and Javert aren't just lunging at each other while singing, and when Eponine delivers the letter to Valjean, he's in the process of moving out, which is how she's able to slip in the open gate. I think they could stand to do more of this (Attack on the Rue Plumet still has a lot of time with thugs standing around looking conspirational) but I appreciate the effort. The costumes are fine--nothing spectacular, but I don't think they're meant to be, they just get the job done. As expected, they are a bit more specific to time and place than the original production's, so no more Wild West Saloon Girl Fantasy whores, and Cosette gets some surprisingly non-fugly 1830s dresses. I am geeky enough to wish they'd gone all-out and included a variety of 1810s/1820s styles in Master of the House, as some productions have done, but I'm not going to resent them for going for more unobtrusive costumes there. I also wish they'd ditch the Enjolras vest, which is too direct a reference to the original production and doesn't fit in with the rest of the costuming. The orchestrations have mostly repaired the damage done by the Broadway revival. They kept a couple of the most horrific things, like the string section sawing away at one note during What Have I Done/Javert's Suicide, but they got rid of most of the little annoying things that made Bway revival sound like it was being played in a tin can. And they kept some of the nice things, like the OFC-esque woodwinds in Castle on a Cloud. In general the orchestrations are mostly based on the original rather than the Bway revival, and thank God they sound like they're being played by a full orchestra, but there are a lot of tweaks to amp up the bombast, often in completely unnecessary places. It sometimes sounds like they're going for cheap thrills, and this might be specific to the Th��tre du Ch�telet, but the orchestra is often over-amplified in comparison with the singers and drowns them out. The orchestrations in general are okay, but I'm not happy with the cuts. Yes, they ditched some of the particularly awful ones, like the verse of Castle on a Cloud, and yes, it's nice that they restored "it's the same with a tart as it is with a grocer" and the full In My Life. But there are weird cuts all over the place. They kept the cut to Fantine's death and didn't fix the rhyme. They cut Little People but used it (with a line unnecessarily snipped) in Gavroche's death. And there are maddening little orchestral cuts all over the place, like the DYHTPS/In My Life transition, that really trip up the listener and make it sound rushed. There's nothing major missing, but they're taking the "here a little slice, there a little cut" approach way too far. And then there's the lighting. I think the lighting is arguably the biggest flaw of this production--there are other annoying things I've already noted, but they can mostly be ignored or tweaked, and I'm holding out hope that they'll tweak some of them when they bring the tour over to the US. But the lighting needs a complete redesign. It's not that they got rid of the brilliant moments in the original (though I do miss things like the light spilling out into the audience in ATEOTD, and the whores with their shadows projected on the wall). It's not even that they didn't replace them with anything brilliant. It's that the lighting is just completely flat--always dim and yellowish, always dusky. They could've done amazing things with time and place and dawn and twilight, and instead it just looks like evening all the time. This becomes a particular problem between Look Down and the final battle. Is this really all supposed to take place in one night? Look Down happens in early evening, Stars and Red and Black and AHFOL later that night, then they go and build a barricade and Eponine wanders around at three in the morning and comes back and gets shot, and the first attack is in the middle of the night, and then they have like two hours for fraternal drinking and Valjean praying before Dawn of Anguish. Which looks like Six O'Clock In The Evening Of Anguish, because somebody apparently didn't get the memo that dawn and twilight do not look the same. Either they're not being clear about the passage of time, which fails because it goes against the whole ethos of this production, or they're trying to shoehorn it into 24 hours as though it were some Racine tragedy that has to obey the classical unities. In which case they're contradicting the lyrics, since Enjolras says "the night is falling fast" just after the first attack, as well as making Hugo roll over in his grave and posthumously glare at Racine. The other huge problem with the lighting is that there are usually no spots on the main action, or if they're there they're completely inadequate. I don't think the big ensemble scenes in the tour are actually busier and more chaotic than the London ones, but it often seems that way because it's difficult to pick the action out from the general hustle and bustle. It's just sort of a confused mess of people. This might be less fun to rant about than the time weirdness and the constant evening, but it's the one thing that pisses me off to no end because it would be so easy to fix. The blocking itself isn't sufficient to highlight the main action, and it shouldn't have to be, the main action should be literally more visible than the background action due to the lighting. One last note, on sightlines... okay first of all Ch�telet's sightlines suck, the balconies have pillars in the way everywhere and the orchestra has almost no rake so you're always craning your head around the person in front of you. But anyway. The show looks a lot better from the mezz. From the orchestra you do get a sense of what they were going for, and there's no real problem with it, but even if you're fairly far back you don't get the full panoramic view like you do from the mezz. Don't ditch your stalls tickets if you already have them, but the view from the mezz and the balconies is probably how they meant for a lot of these scenes to be seen, and you can see the way they used the full depth of the stage. You don't get a full sense of what they were doing with, say, the barricade set and backdrop from the stalls. Scene-by-scene breakdown coming! |
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| Vanessa20 |
Awesome reviews!
