Les MIserables – Cameron Mackintosh production – Minneapolis at the Orpheum through Dec 18 2011.
I first saw Les Miserables (gasp) 25 years ago, as a birthday present from my parents when I was in junior high school. For a fourteen-year-old girl, Les Miserables is the perfect play: full of emotional depths and peaks, a couple of cute guys, and a feeling that yes, the entire world might end right now, but god, isn’t it BEAUTIFUL?
Fortunately, Les Miserables has enough going on to keep my, er, slightly older self just as engaged 25 years later. This new production is just different enough to feel fresh and modern, and sacrifices none of the good bits.
The “good bits” includes those great solos. J. Mark McVey’s Jean Valjean is a little quiet at first but he delivers where it counts. My personal favorite from the song list is “Bring Him Home,” and a thrill went through the audience after the last impossibly high, gentle note. His performance grows throughout the night until he fully claims the gravity of the role toward the end.
Javert’s (Andrew Varela) smooth baritone delivers throughout, and with this character was one of the more notable differences in the staging of the old vs new. In the original, Javert simply jumps off a bridge, presumably into a soft cushion in a pit. In this version, Javert goes high tech, in an intriguing combination of a massive video wall and flight cables so that he looked as if he were falling horizontally into a black hole. It felt a tiny bit silly, but I liked it anyway. Such is the power of Les Miserables.
And that video wall is used to great effect, more so in the second half of the show. The video wall – showing drawings based on author Victor Hugo’s own sketches – created the illusion of tunnels deep underground. At one point the innkeeper/thief character enters through dark portion of the screen, creating the convincing effect of a mysterious figure emerging from deep underground. These sorts of effects couldn’t have been imagined 25 years ago, and yet they don’t distract or overwhelm the play today. I for one am glad to see the lazy susan has been retired (previous productions had the barricades on a rotating table). Despite the high tech bells and whistles, this set helped focus more on the actors and the story by not creating a giant central focus/distraction.
The major negative of this performance was Fantine (Betsy Morgan), who shouts bitterly at the beginning of “I dreamed a dream.” Her performance seemed rushed; the timing was off in comparison to the rest of the show.
But after 25 years, Les Miserables still pleases the crowd, receiving one of the most spontaneous standing O’s I’ve seen in a while, from 2500 patrons. What is it that makes this play endure when other musicals, like “Cats” have become stale jokes? Hard to say, but I’d pin it on a combination of operatic style, emphasis on crowd-pleasing expansive vocal range, and a popular storyline of redemption against a wider historical backdrop. And one more thing – there’s not a trace of irony in this show. What comedy there is is brief, and largely physical. When you see Les Mis, you’re allowed to be that 14 year old girl again, caught up in the emotional roller coaster, all snark and cynicism having been left outside the theater.