Wow. Just saw this tonight and it made me fall in love with Les Miz all over again. I wish I could come back to New York and see it again and again (like I used to!).
Bradley Jaden. I don’t even know what to say. For me, Javert was always a one note character, just a grouch with an axe to grind for no apparent reason. I always used to just sit and wait for “Stars” to end bc it was dull, at least to me. His suicide seemed to drag on forever (sorry spoiler alert from 1985). BUT TONIGHT! Bradley Jaden made me feel for Javert; I had compassion for Javert and saw that he was a conflicted, fractured human being. Not only that, the Confrontation brought tears to my eyes and had me gripping the armrests with excitement to a scene I’ve sat through countless times. Then his suicide? Ugh. I had to fight the urge to run up to the stage and tell him he’s loved. Bradley Jaden’s Javert broke my heart. I want to see him star in a romantic comedy, as the villain in a superhero film, and heck let’s find an old phone book and have him read from that because I’m sure he will make it an edge-of-your- seat thriller.
Christian Mark Gibbs was definitely the best Enjolras I’ve ever seen. Another exciting, passionate performance from a strong singer.
Now there were a couple things I did not enjoy tonight. The Thenardiers had a TON of added dialogue “I hate you no I hate you more” type of stuff. It was dumb and it didn’t fit the tone of the show.
P.S. did I miss Gavroche’s death? Did they skip it bc I swear I just saw him die with the rest of the students. I wanted to get up and yell stop stop we somehow skipped Gavroches death! Everybody go back and take it from the top of the scene lol.
I was worried about the audience but other than the mom behind me who had to narrate THE ENTIRE SHOW to her daughter, the audience was perfect and clearly very big Les Miz fans. Before the show at intermission, all you hear is “well I saw it in London a few times and then I saw it in New York a few times too” lol. I wasn’t too mad at the mom because she did make a very concerted effort to whisper quietly.
the biggest problem is that I won’t be seeing it again but if Bradley ever does anything in New York I’ll be there with bells on.
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