This production sounds fascinating, however flawed it may be. It's giving me ideas for the production I plan to direct someday (not really, just a fantasy of mine) - both what to do and what not to do.
It must be direction, because JOJ was totally gentle with Cosette when I saw him in the Broadway revival and seems to be likewise in the Youtube video from his first London stint. I guess they're just trying to make Valjean and Cosette's relationship more interesting, but whether it works or not is a matter of opinion.
God, it sounds like Gareth and Rosalind are playing Marius and Eponine's relationship like an Eppybopper fanfic. I feel like I've read the whole "she flirts, he doesn't take the bait, she considers him a big a**hole but can't help loving him anyway, and then when she dies he's wracked with remorse and grief" scenario at least twenty times. Even I'VE written fanfic that portrayed them that way (I must have been seventeen at the time). I was just thinking this afternoon about how those interpretations don't really fit with Hugo's writing. I'm actually kind of glad that I'm stuck in California right now and and can't see the show. I hope they work out some of the kinks before it comes to the US: I've really been looking forward to seeing it then. |
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| Quique |
Thank you both, Orestes and L'ivrogne, for the engaging reviews! I knew I could count on real Les Mis fans for real reviews and not the sickening "It's good, it's grand, it's great...cause it's Les Miz!!" bull routinely seen elsewhere.
I will comment on them later but I highly enjoyed reading both and loved that each writer provided clear and concise justification for how individual aspects of this production either worked or did not work for them. Thanks! *Round of applause* 
(Quick Ques: How is the rotten old crone of LL portrayed in the tour? One of my fave bit parts. Is she still a toothless, sketchy whorehag or is she something totally different? Does she wield GARGANTUAN pairs of scissors at young maidens? DO TELL.) |
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| Ulkis |
The part about the exploding bridge made me laugh. But the original suicide makes me laugh too, what with the rolling around on the floor. (And he still does it here too? Why can't he just jump down into a trap hole or something?)
I am a sucker for sets though, so I think I would be inclined to like this version. |
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| The Very Angry Woman |
Not all theatres can accommodate a trap door. (Hence the alternate staging during One Day More, the sewer scene, and the final battle in some of the tour stops during the days of the 3NT.) |
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| Quique |
You mean detail, right? The original production indeed has sets. Oh, does it ever. Only, its set is static and is rarely, if ever, directly lit. It provides loads of atmosphere though. But you could eliminate that surrounding set and you'd still have the exact show intact, along with all its movement. Everything else consists of small to very LARGE stage props and, of course, the revolve provides perpetual movement. Based on tour reviews, I'd say key differences include loss of the fluidity of the original due to no revolve and each scene having its own "set" as opposed to the original's almost constant black background and suggestive use of props and expressive lighting. |
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| l'ivrogne transfigur� |
No, he doesn't roll around on the floor. He never goes downwards at all. He 'hovers' in mid-air a bit and then goes backwards downstage.
She's not old or toothless but she does have big scissors and is quite scary. (There's a picture in the brochure I could upload if you're interested?...) |
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| Ulkis |
Yes, detail.
