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Les Miserables : 15 Years onDateline: 10th July, 2000 While in London for the Our Town Story performance, we decided to give the kids the chance to see a West End show. They opted for Les Miserables and so, just a couple of hours after our arrival, we headed off to the Palace Theatre in Cambridge Circus - an excellent opportunity to take a cool look at what has become one of the staple productions around the world. The first half is too long. Yes, I know that's heresy! I realise that Les Mis lovers in their thousands will rise up and strike me to the ground in their fury, but I do feel that it would benefit from judicious cutting. Harold Hobson, I believe, suggested this in the Sunday Times when the show first appeared, and Trevor Nunn would not accept the criticism, but I do think Hobson was right. There are too many climactic moments towards the end of the first act, and each time the audience feels that the end of the act has arrived. But then the show moves on. It has always seemed to me that Do You Hear the People Sing was the natural ending, at least dramatically. One More Day is a wonderful piece of music and builds to a terrific musical climax, but the true dramatic high point has been reached and passed. I felt that even more strongly on this occasion. Of course, trying to compress an epic volume like Hugo's original is always going to lead to a very episodic structure and there is no doubt that the first half suffers on that account. In the second, there is less necessity for story-telling. The weakness of the first half, in fact, is the necessity for telling so much of the "what happened before" story. That said, I still feel it could have been tighter. The show retains its power, however, and still grips the audience. Certain set-piece scenes are typically RSC - typically Trevor Nunn, in fact! - and are somewhat mannered, with the stage picture being more important than any naturalistic effect, and this sometimes, for me at any rate, produced a sense of discontinuity, something which I never felt in, for instance, Miss Saigon. However this is just one man's opinion, and it was clearly not one shared by the audience, which was extemely enthusiastic. And whilst in carping mode (!) I have to say that I am not keen on the "house style" idea, in which replacement members of the cast adopt even the vocal tricks and mannerisms of the original performers. Whilst the replacement of any actor by another cannot be allowed to change the production - there is no place for individual interpretation - I don't see why (s)he must try to be the orginal. I always found Colm Wilkinson's voice too mannered for my taste, with its very individual vowel sounds (especially the "o"), and to hear it being reproduced so many years later by a totally different actor - whilst I accept it gives the production continuity - did rather grate on me. Reviewers are supposed to talk about performances, but I really don't see the point here. The cast are reproducing the original performances and are not really allowed to bring their own individual style to the show. They do their jobs well: they were clearly chosen because they could do so and are not giving their own performances, so it would be a bit of a waste of time to comment! Does all that sound a bit ungracious and carping? If so, I'm sorry: I have no desire to take anything away from the cast that I saw. They are very talented but, to be honest, you could replace them with any other cast from the last fifteen years, and you would be hard-pressed to tell the difference! So, has it stood the test of time? Yes, and it still has the power to grab the audience and move them. How much longer can it run? Until it ceases to bring in the audiences and the cash - and I would suspect that will be for a few years yet. Articles Indices:
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