saw les mis on the west end. thénardier confirmed bisexual. big loss for the community. they let madame thénardier say fuck. nothing else interesting happened.

The most musically challenging moment in Les Misérables? Definitely the fake sip of water in “On Parole”. That’s why they cut it from the 2012 film, Jackman couldn’t manage it. Less clear why it’s absent from the Complete Symphonic Recording of ’88, unless Gary Morris simply mimed such a polite sippy that the mic didn’t pick it up.

Since it's ten years since the second Broadway revival of Les Misérables started previews, have this very ridiculous comparison of people tapping other people's faces with knives :D

((1) The Woman in White, West End production, David Burt as Count Fosco and Yvette Robinson as Marian. (2) Les Misérables, second Broadway revival, Ramin Karimloo as Valjean and Will Swenson as Javert.)

i saw the national tour of les misérables! and i have THOUGHTS

light spoiler warnings ahead!! ⚠️

-randy jeter and cameron loyal were SO GOOD as valjean and javert, bring him home was so so beautiful and javert’s soliloquy was one of the best i’ve ever heard

-matt crowle playing thenardier was also SO good, thenardiers tend to be a bit over the top for my liking but he was greattt and his dog eats dog was so haunting, him saying “you can be happy or you can be married” took me OUTT

-devin archer and haley dortch have BEAUTIFL voices and were another amazing highlight i couldn’t stop thinking about haley’s fantine, enjolras had a PRESENCE and he was haunting at the barricades, christopher james tamayo playing montparnasse was so slinky and even though he has such a small stage time i couldn’t keep my eyes off him

-I met jake david smith at the stage door !! his marius was the PERFECT blend of book accurate and musical accurate marius, he was silly and awkward at the same time and he was very kind after the show and i had a conversation with him! his empty chairs was of course beautiful but i thought he really stood out in a heart full of love and one day more

-the gun shots are VERY loud

-THE RUNAWAY CART SCENE WAS. INCREDIBLE. I WADNT EXPECTING THE CART OR THE BARRICADE IN LATER SCENES TO BE AS BIG AS THEY WERE

-speaking of the barricade, the final battle was. so good. the deaths of the les amis was. just so good. i think enjolras dying was the most beautiful and tragic thing ive ever seen in my life, (some light spolier) they gave him his spotlight at the top of the barricade and then he just. fell. weightless. and they had enjolras die first and grantaire die last, symbolizing how he was the last to commit to the republic and the parallels were just so good, r reaching out for r and running up the barricade was so. i’m speechless

-another really good scene was javert’s soliloquy, as aforementioned cameron loyal was AMAZING, but the staging of it was also incredible and everyone gasped and cooed and it was just impossible to look away from the stage, the bridge moving in and out was so symbolic and the whole scene was just incredible

-during red and black grantaire checked out enjolras’ ass after the bottle toss bit and it was hilarious

-i really like the book allusions !! the staging for éponine death !! it gives her back some of her book ending with her taking a bullet for marius and i thought it was a nice tidbit, or at the thenardiers inn they had the sergeant de waterloo sign, and kyle adams as grantaire addlibbed a “you’re new here!” to marius

overall, the show was absolutely beautiful and absolutely worth the wait, everyone was phenomenal and seeing it live was an experience that i’ll think about for the rest of my life

a meme @0zzysaurus kindly sent me

Guys I dids a thing

One thing I love about the Munich production of LesMis: Javert is part of the finale 🥺 This makes such a conciliatory picture!

Bring him home 🥹

I'm sorry! It's because he goes grₐₐₐaaaAAAᵃᵃᵃAAAaaaₐₐₐaaaAAAᵃᵃᵃce.

The Les Mis fandom doesn't much like "Turning," the song sung by the women of Paris on the morning after the barricade. It's easy to understand why. It undersells the seriousness of the revolutionaries--"they were schoolboys, never held a gun"--not likely even if you don't take the previous revolution into account. "Nothing changes, nothing ever will" is not particularly inspiring after all that talk about revolution. It's a pretty hopeless song about history being cyclical, in a musical that otherwise is about glorifying people's efforts to create change.

But I don't think we have to take "Turning" as a truer statement of values than we do "Stars." It's sung by characters in the story, although we don't know their names. And as something diegetic, as a portrayal of people reacting to that failure, it really worked for me on this latest viewing. Think of the last deeply disappointing election result, and then think of the last time there was a major disaster in your city if you've experienced that, and then imagine those things combined such that everyone fighting for positive change had been killed, and the attitude of the women makes a lot more sense. "Nothing changes, nothing ever will": in some circumstances you disavow hope because you just can't stand trying to keep it, because giving up hurts less, because if you see the future as walking in perpetual circles at least you understand where you're going.

Lately I have been remembering the bewildering early days of the uprising in 2020 here in the Twin Cities, the boarded-up windows with messages spray-painted on them ("minority-owned business," "people live upstairs") and the police casually macing groups of people at busy intersections or train stations. Even more than that, I've been remembering the morning after the 2021 municipal election, when police reform failed, the mayor was reelected and granted more power than ever, and the city council that had promised to remake public safety in the city got replaced by the most conservative council in many years. Activists were getting together just to grieve and to vent, and those Zoom vent sessions were not really enough for the immense feelings of loss. It's different from, or additive to, the grief and the survivor's guilt of "Empty Chairs." It's having your hope deflate because the thing you were hoping for just isn't there to look to anymore, and then it's reforming yourself around its absence. The crucial moment goes by unused and you don't know when another one will arise. It's easy to get cynical. The future looks like a treadmill: minutes into hours and the hours into years. Rien n'est changé; rien ne changera. I can't think of a single other song about that feeling.

Les Misérables (2012)

time to post. on the site