LISTEN

LISTEN EVERYBODY

LISTEN TO ME

GENERAL

IS DEAD 😩😩

Sorry 4 the bad meme

Happy pride month to everyone but to the les mis fandom especially!

(Happy General Lamarque is dead day)

happy disco enjolras day to all who celebrate

disco enjolras on my mind

disco enjolras out of context

I was about to make a post like “yeah yeah pride month’s cool and all but how about Almost Barricade Day huh??” then I realized that pretty much means the same thing

General Lamarque mentioned by Victor Hugo.

Clips from <Il cuore di Cosette>.

gavroche today: “uh, guys?”

this is the sign we await..

It's been a few days since I went to see the current Les Misérables London cast at the Sondheim Theatre, and I haven't been able to stop thinking about Djavan Van De Fliert's Enjolras and Tom Hext's Grantaire. Here is an overview of their portrayals:

Grantaire isn't overly present during Paris/Look Down, as usual, but he can be seen at the back of the stage reading a leaflet that Enjolras and Marius drop on the street - and he watches as Enjolras runs off of the stage.

During ABC Café/Red & Black, Grantaire is separate to the rest of Les Amis. He sit with his drink in his hand, watching as his fellow students listen to Enjolras speak. Tom Hext portrayed Grantaire as drunker than most other Grantaires I've seen on stage: he had slurred speech and really did stumble around the Musain.

As Marius comes on the stage, Grantaire's focus is entirely on Enjolras' reaction and you can see the cogs start to get to work in his brain; he thinks deeply about how he can gain Enjolras' attention. As he does, Djavan's Enjolras looks so defeated and frustrated, but there's a softness in the way he directs Grantaire back onto their cause. Initially, Grantaire laughs off Enjolras' words and continues joking around, desperately looking to see if Enjolras was watching him.

When he realises he isn't, he walks right up to Enjolras (who had returned to his table) and grabs his face, turning him to look at him with a laugh. He only starts to be serious when Enjolras raises his eyebrows and silently pleads for him to stop.

After Gavroche announces that Lamarque is dead, Grantaire's whole body drops. As everyone else rallies around Enjolras, he grabs Gavroche and moves to the side of the group, watching in horror as the realisation sinks in that this was really happening. Enjolras notices that Grantaire is standing away from everyone else, cradling Gavroche, and stands by him during Do You Hear the People Sing? Grantaire offers him a smile in response, and Enjolras smiles back, believing he's won Grantaire round.

BUT the moment Enjolras looks away, Grantaire's smile drops again. And he looks on the verge of tears as he joins in with the marching.

During One Day More, Enjolras looks back to Grantaire and Gavroche and offers them a nod, which they both reciprocate.

When the barricade is built, Grantaire stumbles around the stage following Enjolras and making sure Gavroche is safe. When Éponine is shot, he runs onto the stage with the rest of the students and stands in utter disbelief, cradling Gavroche and staring at Enjolras with the saddest expression on his face. Enjolras walks in from being with Javert wiping his hands of the Inspector's blood. Grantaire looks at him with such a bland look on his face. After Éponine dies in Marius' arms, you can really see that Grantaire has accepted this is going to be their fate. Enjolras tries to reach out for him, grabbing at his arm to try and explain and console him, but Grantaire pulls away from him and leads Gavroche away.

In Drink With Me, he's physically shaking. The moment Grantaire starts to sing, Enjolras turns around and walks towards him with the most solemn look on his face. He pulls him into an embrace but Grantaire pulls out of it and walks towards Gavroche, who hugs him this time. He sinks down onto the floor and looks so heartbroken.

Because Grantaire does believe in Enjolras, but he's cynical. And he knows how this is going to end. And he's trying desperately to be there for Gavroche and make sure he's safe.

When Gavroche is killed, he breaks down completely and Enjolras tries to comfort him but Grantaire shakes him away. It's a really haunting scene. During their final battle, Grantaire doesn't pick up a weapon once. He watches from the sidelines, and offers Enjolras a small nod when Enjolras smiles at him from the top of the barricade.

