Yip1982
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The need to be Valjean-centricI've thought that since the story of Les Mis is meant to be about Jean Valjean's attempts to reform and face a new life, the musical seems to focus quite heavily on the student revolutionaries. Valjean does figure heavily at the beginning and at the end of the show but he threads in and out of the meat of the musical, offering to look after Cosette at Fantine's behest. As such, this prevents Valjean from having a large part in the show even though we know he's at the centre of Les Mis.
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Quique
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He pretty much appears heavily throughout the show. I think the longest portions of the show in which he isn't featured are from Stars to IML, OMO to his arrival at the barricades after ALFOR, and from Javert's soliloquy to Every Day.
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Orestes Fasting
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But as long as you know he's at the center it's all good, right? 
It's nothing that didn't happen in the book, too. Except Hugo liked to skip merrily off to talk about a new character, then two hundred pages later have Fantine/Marius/whoever crossing paths with Valjean without telling the reader who he was.
But that's because the story's not about Valjean. He's the center of everything and he's the most prominent character, but he's supposed to wind in and out of the story, giving up the spotlight to Fantine or the Th�nardiers or Marius or Gavroche as needed, not stay center stage the whole time. Cutting out these characters and making the story just about Javert's pursuit of Valjean hurts the story more than making Valjean give up a bit of stage time to the subplots. The audience isn't dumb; they'll know he's the main character.
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Trevor reincarnate
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Wait! Valjean's the main character!?
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Orestes Fasting
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Well actually, scholars are still in debate over whether Valjean or Aunt Gillenormand is really the main character, but the general consensus tends toward Valjean.
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Fantine
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Like Orestes said, it's about the miserables, so while using JVJ as the main thread throughout the story, Victor Hugo just wanted to get his point about the poverty and situation in 19th century France across.
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LesMisForever
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In addition to what OF, and Fantine said, you could also argue that the redemption you are talking about (quite rightly) manifest itself in Valjean helping those who come across his life.
If you look at the lyrics of his songs carefully, you will realise his inner struggle, and how he picks the hard choices to redeem himself.
At the end of the day, you redeem yourself by doing good, and unselfish thing to others.
Concentrating on Javert's pursuit of Valjean turn the musical into a cops and robbers show, which is CERTAINLY not what Hugo had in mind.
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Quique
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| LesMisForever wrote: | | Concentrating on Javert's pursuit of Valjean turn the musical into a cops and robbers show, which is CERTAINLY not what Hugo had in mind. |
It would be just another "The Fugitive," only on stage, hehe.
Btw, has anyone ever watched that T.V. series? I've always been curious about it.
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