"Modern" Les Miserables?

When I first heard your description of this I thought "oh god", but after watching the clip and hearing the director's thoughts I have to say I'm really intrigued.

That's kinda what I'm feeling. I get the appeal, but in application, it just looked uncomfortable, and a little to sci-fi for my tastes. Then again, I've only seen the snippets from the video. Unless I get to see the full show, I don't want to judge too harshly. Either way, I feel like it's an interesting idea.

WARNING: POLITICAL RANT FOLLOWS:

Where are the barricades, or equivalent? The march across the Edmund Pettus bridge? Tienamen Square (sorry about the spelling?) Egypt? The 1968 Democratic convention?

I could see doing a version that takes place in an alternate US history, where Mittens won the 2012 Presidential election and governors and state legislatures are jumping on the bandwagon to deny Obamacare's expanded Medicaid coverage to the poor people in their state; where corporations resist an increase in the minimum wage even though the proposed increase is below what many economists deem to be a living wage; where retailers and restaurants pay so little that they inform their workers about how to apply for the food stamps that the feds and states are chopping; where the Supreme Court shoots down federal attempts to protect unions ... did I say alternate US history? Scratch that: How about in a dystopian present where the haves try to convince the have-nots that they're only trying to keep them from being dependent on government, and where lawmakers who are pledged to uphold the Constitution instead spend their time trying to ruin everything that a non-extremist President tries to do to help ordinary Americans?

If that's what this production is doing, I think it would work. However, I can't imagine such a production in Texas because Texas is not known for, shall we say, thinking like Victor Hugo.

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A lot of times, modernizing a period piece comes across as overly precious, but I would LOVE to see this version of it. I really like what the director has to say (even if she refers to the French Revolution... hm).

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A review.

http://www.dallasnews.com/entertainment/columnists/nancy-churnin/20140705-let-go-of-les-miz-expectations-and-enjoy-the-ride.ece

I think they might be creating an Era. I thought it was supposed to be in the future during a new French Revolution.

I'm not getting any sense that the storyline has been brought into another era, where the same themes apply. Unlike a revival of Julius Caesar with Denzel Washington which was reset to the current era - the Senate was transformed to the modern corporate board room, with the politics transcending eras, and the conflict was relocated to the middle East.

She basically rethought the costumes, from what I can see. Holding up a placard of "OCCUPY" does not necessarily transpose the storyline to a different and modern setting, unless specific issues of poverty and oppression are retold. She seems to be more concerned with how the roles are sung?

Updated On: 7/6/14 at 12:57 AM

It seemed to me that she wasn't really trying to apply the themes to a specific era, but just trying to show that they could happen anywhere by setting it in an abstract nonspecific time.

As I think about it, there really aren't that many spoken or lyrical references specifically to the time and era the show is set, except maybe the lines about Lamarque being dead. The rest could really be applied to any time or situation, especially an abstract made up one, despite the fact they were written about that historical event in particular.

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Wasn't the student uprising in Les Miserables, known as the June Rebellion, time-specific in French history, as it occurred in the early 19th century?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_Rebellion

Perhaps if this production retold the story of the 1968 rebellion/protests which spread widely, maybe there could be a more inspired parallel to what happened in Les Miserables, circa 1832 ( based on the novel by Victor Hugo, the ABC included older citizens and not just the students).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_1968_events_in_France

The themes of poverty and oppression ( including the suppression of political freedoms) are timeless and have occurred in many eras and many parts of the world. But is it simply enough to put the characters in modern apparel to relate to the relevance of these themes, without somehow altering parts of the lyrics of the musical score (such as the reference to Lamarque or even the penal servitude for stealing a loaf of bread)?

Updated On: 7/6/14 at 04:55 AM

The recent motion picture, "Coriolanus," directed by Ralph Fiennes, and starring him, Gerard Butler, and Vanessa Redgrave, took place in a modern, fictitious country, that I took to be the former Yugoslavia. However, it is far more common to use modern costumes for Shakespeare.

"Les Mis" wouldn't be hard to do as a modern story in an unnamed country despite the sentence for stealing "bread." The fortuitous coincidence of the term "bread" being used as slang for money could result in a similar sentence under a three strikes law. "Mouthful" could become "handful" unless that would violate the contract. "Lamarque" could stay, although he'd probably be dying of cancer instead of what actually killed him.

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I actually saw the production, and I confess I was wary of it, but after a couple minutes where I thought it felt odd, I was really swept away. It doesn't so much "change" the show as draw attention to certain aspects of it. I found myself catching lyrics I never paid attention to, or considering certain relationships in new ways. Maybe it's just that I've seen it so many times and it's always virtually the same production, but seeing it here allowed me to shake off what I knew about the show and actually look at it with new eyes. In the end, I found it incredibly powerful, beautifully sung, and completely, totally fresh.

It looks like a brilliant idea to me. I'd love to see the show