My cousin was in a joint community arts production of Les Miserables. We went to see it on Sunday. It was completely acted by highschoolers from six or seven different high schools. They took the cream of the crop, and my cousin was one of them. Pretty cool if you ask me. He was one of the ensemble and did a good job.
I love Les Mis - as readers of my blog may have noticed before now. Each version that I encounter reminds me of why I like it so much. The story is powerful. It hangs on the conflict between love and the law both within Jean Valjean as well as between Valjean and Javert. Then there is the conflict between dreams and reality within Fantine and Cosette as well as the students on the barricade. But ultimately each of the characters come face to face with the world and all its ugliness, and must choose whether he will join the ugliness, but do what he can to make it a more beautiful place.
The music is beautiful. There are so many significant repetitions of melodic themes, and uses of chord structure and intervals that I only am beginning to discover as I learn more about music. I love it when the various characters sing different things at the same time, but it all works together to make an amazing conglomeration of sound. I think my favorite song in that vein is On Day More. But there are also beautiful soliloquy songs, like "Stars," "I Dreamed a Dream," "On My Own," "Empty Chairs and Empty Tables," and "Valjean's Prayer."
The version we saw on Sunday had all those things. The balance between singers wasn't always quite right, but it was a musically beautiful performance. They were very strong singers, but were able to convey quite a bit of emotion in their voices. Marius was the perfect blend between strength and gentleness. Valjean and Javert both had incredible ranges and breath control. Eponine and Fantine both new how to sing struggle and let their voices soar.
However, I could still tell they were highschoolers. Perhaps I am more tuned in to these sorts of things because I have directed highschoolers and watched them interact and move. They did not know what to do with their hands. Sometimes it seemed that their stage movement was purposeless and uncertain. And the chorus tended to be distracting while duets or solos where going on. But also they moved like kids. It is hard to exactly explain, but there was too much impulsivity, quickness, and lack of deliberate-ness to their movements. But they were highschoolers, so it only makes sense they looked like it.
Thomas and I talked about if we were staging it, how we would do it differently. There were times when the soloist just wandered about, or sat somewhere on the stage, and we would give them something to do. We talked about how we could avoid those moments and movements that accentuated the youth of the cast. And we would watch out of the same motion being done the same way again and again. We also talked about how he thought about it from an actor's point of view, and I tended to think about it from a director's point of view.
But for all the staging critiques, we enjoyed it immensely. And Thenadier and his wife were really good. They worked very well together and both new how to ham up a scene without going over the top. And my cousin made a very good dead body that Thenadier dragged "into the sewers" to rob. Excellent acting there.
The difficult thing about seeing live theater is once you have been on stage, being part of the audience just tickles the desire to do get up there again. Now we want to do it again. Watching is good and fun, but is it enough?
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