Now let me say first of all, that I'm no theater kid. Have I seen a number of broadway shows? Yes. Do I have a personal affinity for some of those? Also yes. BUT, and it's an important "but", I was never involved in a theater production of any kind, much less a musical, and certainly (now that I'm 22), never when I was a "kid". That fact established, I wanted to write a review/reflection on Les Mis now that I've seen it, because I had absolutely no knowledge about the story going in beyond vague cultural absorption.
The show was a mix of elements I really enjoyed, surprises at how much (or little) certain elements were present in the narrative, and some choices I didn't particularly like. Overall, I'd probably rate it roughly a 7 out of 10. It's definitely well written and intelligent, it's got good music, but I also felt like some elements overstayed their welcome.
Starting with the good, I actually really enjoyed the story. Maybe that's trite, shows don't survive decades (or the source book more than 150 years) if they aren't engaging and appealing. That said, I came in expecting a show about the barricades and the student revolt, and getting engaged in Jean Valjean's story and the people in his life was unexpected. I don't think the message is (today) particularly groundbreaking or revolutionary. That morality and the law aren't always the same is a generally accepted fact. That people can change and grow is also taken for granted. Nevertheless, I found the story compelling and engaging.
The music was also good. I did find that my favorite motifs and elements were brief, which starts to hint towards a broader issue I had with the show, but I don't think there were any songs that were outright bad, or that overstayed their welcome. Frankly, having no standout BAD songs is a pretty big achievement in my mind because I almost always have at least one song that I feel drags or repeats itself excessively.
I will say that my opinion of the music is slightly generous. I couldn't hear the lyrics very well throughout, but that's been a broader problem I've had seeing shows at the Overture Center. There are a lot of great things at Overture, but for whatever reason, it's apparently where audio techs go to die, because touring shows never seem to figure out how to balance their audio, even occasionally failing to balance the different microphones evenly. That's not really the show's fault (as a work of art), it's someone's fault, but I can't say whose.
Moving onto the things I didn't like as much. This is a broad problem I have with musicals, but I really can't stand comic relief characters in musicals. Due to the nature of musicals, a single joke song will last for several minutes, and they seem almost like a requirement for such characters. In Les Mis, it's "Master of the House", and I just don't enjoy Thénardier or Madame Thénardier as characters. They make sense, but their ruthless conning being played for jokes just doesn't make them threatening. They end up feeling more annoying than antagonistic in the end. It's not nearly as bad as in some shows, but it's a minor gripe.
In a similar vein, I really dislike child characters. Kids just aren't very good at acting, even in movies, and much less on stage. Gavroche ended up feeling like a joke character, and where I think his death was meant to be emotionally impactful, it just felt like a joke. He's a five year old running around in a firefight, his fate feels inevitable. Maybe that's meant to be a serious commentary (and if it's in the original book, I'm sure it was impactful), but it just felt like a relief that there wouldn't be a child butting in to anything anymore.
The last major critique I have was a production one, namely the use of a projector to set scenery and add effects. I hated it, the images on the projector always felt low quality, and the idea itself felt somewhat lazy. I don't need an animation of the water rushing up to meet Javert to understand his suicide. Some fog effects and a blank background would have been more effective and less distracting from the drama of the scene. Maybe I'm just some kind of Luddite, but whenever a show heavily features animated projection it feels cheaper. I'm fine with a projected background, especially a nicely painted one. It's probably less expensive than making an actual painted background for the same overall impact. But when they start using it to animate things, I really just can't get on board.
There's only one more thing I can think to critique, and that's that from my cultural understanding, I really expected the Barricade and the failed revolution to be the center of the show. That's on me, I could've read a synopsis to know what the actual show was about, but it still felt disappointing. That part of the show is the central cultural impact I was aware of (aside from vaguely knowing Javert killed himself over a moral contradiction), and in reality it lasts maybe 3 songs total? The real issue for me is that Red & Black is a very good song, that really doesn't last long enough to do more than give the impression of its ideas.
The song doesn't really explore the ideas of the revolutionaries (or even their folly). It feels like wasted potential. We get a sense of the emotion these students are feeling, that they see a new world on the horizon and the old world shrinking away. But beyond those vague emotions, we basically just hear that their emotions about the revolution are similar to Marius's experiencing love. There's something interesting there about the ties between emotions and revolution, and perhaps even about how naive the 1832 rebellion really was. But more importantly, it's a good song, and I wish it were slightly longer.
More broadly, I guess my critique is that the superficial themes of the rebellion don't connect to the rest of the show except as a plot point, but the songs involved are the most evocative and energetic in the entire show. The emotional peak of the show is tied up in the rebellion, but the involvement of our characters (and its presence within the narrative) is largely incidental. Maybe I'm just missing something, but that's how the show felt to me.
Overall rating: 8/10. There was a lot of fun stuff going on, but I think the show falls short of its potential. I'd have to read the novel to know by how far, but it's still a good show as is.
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