Les Miserables (National Tour - Hollywood Pantages)

I have a bit of a history with Les Miserables. I didn’t see the original tour run, although the billboards were everywhere in the Los Angeles I grew up in. However, in high school, I played some of the music for one of our concerts, and loved it. Later, I went on a law school trip to London, and we had our afternoons and evenings free. A few of us got some cheap scalped tickets for three nights of shows: The Mousetrap, Phantom of the Opera, and Les Miserables. While all were good, the best was definitely the last.

When I left for that London trip (and the week and a half on the continent which was my first real parent-free adventure), I had been going out with Amanda for a couple of weeks. She was jealous as heck about Les Mis, because she love the book, and had the musical pretty well memorized - but had never seen it in person. We started reading through the book together - aloud - and got to somewhere in the never-ending Waterloo digression before we got distracted by moonlight walks and the like. I probably need to go back and read it from the beginning.

Anyway, Amanda has wanted to see it live for forever, so when we saw it was coming to the Pantages, we were all over it. And decided to take the kids. (And yes, they all enjoyed it - it was their first truly big-budget show.)

It was interesting to see a rather different production than the one I saw in London. The music was the same (although orchestras are smaller these days, alas - at least there was one), and the book was the same. However, the sets were quite different. In the original, it was a rotating stage and two tumbling elements which could be configured to provide everything from the ship to the barricade. The new version definitely had more moving parts, and a huge variety of settings. Obviously, they were determined to use the entire budget. I made for an impressive spectacle which rivaled movie special effects - without the CGI.

The most impressive scene from a technical point of view was Javert’s suicide. In the original I saw, a trapdoor, fog, and projected ripples provided a dramatic result. But not like this one. The pieces of the bridge set were pulled up to make it look as if Javert was falling. And then, well, it is hard to explain, and I am not sure how they did it. Projected imagery combined with careful lighting and positioning by the actor made it feel as if our perspective rotated from a side view to a top view as he plummeted faster and faster. It was a moment that made you gasp.

And that was just the best part. Throughout, the technical stuff was amazing - and fascinating to my older son, the engineer (and also live theater geek since age 6…)

I also wanted to mention a few performances. This is, of course, a high-level professional troupe, so we expected and got generally excellent work. The only bit that bothered me a bit was that in the first half, Fantine (Mary Kate Moore) leaned just a bit sharp. It was weird because she would be fine on the long notes, but the connecting notes were just a tiny bit off. Now, I know I am a picky listener - most of us violinists have good pitch (if not always perfect intonation...it’s a lifetime battle) so I noticed small faults that others might not notice. Also, she was better in the second half, so I wonder if she had a bad ear monitor - that would certainly make sense.

One thing that little faults like this make clear is that a show like this is indeed live. No lip syncing. Indeed, there were the usual tiny vocal cracks and nuances that characterize live performance and make it so much better than even a good recording. As a performer myself, I appreciate the tremendous effort and hours of preparation which go into something like this - and I enjoy it as a result.

The Thenardiers (J. Anthony Crane and Allison Guinn) were good - and doing songs like that in dialect while still remaining intelligible is tough. The other parts were generally good - including the kids. The harmonies in the ensemble singing were top notch - very enjoyable.

The very best, though, were Eponine (Paige Smallwood) and Jean Valjean (Nick Cartell) Smallwood was unquestionably the best female vocalist on stage, and I mean no disrespect to the other fine singers. Smallwood was just a cut above, with power, range, and emotion. I could have listened to her all day.

 Paige Smallwood as Eponine

Nick Cartell as Jean Valjean

Except when I was listening to Cartell, who delivered as fine of a live theater performance as I have ever seen. His level of vocal control was amazing - I couldn’t believe his ability to hold notes in awkward ranges without needing operatic volume. There were some moments I had a dropped jaw. You wouldn’t know it from this performance, but he is a fairly young guy. Obviously, the aging was done well by the makeup people. But he nailed the physical aspect as well as the vocal gravitas.

I did want to talk about the story itself a bit too. The story is, after all, the best part. Victor Hugo does have some of the usual Victorian faults: long winded writing driven by financial concerns, extended digressions, overearnest naivete, bathos, and so on. But he also writes a powerful and empathetic story. He was perceptive about the complexities of human motivation, too, and created several timeless characters in Les Miserables. Also timeless is his uncomfortable look at the institutionalization of impoverishment - and indeed the criminalization of poverty. For those of us in the United States of the 21st Century, this seems all too familiar. Our national character is to grind the faces of the poor - it is no accident that we have the highest incarceration rate of ANY country in the world, as well as, far and away, more total prisoners than any other country.

We are a nation of Javerts.

Ah, Javert. I think if I had read Les Miserables as a kid, I would have missed his motivation. Seeing him for the first time as a law student, I think he made the greatest impression on me of any character. After all, he is the villain who could have been the hero in another book. The upright man serving faithfully and doing his duty. So why is he the villain? (Or at least a villain - he’s not the only one in the book.)

Hugo makes a few points here. One, of course, is that Javert is a cog in an unjust - and malevolent - system. That the Jean Valjeans of the world were (and are) imprisoned for being poor and human is the result, not of their own failings, but of a system which is designed to crush them. Javert participates, and not as an ignorant bystander. He is close enough to the action to see that the system is failing vulnerable humans.

