Les Miserables (The Arts Club production)
Credit: AliceDice
It could be argued that the recent success of Susan Boyle (the runner up to the 2009 edition of Britain’s Got Talent) substantially increased the popularity of the song “I Dreamed a Dream” and as a result, of Les Miserables as a production. This might be true, although I’ve had a soft spot for this particular song since graduate school. A few years ago, when we were living in residence during our graduate studies, one of my best friends (DLB) sang a beautiful rendition of the version popularized by Lea Salonga. That was when I fell again in love with Les Miserables.
Les Miserables is a story with themes of love lost (and found), poverty, misery and redemption. Set in 19th century France, I remember when I first read the novel, I thought to myself – this is not a light-hearted novel. just about everybody suffers, some people to the extreme. There is a lot of blood and tears shed. There’s betrayal, lust, jealousy but more than anything, there’s a lot of love (and in the case of Jean Valjean, a lot of self-lessness). In their struggle for redemption, though, I found the characters really offer an interesting in-depth view of how realities of French society were perceived at the time.
In the particular case of this production, I found the lead (Jean Valjean) to be carrying the production throughout. Don’t get me wrong, I loved all the other singer/actors (Cossette, Eponine, Fantine). Their voices were amazing. I was awestruck by the harmonies they found when their voices were joined concurrently. The actor who portrays Valjean (Kieran Martin Murphy) is, however, simply amazing and in my opinion, he shines throughout the production. That said, kudos to the whole cast and the team behind it!
The only sad news is that Les Miserables will run only until Aug 6th so you should run and get your tickets now! Watch a clip (the trailer) of the actual production I witnessed here. Thanks again to The Arts Club for the invite!
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We saw this at the Stanley this year, and if I didn’t get laid off, i would have bought tickets to see it a second time.
I saw the production a few years back when it was at the Queen E (not the same production but..) which I personally thought was better. But then again, the Queen E is much larger than the Stanley was.
But for a production of a play to be so well done that I would see it again, has got to tell you something.
I liked all of it!
On a side note: When we got to the Theatre, Robyn wondered why the sign outside the box office said 8PM, but my tickets said 7:30. I looked again and noticed our tickets were for the day before! We talked to the extremely nice lady at the box office and she was able to get us into the theatre though as there were 2 seats (suddenly) available. We just had to pay an extra $15/ticket. Instead of our 4th row, centre orchestra seats we were up on the balcony, but at the Stanley I do not believe there is such thing as bad seats!