But they didn't use it for the suicide on Broadway either. Unless he did go through one after he rolled around on the stage and I just don't remember, which is entirely possible. |
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| MizH |
I really enjoyed reading those reviews. I managed to see it in Edinburgh 4 times, and I agree with most of the comments made. I didn't have the time to write proper reviews, but the understudies I managed to see were David Lawerence for Javert, Luke Kempner for Marius and Rosa O'Reilly for Eponine. I thought David and Luke were fantastic, I agree with the comments made about them. I was a bit disappointed when I showed up to find Earl was off, but I ended up liking David just as much. I wasn't so impressed with Rosa O'Reilly. She wasn't bad, her portrayal was just a bit bland. I didn't really feel anything for the character. I really like Rosalind James, and I've seen some excellent Eponines in London over the last 3 or 4 years, so unfortunately Rosa didn't really match the standard. I managed to see 3 bishops, Ian Caddick being my favourite. I agree with almost everything said about the Thenardiers. I didn't find them funny or evil. I didn't mind Lynne Wilmott, but I thought she was a bit too young and pretty for the role. I was surprised at how much I liked Jon Robyns as Enjolras. I didn't like his Marius, so I wasn't very hopeful about his Enjolras. I still don't like his voice very much, but his acting convinced me. | ||||||||||||
| l'ivrogne transfigur� |
I'd have liked to have seen Rosa, and seeing as our opinions seem to be quite different about Rosalind, I may have enjoyed her more. I believe that she was on last Wednesday - so I missed her by one day, which is a shame. | ||||||||||||
| Emmyv05 |
My friend got called back for young Cosette! She didn't get it though.... | ||||||||||||
| Quique |
There was a sewer grate in both the Broadway and 3rd NT but Javert never fell through it. XD I think you thought she was saying that the Broadway production used a trapdoor in Javert's suicide, but the effect couldn't always be reproduced on tour due to venue limitations. She was actually just commenting on the idea of using a trapdoor at all, since the 3rd NT occasionally had to ditch the trapdoor and have the Thenardiers come in from the wings during ODM, Valjean carry woundedMarius off stage via the wings, etc.. I could wait to see what the crone looks like when I get to see the tour (don't want to inconvenience you), hehehe.. But thanks, L'ivrogne, for your scan offer! I'm pleased to know she still waves those ridiculous scissors around.
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| The Very Angry Woman |
What he said. | ||||||||||||
| Quique |
Am listening to a recent Paris audio for the first time.
You all know how I feel about the new, passionless, Tom n' Jerry Orchs, so I won't say more about that...but, why does the show feel so...fragmented? One thing I REALLY like is the new "Runaway Cart."
They should incorporate it into the West End version. That's the way it always should have been, though they could still snip a bit of the ValjeanSuperhero suspense music off, despite it already being significantly shorter than it originally was before the initial round of cuts. |
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| Quique |
What's the name of the fellow who plays Gavroche in the tour? Anyone else think he sounds a LOT like Adam Searles?
Another thing I like: They've somewhat resolved the problem of the awkward silence after Gavroche's "I'll be there, don't you fear. You can always find me here." I think the more abrupt ending is more effective than the usual slower, longer one. Can't explain it, but it just works better and seems to prompt the audience reaction it originally intended much more easily.. |
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| Elin |
The tour Gavroches are Jordi Clark and Robert Madge.
http://www.lesmis.com/cast-and-creatives/cast/ensemble-swings-and-children |
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| l'ivrogne transfigur� |
I've seen Toby Prynne as well. | ||||||||||||
| Orestes Fasting |
Oh, the Gavs on the tour are fab. The little Cosettes aren't bad either, but the Gavs are just perfect. | ||||||||||||
| lovesinging |
Ah Quique, I wish I was as skilled as you in the finding of "recent Paris audio" clips.