But Javert doesn’t care - and why he doesn’t care is a key point. Javert is sure that God will love and reward him because he ruthlessly punishes those who fail to live up to his high standards. Javert isn’t a hypocrite in the strict sense - he doesn’t appear to indulge the vices he punishes in others. But he also has never had to face the hard choices his victims do. He will never watch his own child starve to death. He will never be a woman abandoned or fired from her job. He will never be run out of a town because of his past, or cheated of his wages. He always gets his - sucks to be the poor.

But Hugo goes far deeper than that. The climactic scenes are so powerful because we get to see Javert’s inner dynamics. Because Javert cannot extend grace to others, he cannot accept it for himself. In his mind, he has always deserved his good fortune and good life. He earned it, one painful choice at a time. That this is probably not a reflection of reality does not enter his head.

Thus, when the tables turn, Javert, who believes that Jean Valjean will always be a thief and a bad person, is left to face a horrifying truth:

Jean Valjean is a better man than Javert.

When Javert’s sense of self-worth crumbles, he has nothing left. His identity was as the “good guy,” and he constantly proved this to himself by his zeal to punish the “bad guys.” And then, when he is extended unexpected mercy by someone he believes to be his inferior, he can’t handle it.

And so he chooses annihilation.

I have mentioned in a few places that I don’t believe in the Evangelical version of hell. I won’t get into all the reasons here, but just that C. S. Lewis and Neil Gaiman both have influenced my views. But also, I should credit Victor Hugo. It was that viewing of Les Miserables that let me see a terrifying truth:

There are many who would choose annihilation rather than give up the pleasure of self-righteousness.

In fact, I tend to think these days that a lot of white Evangelicals will be like that. Particularly the white males in positions of authority. They have built their entire self-conception out of “I thank God I am not like other people.” For them to find out in the end that they were the bad guys, and all those gays, African Americans, refugees, impoverished people, and women they were so eager to put in their place and persecute were the “greatest in the Kingdom” all along, they will be like Javert. And choose to cease to exist rather than give up that comforting sense of self-righteousness they have clung to with bleeding fingers even as everyone around them outside the bubble turned away in disgust. That’s sad. But I think it is true.

Hugo, like many brilliant authors, had the ability to portray those on the margins of society with empathy and yet without making them into one-dimensional saints. One thing that struck me this time around is the way he captures the way that desperation makes humans turn on each other. The factory women, living tenuous lives for starvation wages, can’t resist the opportunity to slut shame Fantine. Other peasants turn on Jean Valjean. The prostitutes, even, don’t rally against an abusive john, but leave Fantine to her fate. Unfortunately, this is how the powerful and abusive stay in power.

Les Miserables also highlights another sad truth of most of history: women have always been treated as disposable. It isn’t just the prostitutes. The factory women are just cogs. Madame Thenardier has her fiefdom, but she is still treated like crap by her drunk abusive husband. Fantine can be tossed aside by her lover as soon as she becomes inconvenient. Eponine is useful to her parents as long as she gives unquestioning obedience - and she too is thrown away when she is no longer useful. It’s not just women. The working poor are treated as disposable. But women are particularly vulnerable.

It was good to experience this one again after a 20 year gap - I think my perspective has matured a bit - and current events have stripped more than a few illusions away. For example, I can’t really believe that Evangelicalism is any better than Javert. If anything, they relish cruelty for cruelty’s sake, which is further than Javert would go. (Sorry, I can’t un-hear or un-see things…) I am glad that the kids got to go. It was a splurge for us - we take the kids to local stuff all the time, but this was definitely more pricey. All those amazing sets and effects and the orchestra don’t come free. But there is something fun about an immersive spectacle. And Hugo’s story continues to reverberate today.

Do you hear the people sing?

Lost in the valley of the night

It is the music of a people

Who are climbing to the light

For the wretched of the earth

There is a flame that never dies

Even the darkest night will end

And the sun will rise.

They will live again in freedom

In the garden of the Lord

We will walk behind the plowshare

We will put away the sword

The chain will be broken

And all men will have their reward!

Will you join in our crusade?

Who will be strong and stand with me?

Somewhere beyond the barricade

Is there a world you long to see?

Do you hear the people sing?

Say, do you hear the distant drums?

It is the future that we bring

When tomorrow comes!

Will you join in our crusade?

Who will be strong and stand with me?

Somewhere beyond the barricade

Is there a world you long to see?

Do you hear the people sing

Say, do you hear the distant drums?

It is the future that we bring

When tomorrow comes!

***

Music clips!

This interview with Paige Smallwood includes a clip of her singing. The sound quality sucks, and doesn’t do her justice. But you can get a feeling of it. Believe me, in person, she was amazing.

The second is Nick Cartell. This clip is much better quality, and shows off his gorgeous voice quite well.

***

I do want to share this: my very first experience of Victor Hugo was this powerful poem.

After The Battle

MY father, hero of benignant mien,

On horseback visited the gory scene,

After the battle as the evening fell,

And took with him a trooper loved right well,

Because of bravery and presence bold.

The field was covered with the dead, all cold,

And shades of night were deepening : came a sound,

Feeble and hoarse, from something on the ground ;

It was a Spaniard of the vanquished force,

Who dragged himself with pain beside their course.

Wounded and bleeding, livid and half dead,

'Give me to drink - in pity, drink!' he said.

My father, touched, stretched to his follower now

A flask of rum that from his saddle-bow

Hung down : 'The poor soul - give him drink,' said he

But while the trooper prompt, obediently

Stooped towards the other, he of Moorish race

Pointed a pistol at my father's face,

And with a savage oath the trigger drew :

The hat flew off, a bullet passing through.

As swerved his charger in a backward stride,

'Give him to drink the same,' my father cried.