And when Enjolras is shot dead, falling off of the barricade, Grantaire races to the top to be with him, screaming the most blood-curdling "you bastards!" I've ever heard. He dies running to the man he loves because, although he doesn't believe in the cause, he believes in Enjolras.

During Empty Chairs at Empty Tables, Grantaire and Enjolras are stood side by side - which has been the staging since they changed it in 2019.

Djavan's Enjolras is so passionate about everything he believes in. But he's also the softest Enjolras I've seen: you can see his confusion about why Grantaire hangs around, but he's empathetic and kind to him even through his frustration.

And Tom's Grantaire cares so deeply for Enjolras, and he's so desperate for him to see him. It's all so beautiful. The relationship between Enjolras and Grantaire is so poetically, and delicately, portrayed. And Djavan and Tom both understand their characters on such deep, personal levels. They're the perfect ExR combination. And I will never, ever get over them.

*General Lamarque Is Dead*

Enj with the boys :

some of my favorite moments from the 1995 10th Anniversary Concert of Les Miserables bc it's BARRICADE DAY and thus tis the season:

the convicts during Look Down all being Valjeans from different countries

the bishop M is baby faced and has an angelic voice

the clips from the fully staged show that they insert whenever there is too long of an instrumental/to explain things

colm wilkinson and philip quast's confrontation makes me want to chew on my laptop screen. so good. so crisp

baby cosette gets spooked by a balloon popping during castle on a cloud but barely flinches and keeps singing

the entire cast in the background of master of the house bopping back and forth in time. they are so here for it and it's amazing

philip quast's stars. he's so fucking good. i'm insane about him

michael maguire as enjolras's little happy dance when gavroche tells them that lamarque is dead

michael ball as marius somehow gives himself literally heart eyes whenever he talks about cosette. i can see them. it's so funny

during a heart full of love, colm wilkinson and philip quast are so invested in the background. they're leaning over to whisper to each other. they are besties

lea salonga as eponine delivers "i know this house i tell you, there's nothing here for you. just the old man and the girl, they live ordinary lives" like a GODDESS she is EVERYTHING

michael ball surreptitiously wiping his sweat on lea salonga's hair during her death scene. mans is dying a little

drink with me features anthony crivello as a fucking stellar grantaire, and after his verse, enj comes over and puts his hand on his shoulder to comfort him for a very long time. complete with a lingering touch on the arm and everything. fantastic exr crumbs 👍

the clips from the full show of the final battle are hilarious. completely different cast (though only obvious to insane people like us.)

highlights include one of les amis right on the middle of the barricade doing like. a backwards worm he's so into his death throes. he always has me losing my shit

empty chairs at empty tables includes the fucking cruel choice to have the entire les amis cast of actors line up on each side of michael ball and just a step behind so that they're in shadows, all staring sadly at him for the whole song. gives the impression of all the ghosts of marius's dead friends looking on from the afterlife and demanding answers. heart wrenching. THIS IS JUST SUPPOSED TO BE A CONCERT, WHY ARE U DOING STAGING LIKE THIS

beggars at the feast has everyone in the background clapping/tapping along again. love seeing the thenardiers get their due appreciation

the 17 valjeans from other international productions enter after the finale and they all have their gavroches holding their country flags it's so fucking cute

and of course final encore with all the additional valjeans and the whole cast is fucking ACES

ANYWAY if ur looking for a production to watch that is good af this is the top of my list even though it isn't fully staged. it's sooooo. it's some good fucking food. happy barricade day!!

Les Mis adaptations and apolitical appropriation

I think it's no secret on this blog that I love the original Les Mis 1980 concept album in French, and that I also love comparing different versions of the stage musical. I've noticed that Les Mis seems to get progressively more vaguely apolitical as time goes on, not only in the way it's viewed in our culture, but in the actual text as well.