Seeing as I'm not, I have nothing to add to this discussion. Carry on and ignore this
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| Eppie-Sue |
Trevor Nunn has pretty clear views when it comes to the so-called "new" Les Mis. Telegraph article. | ||||||||||||
| Orestes Fasting |
Interesting. I agree that it's more of a variant and not as new as Cammack et al would like everyone to believe, and I understand why Nunn is angry that he wasn't consulted or credited when so much of the work is his under the tweaking, but I find that a lot of the new elements are successful or would be successful if they were put into execution better. Whatever he or the article might say, I smell sour grapes in the criticism of the new elements. | ||||||||||||
| Ulkis |
I'm a little in love with the orchestration when Valjean sings "my life he claims for God above". |
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| Quique |
Not gonna lie, that article terribly saddened me. It's almost eerie reading the words of Trevor Nunn because they so closely echo specific points I've made and raised identical questions regarding the issue.
I had heard rumors that Caird and Nunn were snubbed but I didn't think they were true. I had long wondered WHY Mackintosh didn't think of CONSULTING THE ORIGINAL DIRECTORS and have always known that they would have done wonders with it. He said exactly what I've ranted about for months--why not just simplify the original production for the road. The mobile barricades are luxury. It could have been done and maybe even enhanced under their direction. I am not going to sit here and bash the new production because as much as I ADORE the original, I've said before many times that the day would come when it would cease being performed on that famous revolving stage. I agree that we must allow variation in artistic expression in ALL areas of of the performing arts. Yes, while the creative team of the new production have successfully done away with some of the original's minor flaws, I can only sit and wonder what Nunn and Caird would have done with it. This is one of those situations where all you could do is slam your fist on the table and scream! If only he would have contacted Nunn, Caird, and Napier If only he would have contacted Nunn, Caird, and Napier. Things would have turned out so much better. *Sigh* |
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| Moci |
I'd imagine that getting Nunn, Caird and Napier costs a fair bit of money. Sad, but probably true. |
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| Quique |
I like it too. Interestingly, it is very similar to what was already there before, only it sounds higher in pitch and the melody is slightly altered. It only seems totally ~*new*~ because it's the one bit that actually sounds good and supports the moment. It's like a burst of fresh air in a stale room. |
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| Gargamel |
Well this article made me sad too...
But not for the same reasons! 
I went to the Th��tre du Ch�telet last week to see the new touring production. I deliberately avoided to read reviews in order to be sure to have a fresh opinion on it, and for the surprise not to be spoiled... I am quite surprised on all the negative reviews on that show here. To me, that production is way better than the original London one. I really felt like seeing a real new production, and NOT a downsized version of the London production. Quite the opposite actually! The new production is as spectacular as the original one, if not even more! By creating a new production, they got rid of some the things I didn't like, even if some moments are not as good as the original London one. For example : - I remember my "WTF" reaction when the curtain opened as I first saw the revival Paris production... "Why are those people pretending to use hammers? They have nothing in their hands! The production was too short on their budget to buy them a couple of hammers?" It looked ridiculous!
- The costumes were sometimes a bit tacky or dull... for example, the whores � Montreuil sur Mer, or Cosette's dress... - The set for Paris and the caf� were inappropriate: it was obvious from the very first moment I saw that pile of garbage that it was in fact the barricades set being slightly disgised to look like... well like nothing!
- The constantly rotating turntable was too heavily used, that made the moments when it was really useful less impressive: students leaving the caf�, Gavroche's death are the only moments when the revolving stage are really necessary IMHO. - The sewers backdrop didn't work. the king of forced perspective didn't work except if you were at the few perfect seats in the theatre... moreover, I never saw those things on the ceiling in sewers... - Then again, the Javert suicide was quite too simple. I remembered saying to myself "he comes the bridge part from the caf�... but lowered to the ground level..." And the rolling on the floor thing is just awkward... - The "black box" is too dark, too sad... les Mis�rables is about love and hope for mankind. Nor about sadness and despair! Of course, even with those things, and being a hardcore fan of the OFC from the day is went out (almost), I ADORED the show... and became quite obsessed with it. Then I had a wonderful surprise discovering that ALL the flaws I noticed in the original production were resolved in a very elegant way in that new production. What I didn't like in that new production are: - The shape of boats at the port in Montreuil sur Mer... I never saw the sea there!
