To Love Another Person – Vancouver – 06/19/2013

MIS_25_verticalI had the chance to see Les Miserables when I lived in London what seems like all those years ago, and the fact that I chose not to do so (I had just seen Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens and figured I had cried enough that day thank you very much), is one of those things that I’ve always kind of regretted; because, well, it’s Les Mis..it’s something of a musical theatre staple.

But that’s the thing, it’s so much a staple that everyone thinks they know it. The songs have become standards in their own right, heard out of context so often that dozens of people probably don’t even realize they’re humming the soundtrack. It’s an entity that has stepped away from itself and into something else.

The 25th Anniversary production came to Vancouver this weekend. With tremendous thanks to my father’s willingness to blaze through the online ticketing process on my behalf (tickets went on sale when I was still on contract and the ship’s internet simply doesn’t move fast enough to get good seats for things like this) I was able to get a truly amazing seat only five rows from the front on ground level (my eyes are too bad for balcony distance, something I’ve learned the hard way over the years). This is when I discovered that there seem to be only two types of people who come to see this show: those who – like me – are seeing it for the first time, and those who are seeing it for the 20th or 30th time, there seems to be no in between at all! I sat between two people who were definitely veterans of the show, feeling vaguely like a “virgin” at a much more sophisticated Rocky Horror Show.

For about twenty minutes I sat there, reading my program, listening to the familiar and comforting sounds of the orchestra warming up (which will always remind me of my dad, who took me to the edge of the pit when – at about 6 years old – I went to see Annie)

And then the opening started.

Now, Dad and I have this ongoing argument about Webber shows; they don’t have overtures which my Dad justifiably thinks is an unforgivable omission. I will agree that the lack of an overture is something I usually wouldn’t accept, but while Webber shows don’t have one they have the most powerful opening numbers (especially the first run of chords) of any shows I have ever been lucky enough to see. Sitting in the audience of a Webber show the opening chords hit the soles of your feet, run straight up your spine and often as not spill out of your eyes.

Les Mis is absolutely no exception to that pattern. It rattles your ribcage and drops your jaw and you have absolutely no choice but to sit up and take notice of what you’re seeing.

As the progressed I was struck by the fact that while many people know the songs from the show (these days who doesn’t know at least a snippet of I Dreamed a Dream?) they don’t necessarily understand them. I know I certainly didn’t. These pieces may have become standards in their own right, but they are so much more than what pop culture has made them.

Perfect example? I Dreamed a Dream is so much more than what various reality shows have reduced it to. This is not a bitter look back ballad, it’s not regretful, and it’s not dreamy. Nor is it even particularly slow. It’s angry. Fantine stands in the middle of the stage, having nowhere to go, nowhere to turn to, and the song is wrenched out of her throat: an accusation to the world that it would dare to put her so low when she has done nothing wrong. The words are half-sung half-sobbed, and if you’re not holding your breath by the end of the number than I question whether you’re really hearing it at all.

I always dreamed my life would be so different from the hell I’m living…indeed.

image.aspThe attention to character in the new production is beautiful. It’s a small cast so the chorus has multiple roles, bu every one of those roles is distinct, even if its a role that’s only seen for a second. When Fantine stumbles into the docks and fins herself in the questionable company of the “Lovely Ladies” you can see the personality of every one of those streetwalkers, before they open they’re mouths to sing their first words.

There’s the one who just joined the crew and figures she’s only there temporarily, there’s the mother hen, there’s the one who’s got the clap and likely gone crazy from it…

And their costumes were stunning. Not in the sense that they were beautiful, but in the sense that they were so perfectly done. You could see that at one point they had been beautiful, something bought when times were better or when the client base was wealthier. Their skirts might once have been velvet but have now been reduced to that beaten worn brown that comes from being out in the elements too long. Tattered beauty, broken pride.

And then they take that cast of perhaps fifty and somehow make it look like a cast of 200 for the act one finale, and I burst into tears.

A bit of background seems necessary here: back in my HTS days, we did One More Day as a finale to our musical variety show. We worked insanely hard on it, I remember being made to run laps around the parking lot and then come in to sing the high soprano part (my range stretched that high then). When the time came for the performance we botched it so badly that it still makes me wince to think about it. One of our soloists came in almost a full key flat on his section, and couldn’t pull himself out ofi t, which meant the rest of us and the orchestra were off pitch to him…in short…train-wreck. Major horrific train wreck. But even if we’d done it perfectly…even if we’d nailed every note…?

Seeing it done for real? The knowledge that even if you’d done it 110% perfectly you wouldn’t have even scratched the surface hits you right between the eyes.

And somehow right then, right when you think you can’t handle anymore, the revolutionary flag erupts from the back of the mob, blood red against the penciled drop of the scrolling background, and your breath just kind of…stops for a few seconds.

At intermission the woman who was sitting next to me handed me a packet of Kleenex because I had forgotten mine, despite knowing what happens despite knowing that tissues are a total necessity for Les Mis.

If you don’t know what happens in the second act of Les Mis don’t read any further. Consider yourself warned.

Back when we were working that finale number at HTS, our headmaster made a point of saying that it was important that we know and understand the tragic underlying irony of the piece:

The song is all about the beauty of tomorrow, but all tomorrow has in store for any of these people is death.

I’ve never cried so hard at any scene in any show as I did when Gavroche was shot. The way this production was staged, you didn’t see his death, you just heard it. This tiny breaking voice still defiant, despite being shot, and again…and again..

Better watch your back when the pup…grows up…

Les Misérables by Cameron Mackintosh, opening night November 28And the stage suddenly explodes, and whether you meant to or not you feel your shoulders shaking and the tears come streaming, but you can’t not watch. You just can’t. That little boy’s death pushes the entire rest of the revolutionary cast to action, and one by one you watch them all drop. As an actor, I had to admire the way the deaths were staged, because with most staged deaths they find a way to make sure the actor drops on the stage, where it’s sort of comfortable to lie there for  bit. Not so here. They dropped where they stood: clinging to the barricade, hanging back from it, sprawled with staring eyes and spread arms atop broken chairs and ladders and cobblestones…and they stayed there even as the barricade set split down the middle to go offstage.

And as if they couldn’t resist one more turn of the heartstrings, the first thing you see when the barricade set does split, is Gavroche’s body, tiny and limp, sitting upright in the body cart…

Yeah, I was really really glad of the kleenix.

But for all its despair and darkness and sorrow…Les Mis is not really all that miserable…the pain is all dealt with in that one scene. The show is – at its heart – about love. It’s about the fact that people are not black and white, that there is no pure evil or even pure good (a reality that drives Javier to his death as his mind won’t accept that the thief he’s chased his whole life was merely a man, and a good man, to whom he owed his life)

It’s about the human drive to survive and thrive despite circumstances that fight us down, it’s about the human heart’s ability to love being maintained despite going through near hell. It’s about the fact that love can hurt, love can kill, but love can also save…it can save so much.

To Love Another Person…is to see the face of god…

Sometimes, I honestly think that truer words were never spoken…and that’s something I think we all need to remember. A sentence that could save the world. Violence and hatred raise up barricades…love? love breaks them down…

This entry was posted in Vacations/Shore-Side. Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.