It's natural for specifics to be lost in adaptation. It's easier to get people to care about 'the people vs. the king' in a relatively short musical rather than actually facing the audience with the absolute mess that were 19th century french politics (monarchist orleanists vs monarchist legitimists vs imperialist vs bonapartist democrats vs every flavour of republican imaginable). Still, I feel that as time goes on, as more revivals and adaptations of the stage musical come out, the more watered down its politics become. Like, Les Mis at it's core is just meant to be a fancily written, drawn out political essay, right?

In a way I feel that the 1980 concept album almost tried to modernise it with its symbols of progress. Yes, through Enjolras' infamous disco segment (and other similar allusions to the ideals of social change), but perhaps most interestingly to me, through one short line that threw me off when I first heard it, because it seems so insignificant, but might actually be the most explicitly leftist line of all of Les Mis.

"Son coeur vibrait à gauche et il le proclama" (roughly "His heart beat to the left and he proclaimed it" i.e: he was a leftist) Feuilly says, while speaking of the now dead général Lamarque in Les Amis de L'ABC.

What's that? An actual mention of leftism??? in MY vaguely progressive yet apolitical musical??? More seriously, this mention of leftism, clashing with the rest of the musical due to it's seeming anachronism, is interesting not because it's actually more political than anything else in Les Mis, rather, because it's not scared to explicitly name what it's trying to do.

But we've come a long way from the Concept Album days, it's been 43 years, and Les Misérables is now one of the most famous and beloved musicals in the entire world. It's been revived and reimagined and adapted in a million ways, in different mediums, in different languages and countries, and it's clear that it's changed along with it's audience.

On top of pointing out a cool line in my favourite version of the musical, I wanted to write this post to reflect on the perception of the political message of this work. We as a Les Mis fandom on Tumblr are very political, I don't need to tell you that, however, I feel that because this very left leaning space has sprung out of a work we all love so much, we oftentimes forget to revisit it from a more objective point of view.

Les Misérables has a history of being misrepresented, this has been true since it's publication, since american confederate soldiers became entranced with their censored translation Lee's Miserables. However, with it's musical adaptation, this misinterpretation has been made not only more accessible but also easier. As much as I love musical theatre and I think it is at it's best an incredible art form able to communicate complex themes visulally by the masses for the masses, I think it'd be idealistic to ignore the fact that the people who can afford to go see musicals regularly are, usually, not the common folk. Broadway and the West End are industries which, like most, need money to keep them afloat, and are loved people of all political backgrounds (and unfortunately, often older conservatives) not just communists on tumblr. We've seen the way Les Miz UK's social media team constantly misses the mark regarding different social issues, and the way Cameron Makintosh has used the musical to propagate his transphobia, and most of us can agree that these actions are in complete antithesis with the message of Les Misérables as a novel.

But I must ask, how does Les Mis ,as a West End musical in it's current form, actually drive a leftist message, and how are we as a community helping if every time someone relating to the musical messes up if we just claim they "don't get it"?

I'm thinking in particular of incidents like last october, where Just Stop Oil crashed Les Mis at the West End. Whether you think it's good activism or not is not the question I think, this instance is interesting particularly because it shows that, outside of Les Misérables analysis circles and fandom spaces, it is not recognised as an inherently leftist, political or activist work, and instead of just saying they completely missed the point of the musical, I think it'd be interesting to take a step back and look at what the musical as it stands actually represents in our culture today.

I don't pretend to have all the answers, so I won't try to give one, but I do hope we can reflect on this a bit.

What is disco Enjolras day ?

basically, the French Concept Album decided to have a giggle with Les Amis' introduction song, leading to the funkiest Enjolras you will ever hear in your life. He's iconic. We all adore him. He learned General Lamarque is dead and immediately got possessed by the spirit of a Bee Gee. So valid. Listen and enjoy anon

Lamarque may be dead, but disco sure isn't

general lamarque has been dead for 191 slutty, slutty years