Les Miserables
Les Miserables National Tour
Hollywood Pantages Theatre
Los Angeles, CA
Wednesday, May 8, 2019
My drive to work this morning started with listening to Santa Clara Vanguard's 2013 show "Les Miserables". Later in the day, a memory came up on Facebook of the time I saw "Whose Line Is It Anyway" and they included "Les Miz" in one of the sketches. It was like the universe was telling me, "What a perfect day for you to see your favorite show!"
You might be thinking to yourself, "Wait. Didn't she just post a blog very recently about Les Miz?" Well, yes. Yes, I did. But now it's the national touring company's turn. When I arrived at the theatre, I had plenty of time to shop and relax before being allowed to enter the house and find my seat, which was on the left aisle of the mezzanine in row K, seat 19.
I reminisced about seeing the show my very first time, and it was in this theater, also in the mezzanine, but in one of the back rows. I was with my family and my best friend's family, and that night, I fell in love with a show that would continue to touch my heart 25 years later.
 |
| I always love seeing the iconic poster in LA! |
 |
| View from my seat |
 |
| View of stage at intermission |
- I enjoyed listening to Nick Cartell's voice (Valjean). It was strong and powerful, and he hit that high note in "Bring Him Home" and other songs just beautifully.
- I also liked Andrew Maughan's voice (The Bishop of Digne), and I see now in the program that he is one of the understudies for Valjean, which makes perfect sense to me. I'd be interested in seeing his performance in the lead role, too.
- As I watch Les Miz more and more, I have come to really despise the Factory Girl. I guess I'm supposed to do so, but still, she's just so hateful.
- Aubin Bradley (Little Cosette) did a great job! I wanted to hear her sing more.
- Allison Guinn (Madame Thenardier) was hilarious. I love the way she used the baguette as her prop for her lines in "Master of the House" to show the difference between "he thinks he's quite a lover", and then breaking off a small piece and singing, "but there's not much there". Then she violently hacked away at the bread with a huge knife, and I giggled my way through the rest of the song.
- It's a shame that I didn't really care for Paige Smallwood's performance as Eponine, because that is my favorite character in this show. I thought she sounded too nasal during her recitatives, and while I thought her voice was powerful and her intonation was spot on, I just didn't feel it. Usually, "On My Own" has me in a mess of tears, and it didn't happen this time. I did like, though, the way her final note in the song echoed in the silence of the rest of the theater. That lingered for a while, and it made me smile because the audience let the moment happen instead of jumping to applaud right away.
- I did like Smallwood's part in the trio with Jillian Butler (Cosette) and Joshua Grosso (Marius), as the voices balanced well and sounded lovely together.
- Butler's lilting voice was quite nice, and her high notes just floated and were divine!
- Grosso's performance had a bit of humor in it that I'm not used to, and I quite enjoyed it. I especially liked the way he portrayed Marius' nervousness when he squeaked out the seconf line of "A heart full of love" before saying, "I'm doing everything all wrong!"
- Oh, Enjolras, always so earnest. I was distracted by Matt Shingledecker's breathing, though, like the microphone was too close to his chest or something.
- I felt like Josh Davis (Javert) didn't feel like singing the low notes much, because he did not do my favorite "Valjean" lyric at the opening of "Confrontation" all slow and menacing the way I like it.
- I don't know if that was the fault of the orchestration, though, because the entire production seemed to me like it was being performed a couple of metronome clicks faster than I am accustomed. Like, maybe the director didn't want them to relish their notes the way I want them to do so. At intermission, I thought, "Isn't it usually 2 hours in by intermission?" It was at "only" an hour and 45 minutes at that time.
- Parker Weathersbee (Gavroche) was awesome. He had a great voice, and I enjoyed every moment he was on stage, even his small gesture of offering Eponine's hat to Marius after she passed.
- Oh, don't get me wrong, I didn't hate Smallwood's performance in its entirety: I thought her duet with Grosso in "A Little Fall of Rain" was fine, but I think I cried more for Marius than for her, which is not normal for me.
- The set was interesting, because they didn't use the rotating stage for this production. Instead, they used traditional set pieces that were pushed forward, or magically floated across the stage, like one of the tables on house left. This made the staging a bit strange to me, because I expect the women to be turning on the stage during "Turning", but they weren't. I missed it the most, though, during the battle scenes, because I like how the original production turns the stage around so that we see the aftermath of Enjolras on the barricade. With this staging, they show him afterward in the back of a wagon, where they also put Gavroche.
 |
| Sorry about all of the white dots from the lights One Day More |
 |
| Nick Cartell as Jean Valjean |
