Les Misérables: There will never be anything better....- Page 6

[jmaclover]

Posted: 12/8/04 at 2:36pm

OMG
Why can't our favorite show be Les Mis? And, seeing as how I was born (well we were - since I can say that) in 86, Les Mis is the show of our time. I was in it in Paris as Eponine - and being in it was amazing!

And, fyi, I do KNOW about the older shows from before Les Mis. I just happen to like the more modern shows becuase they speak to me better!

HOW CAN ANYONE BE SO THICK?

Go away, this thread is NOT FOR YOU! AND YOU ARE DISGRACING IT!

[gherbert]

Posted: 12/8/04 at 2:38pm

That is precisely my point. Your favorite show CAN be Les Mis because it WAS the show of your time.

But if you took the time to go and really study the art of musical theatre you might understand why it is not the best show of all time.

[BlueWizard]

Posted: 12/8/04 at 2:42pm

I guess all this anger is in reaction to the title of this thread, "There will never be anything better...." Of course, that's a hyperbolic compliment to Les Miz rather than any kind of truth.

What Les Miz aims to do, it does remarkably well. And it IS a different kind of musical from the Broadway tradition -- it's style and is much more akin to French opera and British theatre (it has much more in common with Bart's "Oliver!" than Bernstein/Sondheim's "West Side Story"). But I wouldn't necessarily lambast it as "destroying" Broadway. I don't think Les Miz treats its audience like dirt -- that's Mamma Mia. Instead, Les Miz (like opera, you could say) strives for a catharsis in its audience.

Maybe people who enjoy Les Miz just don't like the musicals of the Golden Age, because they don't elicit the same reactions from them. That doesn't mean their tastes are any worse, they're just looking for a different kind of theatre (and don't say a dumbed-down theatre, either; Les Miz has more intelligence and relevance than "Hello, Dolly!" has right now. So as you can see, it's really a question of how an audience wants to be stirred).

[Cadriel]

Posted: 12/8/04 at 2:42pm

In defense of Les Miz:

It is a well-crafted epic piece of theatre, a Romantic musical with a capital R, and everything about it was done expertly. The first notes of the overture blasting out of the orchestra like the voice of God, the roundabout and sets expertly used to create the sweep and feel of a true epic onstage, it was a piece de theatre that worked, seamless, from end to end. The character lines worked wonderfully in just about every case (one could make a good argument that the Marius / Cosette relationship is too quick and perfunctory to really have the desired impact), particularly its interpretations of Valjean, Javert, and the previously minor character of Eponine - who, despite a billion screaming fangirls, is actually a role of some psychological depth, and "On My Own" is a wonderfully written soliloquy.

The great thing about Les Misérables is the intense theatricality of every moment. "Valjean's Soliloquy" and "Javert's Suicide," in beautiful point/counterpoint, are a great example of this; the thrilling and moving moment when Valjean decides to live is contrasted with the dark and entrancing moment when Javert decides to die. The depth of tragedy in the show is matched by the hope that it bears; the women who die for love, the men who die for their ideals, Valjean as a thief who becomes a man of true and unending compassion. The book of the musical catapults you through a story that took 1400 pages to tell in novel form (even if about 400 of those were Hugo going off on a tangent) in 3 hours, and it tells the story with meaning, nuance, and real characterization at every turn.

For my notes (slightly old) on the casts that I loved best, see the link below.

-Wayne
Les Misérables - Broadway 2001: A Tribute

[jmaclover]

Posted: 12/8/04 at 2:42pm

It's not my favorite b/c it was the first of my time. It's my favorite because it has so much emotion and speaks to me! It is the only show where I cried!

I'm sorry, the tap dancing, feathers, and bright lights do NOTHING for me. Even the original Cabaret did ABSOLUTELY nothing for me until the meeskite part started. The revival is so much better!

And here:

The original Bway version of Cabaret - in Willkommen the actors sing together, as one. ANNOYING. In the revival - each ensemble member added somethign different.

