I hope they rework the tour before bringing it to Broadway, too.
It's such a spotty production lacking creativity. It didn't move me one bit and came off rather desperate. It's a tiny production that also looks sort of cheap and 90% of the staging is so close to the original, it makes you wonder why not just go ahead and stage that much more innovative, cinematic, provocative, and efficient original staging?
The projections were some of the most over hyped ever, as they were used almost never and when they were there, could not be seen too clearly. I sat 3rd row, orchestra center in Los Angeles. Had my glasses on, and had trouble seeing some of them.
The lighting design was just weird. And the concept was taken directly from the original by David Hersey, reproducing much of the original color scheme and even techniques but doing it in an odd "flashlight aimed at the stage" fashion for nearly the entire show.
I liked the barricade because it was clever and efficient but I did miss John Napier's carefully constructed original, which was obviously designed to "frame" Enjolras whenever he was on top of it, but in a manner that wasn't obvious and still appeared like a random hunk of bric-a-brac spontaneously thrown together.
I LOVE the revolve and its cinematically innovative use in the show, but I'm actually OK with their not including it in the new production. I do, however, feel it was a massive missed opportunity in not allowing original directors Trevor Nunn and John Caird themselves have a hand at adapting their own award winning work for a production without a revolve.
I honestly gave the new production more than just a fair chance. I was actually expecting to surprisingly love it. But one can't deny what is there before them, and to me, it was just mediocre through and through. Much of the promises and claims made were empty, the staging concepts were a mess and couldn't make up their mind. The sets, while not terrible or bad at all, were nothing reflecting modern innovation whatsoever, not with their use of a wall of shutters that would slide in in order to conceal ancient set change methods. The designs, with both abstract and naturalistic elements often colliding on stage at the same time and not in a strategic or aesthetically pleasing way.
Some of it made me laugh where laughing isn't really an intended response. "Look Down" took the cake, because for all its claims of innovation and snubbing of the original, it directly copied the original in a very lazy, boldfaced manner. In the original, the barricade halves slowly come together center stage, turn, and separate slightly and a bridge is lowered onto it, creating an abstract representation of a city slum. In the new version, two buildings slowly come together center stage and basically mimic what was done before. The bridge isn't lowered from above, but manually wheeled about by cast members. That's not innovation, that's taking Nunn and Caird's vision and changing it up...a little, and calling it "new" and waaaay better than that tired, 1985 staging.
Other parts are puzzling in how ambitiously they resist being even close to the original when the production could have benefited greatly from the carrying over of some of the original's most iconic images, like one of my favorites, "On My Own." It can't be too hard or expensive to scatter a bunch of shuttered windows around in the background and light them from behind. In fact, that would be a PERFECTLY efficient use of projections right there and project the darn windows! Instead, the song is sung in total darkness where the original had this incredible atmosphere with all those glowing windows on that crumbling set.
I know this sounds like yet another bashing post toward the anniversary edition but that's not the intention. I'm not pissed as usual, but more just wondering why bother bringing a production that feels like a cheap rehash of a far superior production to Broadway? Mackintosh seems to think that the original staging wasn't liked (he mockingly said in an interview that he wants to bring a staging of Les Mis that people ACTUALLY like) and it seems the somewhat cold reception the 2006 revival got is why he thinks that. Not to mention Brantley's NYT review in which he spent the entire review not reviewing but bemoaning the show's return only 3 years after it closed its 16-year original run.
Yes, people have seen that version already. Some have seen it many times. I've seen it 30 times. I do see the rationale for change, but that is why I hope they rework the new production and I hope they focus on telling the story and NOT patting themselves on the back. Trust me, there is nothing in the new production that warrants a pat on the back, not when you also make unfounded commentary about the original version that was copied and cheapened, with some CGI scribble scrabble thrown in.
I'm usually very against cloning film versions for the stage, and I am not going to condone that now, but a stage version
inspired by the film that also gives shout outs to the original and is an improvement over the lackluster anniversary edition?
Just a wild suggestion, hehe.
Recreation of original John Cameron orchestration to "On My Own" by yours truly. Click player below to hear.