- Death of Gavroche. The loss of the revolving stage is the only moment when it was obviously missing ! - Empty chairs. Quite dull actually. And I LOVED: - The short "Petit Gervais" passage. I always missed him in the previous production! - The sets... they are just brilliant! - The use of the projection, very clever, very spectacular when it moves because it is used ONLY at key moments... - The costumes fells much more natural - The sewers, very impressive... - Javert suicide: Spectacular AND beautiful.
- Orchestrations... I won't miss the synthesizer soup of the London original orchestrations...
All in all, I have to admit that I now like the touring production better than the original London one. In this article, I fell like Trevor Nunn being jealous not to be chosen to do the new production, and embittered. And of course very pretentious! THAT made me sad! The way he says "Those people", "the work of a group of assistants" and "It is a variant production that owes everything that�s good about it to the original production." shows no repect for the work that have been done, and he makes "Authority arguments" (is that english?) without giving anything to prove he is right. How can he say that anything that is good is from the original production, and all that is new is just not as good? canhe give example at least? Did he even saw the show?
Once again, when he said about the OFC "The material didn�t tell a story. It was a series of scenes, it was minus five of the most famous songs, and had to be very very considerably restructured." and "Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Sch�nberg were absolutely wonderful collaborators" is almost an insult to Boublil and Sch�nberg! One more phrase and he would have say "Me, myself and John Caird alone (and especially me) transformed a bunch of cute minor songs to the most beautiful musical of all times..." I won't start a comparison between the real original Paris show and the one we all know, because it would be too long, and I'm sure I would be bashed to death here once again...
I am sure that not hiring Trevor Nunn and John Caird was the only good option. A downsized version would have felt "cheap". I am really happy with the choices done for that new production, and I am sure they sould make new production for that musical more often... I now dream of a French version of that production touring in the major cities of France... It would be a succes, I'm sure! |
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| riverdawn |
Gargamel, I think your review actually explains perfectly the reason why you liked the new production and why I, for example, less liked it.
From your review, I get the sense that you want theater to be very naturalistic, meaning that you want things to look "real". That is a valid perspective, one that has been one side of theater for a very long time, and a perfectly legitimate opinion. If that is what you like to see in theater, then I agree with you that the touring production should be more to your liking. They indeed made a more naturalistic production. For me, personally, I don't look for naturalism and "reality" in theater design. One of the things that immediately drew me to the London production in terms of design was exactly the fact that it was not done in a naturalistic way, but rather that they used a "less-is-more" design, with a relatively small number of set pieces managing to create a lovely visual impact and suggesting a large number of scenes. For me, personally, theater is more interesting when it doesn't try to create vast naturalistic sets, but rather when it does interesting things with the sets to suggest ideas rather than display them. When I want to see the naturalistic, I go to the cinema. This is one of the reasons why the tour didn't appeal to me as much as the London production did. But this is precisely one of those situations where it's a matter of taste: if you like your theater naturalistic, as many people do, then the touring production is more to your taste. If you don't like your theater naturalistic, then it's less to your taste. Both views are equally valid ways of approaching theater.
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| Orestes Fasting |
One of the best things about the tour is that it puts the original more in focus. When the original staging was the standard and the only "real" Les Mis, we were all free to grumble about the inaccuracy of the costumes and the bareness of the stage and the absence of context. The variant staging on the tour drives home just how much the original is a "concept" staging that's supposed to be spare and dark.
The other thing about the tour is that it practically invites nit-picking.  I didn't have a problem with the boats in Montreuil-sur-Mer, since the lyrics clearly indicate a sea port, and the name kinda implies it. Just because some fans know that the river is all silted up and isn't navigable from the Channel anymore doesn't mean it doesn't make sense in the musical! Since they were going for representational, their choices were either to depict a harbor or to change the lyrics to fit a minor historical detail (I guess their best choice would've been to change the sailors to soldiers, since M-sur-M was a garrison town).