Like in Les Mis, every person in the show adds something different vocally. And show me another show with a great stroy line like Les Mis' and i'll show you a lie!

[gherbert]

Posted: 12/8/04 at 2:46pm

Who said anything about tap-dancing and boas?

Did you ever see My Fair Lady or South Pacific??????

[jmaclover]

Posted: 12/8/04 at 2:50pm

Not the originals, obviously, but I have seen regional productions/tours of old Bway shows....Look, I am not dense to other Broadway shows. Even my parents, who have seen the originals of most Bway shows still live the newer shows.

[Gypsyking]

Posted: 12/8/04 at 2:53pm

I will agree with you that Les Miserables is one of the best pieces of musical theatre to ever grace the broadway stage. Bet lets not forget that not even the best shows have been on broadway. For example, A Christmas Carol the Musical. That is an example of a great show with a great cast that has never been on Broadway. MSG does not count people! So when compared to Les Miserables, A Christmas Carol the Musical slightly edges it out.

[BlueWizard]

Posted: 12/8/04 at 2:54pm

Cadriel, thanks for your post -- you summed up what I wanted and tried to say much more beautifully than I could.

It's true that Les Miz has a heightened theatricality from most musicals, with strongly operatic overtones. That's why I think it must be set aside from the work of Andrew Lloyd Webber and (*shiver*) Frank Wildhorn, both of whom don't really know how to control a narrative arc or evoke the kind of intense emotional reaction that Boublil/Schonberg can.

[jmaclover]

Posted: 12/8/04 at 2:54pm

I'm Jewish, I've seen Christmas Carol - I am still waiting for Rugrats' Chanukah: The Broadway Musical!

[misterchoi]

Posted: 12/8/04 at 2:56pm

ummm no offense, and to be frank, I thought the suicide was really stupid.

[jmaclover]

Posted: 12/8/04 at 3:01pm

The suicide was stupid?

If you see a good actor, it looks amazing - and it's even better because they didn't use a thousand special EFFECT!

Posted: 12/8/04 at 3:03pm

Anything Better?

ragtime
ragtime
ragtime
ragtime

[jmaclover]

Posted: 12/8/04 at 3:06pm

I never saw Ragtime - was the masturbation scene in the show in any form?

That was nuts!

No pun intended!

[BlueWizard]

Posted: 12/8/04 at 3:08pm

If you have a problem with the suicide itself, blame Hugo. As for the staging of it, I thought it was well-done (I was impressed when I saw it the first time -- love the use of the gobo). Thematically, I love how it parallels and inverts Valjean's original soliloquy in the prologue.

[Cadriel]

Posted: 12/8/04 at 3:13pm

I found Philip Hernandez's version of "Javert's Suicide" to be almost heart-stoppingly intense, and I enjoyed the scene greatly with Paul Truckey and David McDonald as well. The right actor playing it can really make it a great final scene. It's one of my favorite musical pieces from the show, because it really allows the actor to get into Javert's mind and deconstruct him bit by bit until the final moment of the suicide - the actual moment of which, I'll grant, works more or less depending on the actor playing Javert.

-Wayne

[jmaclover]

Posted: 12/8/04 at 3:14pm

Yes, Cadriel - philp quast is awesome as well.

I luv ur icon, BlueWizard

[gherbert]

Posted: 12/8/04 at 3:18pm

I'm going to leave this thread because it is clear that the pop operas have seduced this generation.

I may be fighting a losing battle and at least you all found musical theatre through something. All I am trying to say is that it doesn't end there. Watch movies like Broadway: The Golden Age and try to keep that spirit alive because when it boils down to it, Les Mis might be what you all said it was but it is not a BROADWAY musical, and Broadway is what we love. So study Broadway and find out who Daivd Merrick and Hal Prince and George Abbott and Michael Bennett are and study their musicals. Study all the flops and all the hits.

And then maybe one of you night have some sort of revelation and realize what I am talking about. And if just one of you goes out and rents Broadway: The Golden Age or goes and buys Broadway Musicals: The 101 Greatest Shows of All Time my job will be accomplished.

