#1
Posted: 11/19/06 at 10:43am
Don't listen to the negative reviews--the show is as emotionally powerful and as beautiful as ever. The new cast and the orchestrations make the show feel more intimate than it ever has. Nearly everyone signed at the stage door last night, and Valjean and Javert (I don't have my Playbill in front of me and I don't want to get the spelling of their names wrong) were especially talkative and friendly. Daphne came out last (around 11:30), probably because it was her birthday, and she was the most friendly and excited of all the cast. She posed for pictures and then chatted with these three teenage boys for a while (who were all clearly huge Les Mis and Rent fans). They then serenaded her with a version of happy birthday, and Daphne clearly loved it. In a word, she was fierce. She just chatted on the street with everyone for a while before heading across to Sardis for some birthday celebration. As for her performance, Daphne plays Fantine with a nervous tic and on the verge of a breakdown, and while she certainly doesn't "fit" with the some of the rest of the cast, there is something new and different about her take on the role. At the end of the show, when Fantine returns to bring Valjean to eternal rest, her voice sounds less shaky, presumably because she is now at peace (in other words, her shaky singing of "I Dreamed a Dream" might have something to do with her dramatic intention).