However, I did have a problem with the Paris set, because aside from the Pont au Change during Stars, it doesn't look like Paris! Gavroche's death is one of those things that was brilliant in theory and got shortchanged in execution. They should've drawn it out more, given the audience some suspense, and IMO the "Ten Little Bullets" text would've worked better than "Little People." The way they do it, it's over too fast to have much effect. Agreement on Empty Chairs (and Turning). One of the weaknesses of the new staging. |
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| Quique |
Riverdawn said what I was just about to say, almost word for word. Kinda freaky, but cool, hehe. | ||||||||||||
| Gargamel |
Well, to be truly honest, I agree with you... I usualy prefer abstract stagings.
In fact I loved some very realistic settings in theaters/Opera, and also completely abstract ones. For example, I remember a really abstract set for the Opera "Saint Fran�ois d'Assise" from Maessian where there was virtually nothing that looked like somethin natural. the characters were singing in front of colored squares on an empty stage. The lighs were the real sets. The angel came out from a grass almost vertical square, Saint Fran�ois felt Jesus pain in front of a white square, becoming blood-red by paints applied from behind, etc. I LOVED that from the beginning to the end! The use of light was very clever! I also liked some semi-abtract ones like the London original "Les mis�rables" (that I loved actually) But I came to the conclusion that in THAT case, I ended to like the touring production better than the original one, because some "unnatural" aspects of the original production looked more to be there because it was more simple and less expensive to do it that way than a real artistic choice (for example, the caf� obviously looking like a recycled barricade set... There is no real reason to show it as a pile of garbage in an artistic point of view! Why don't they have hammers in the overture? or at least sticks?!)
Off topic: I've just learned a new word... thanks for helping me improve my english!
I agree that it is personal, as I grew up close to that city!
I just explained that it bugged ME... not that it has no sense... Anyway, that backdrop looks good, so...
That's quite right, even if Paris then didn't looked like Paris today at all.... The use of projection helped to locate it in Paris. In fact, only the mobile stairs don't look like Paris. The two mobile buildings on the left and on the right could look like Paris at that time. And the set for the Pont-au-change is just stunning...
Gavroche's death is probably the biggest disappointment in that production... quite forgettable. Too fast. It sounded like "we couldn't find something proper for it, but we had to include that scene. So we made it very fast to get rid of that pain in the ...."
Then again, Turning/Empty chairs was a good idea. One candle for each student soul. each ghost take their candle. It is a beautiful idea! In fact, I liked that "turning" better that the original one... But for "Emplty chairs", I would have liked to see the ghosts in the dark. Not in plain light. We could have seen only shadows, and their faces could have been lit with the candles. Or maybe change their costumes into an all white/grey version. Anyway, I'm quite sure it could be much better... |
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| Orestes Fasting |
Oh yes, I loved the projection for the barricade, having the street there made it look like those old paintings of 1830 and 1848. But I was disappointed in the wooden sets in Look Down, because Paris has such a distinct look (even pre-Haussmann Paris), all those dingy white plaster buildings with their rows of gaping windows, all slightly off-kilter from each other. They could have taken inspiration from the remaining medieval streets in the Latin Quarter, or from the pre-Haussmann buildings in the 3rd and 4th arrondissements, to produce a brilliant slum set, but instead we get a fantasy Victorian London. Boo.
I don't think Anglos quite understand the importance of Gavroche, we've come to think of him as "that cute kid" or a knock-off Artful Dodger. His parts are often treated as expendable in productions of the musical, because the adaptation (especially Kretzmer's adaptation of "La faute � Voltaire") doesn't quite do him justice. I would love love love to see someone use James Fenton's texts instead, because while they do swing a bit far in the other direction (dark and political rather than cute and sappy) and lose some of the playfulness in the Kretzmer lyrics, they give Gavroche more substance. Er, yes, digression over. But that might be why they cut down Gavroche's death. And also because they cut down a lot of orchestral parts and interludes, and might have forgotten the value of silence and pauses in that scene. |
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| Ulkis |
Oh no, please do! I for one would love to read it. |
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| LesMisForever |
I have already bought my ticket for the Barbican. I avoided reading the reviews to see it without any prejudices. |