Sincerely,

gherbert

[jmaclover]

Posted: 12/8/04 at 3:19pm

Ummm, but it was ON Broadway, making it a Bway musical.

And don't say pop - it's to perky.

I believe it's a ROCK opera

[gherbert]

Posted: 12/8/04 at 3:29pm

JMACLOVER,

Just because it open in 1987 on a Broadway stage doesn't make it a true blue Broadway musical.

It's more of a Broadway musical by second nature.

JMACLOVER, go rent Broadway: The Golden Age AND watch the extra feature on the DVD including the alternate ending and the preview of The Next Generation and you will see that my sentiments are not random thoughts, but are shared by the majority of Broadway professionals. Even Ruthie Henshall, famous for Miss Saigon and Les Mis, says she hates that type of singing and pushing and rock. In her words, "It comes down to [sings], 'Someone to watch over me.' You don't have to STRAIN YA CHORDS!" And you'll watch Laurette Taylor, Ben Gazzara, Gwen Verdon, John Rait, and Angela Lansbury and you'll hear over 100 legends talk about that time.

And my prediction is that Les Mis will STILL be your favorite Broadway show. We disagree on that, BUT you will walk away, no doubt knowing a little of what I say is true. And that is all I want.

[jmaclover]

Posted: 12/8/04 at 3:32pm

I've seen it.....

I don't care what they say. Les Mis sounds awesome in the audience.

[Cadriel]

Posted: 12/8/04 at 3:37pm

gherbert's right. Les Miz was not a Broadway musical. It was something very different, almost operatic in its dimensions. That doesn't mean it wasn't really good at being what it was; and, to put it honestly, it remains one of my favorite things I've seen on Broadway. (That has a lot to do with the casts. See the cast tribute link in my post above.)

Broadway is something different, but by the '80s the only person doing anything interesting in the form was Sondheim. I love Sondheim's work, pretty much all that I've seen and heard - but the Broadway musical theatre form was moribund by then. The rock and pop operas weren't just foreign invasions; they were hated because they were reminders that the only vital musical theatre was coming from across the Atlantic Ocean. The British idiom replaced the American for a while, but it was too big and too ambitious and too expensive and too unwilling to really be thorough about the construction of its books (see Chess, a show with a great score - my favorite ever - but a book that never came together despite a half-dozen versions) to really keep going. The Boublil/Schönberg collaborations had the strongest books of the lot, whatever one says about their scores.

There's no real dominant form for musicals these days, which is probably a big part of why they've been sparse and low-quality. The closest we came was the hyper-theatrical, modern music-driven Rent, but nothing along the same lines has come along with a strong enough book to support its score (Taboo had a great score, but the book was a disaster). Book is everything when it comes to musicals, and I think if you want to attribute the decline of musical theatre recently to anything, you should pin it to the fact that nobody writes decent books anymore.

-Wayne

[bjivie2]

Posted: 12/8/04 at 3:38pm

I think Les Mis is a fine piece of theatre, and undeniably one of the public's all-time favorites (if not THE favorite). But it is a flawed show, and based on the construction of the show itself I would not put it in the top 10, or maybe not even in the top 20. But the music is pretty (if not somewhat repetitive) and it's got a great visual construction. I compare Les Mis to Titanic (the movie). Mass appeal, still somewhat flawed, but inevitably incredibly satisfying.

[jmaclover]

Posted: 12/8/04 at 3:41pm

Les Mis was not the cause fro the downfall of musicals.

And I meant that it was Broadway musical - just not under Bway standards. Which are now changed!

But I am done debating!

So, favorite Student, and why...

(and everything is flawed, Les Mis just has less flaws. I'd like to add that Les Mis is an opera and shouln't be compared with shows with dialogue. The music repeats because it shows connections, or lack thereof sometimes.)

[jmaclover]

Posted: 12/8/04 at 3:41pm

And the score of Les Mis tells a story in itself. Musicals don't do that much anymore....