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mmebahorelThough it keeps edging back toward common in the places that just make you facepalm (particularly in ODM, where they are doing the wedge except in a square, after saying they weren't doing the wedge).
Most of it is fairly stylised, and they cut the runaway cart but not the sequence - instead, it's something like building materials (or at least something heavy that has fallen on a guy) and therefore there are some lines and music cut but we don't have to contend with slo-mo running. It works really well in the small space.
This is a very dark production. Nearly everyone is in shades of black or brown or extremely dark colours and most of the light is from pinpoint spots. The set is predominantly twisted metal. Javert is wearing leather (long leather coat, leather vest, and you couldn't tell he was wearing a shirt until he took off his coat to join the students because it was black and blended right in, like ChauChau's bell).
Was only second preview, so some stuff hasn't been teched, particularly related to Javert's suicide. Right now, he's blowing his head off, and it's a little abrupt and not fitting with the music (and rather much anyway, but this is batshit Javert), but they're going to be flying him at some point.
Cosette gets a pink dress, which is gorgeous, and Marius gets a matching pink vest (well, ok, they're more rose or mauve, but it's a really gorgeous dress and it's adorable that they match - they're the only people who get really obvious colour to their costumes) and Steph has a wig that's lighter than her natural hair colour, roughly the same colour as Tracy's Fantine wig, a dark blonde, thank god.
Wig issues - there should be a petition to get Chris Sizemore a better wig. I adore Chris, and he's vocally great, and he has some really brilliant acting moments, but I cannot look at him if he's going to continue wearing this wig. It's dark and sorta puffy and if it were actually curly, one could call it a fro, except it isn't, it looks like someone sheared a sheep and stuck it to his scalp. It's really bad.
Tracy is gorgeous, but the staging isn't as tough as I'd like for Fantine. She has some really beautiful tiny gestures, though, of constantly feeling for her money, shifting it between in her corset and in her glove, always checking that it's still there. She needs to act sick earlier, but she definitely coughs like she's dying when she's in the hospital (though there's something going around - several people accidentally dropped kleenex on stage). She gives the impression of being tough enough to handle the foreman as necessary, but she doesn't get to spit in Valjean's face, which is sad. It's staging, not Tracy - I love Tracy.
Tom Zemon's Javert is batshit. I mean, he makes Jerome Pradon look sane. He enjoys watching the convicts get beat up, he kicks the gang members around when threatening arrest, and he's about to do some fairly nasty things to Fantine, one would suspect from how he storms over her to on "Honest work, just reward". He seems vocally off at the moment - as I said, something's going around, and Suicide was better and he may have been holding back for that. He's also kind of angry snippy. and he stares a lot. It's freaky and weird and vastly entertaining though really not accurate.
Greg Stone is sick, but he's still awesome, and his BHH was still gorgeous. He was my first, I will always adore him, and he's still really really good. Oh, and in good news, for once we have convicts with cropped hair! Sadly, Valjean still has the beard, but at least there's a distinct difference in appearance between convicts and not convicts and thus it's obvious when he's released that he's not like the other people. Unfortunately, they are using the numbered brands, which is fraking stupid because if Champmathieu has a brand, it wouldn't say 24601.
Revolutionary boys, instead of flags and blue white and red stuff, get lovely underground socialist bits of red cloth to use as armbands or scarves or whatever - really really awesome because a) it's accurate and b) you get the sense that they need something they can quickly hide or that makes sense only to an initiate. Sadly, R has been replaced by Bahorel. I'm serious. There's the student who drinks too much and goofs around and Enjolras can't really control, but he's wholly for the revolution, until on the barricade he gets shot - first one shot - and turns all bitter (because it's all fun and games until you personally get a bullet to the arm). I can see Bahorel being pissed off at getting shot had he not been shot dead. So the lines still work, but R is not a character. Still, at least the lines make sense coming from the person delivering them, which is better than several of the regionals.
Andrew Call has an incredibly gorgeous voice, the Marius part has been pulled down for him, I think I'm in love, and he's just generally awesome.
Christopher Bloch and Sherri Edelen are absolutely amazing as the Thenardiers. He's practically a klepto (he steals from everyone in the inn - oh, and the travelers are friends meeting up there on the journey, which is cool in itself); she's a drunken hag who partners with him in everything. Eric has her in the sewers! They are slimy, they are conniving, they don't push the material because the material is fine, and they are actually funny because they don't really see the humour in what they are doing until Beggar at the Feast. I was looking forward to Thenardier scenes because they are awesome.
Felicia's Eponine spends a lot of time in her head. She's not one of the tough Eponines, or insane in that kind of way, but she follows Marius around with this hopeful and almost beatific smile on her face, just kind of basking in his presence, except he's always ruining it by not doing what dream!Marius would do. The first bit of OMO, she sits down on a pile of rubble and is imagining Marius there beside her and is practically feeling him up, with the same look she always has when she looks at him, so you realise that she seems to live in her head a lot.
Steph is gorgeous, as always, and while most of the show is Broadway script but with Little People instead of 10 little bullet, the whole IML has been restored (if only the whole Come to Me had been restored). So she gets to work up to her little tantrum, and Greg doesn't take the bait, and after he walks off, she runs off after him to apologise.
Chris, other than the wig, is pretty good. It's particularly awesome that, after Valjean "shoots" Javert, Chris keeps looking into the alley with a really worried look on his face, and possibly hoping that Javert wasn't actually dead, because shooting a cop is kinda, you know, grounds for getting killed.
No women on the barricade - women's harmony in DWM done by a couple pairs on the side, which looked like the women waiting at home, but together, seeking friendship with those who would understand their worries. But female ensemble is at times more than just there - Madeleine has a personality! (She's trying to get pushed into going with some skanky guy and doesn't want to do it, and her pimp sorta gives her sympathy instead of being a total dick.)
R and Combeferre both shot in first attack. Everyone gets blood packs for final battle, which need some work, because everyone dies really badly. Most die on the barricade, which gets pulled upstage and then hidden behind a screen that is in constant use for entrances and exits (it's Valjean's house, for example, and where the poor people enter for Look Down, etc.), except for one boy, who is left in a pinpoint spot and becomes the body Thenardier's robbing.
It's really generally awesome and I'll take questions - obv. I'm doing this quickly and can't remember what all I want to get down other than OMG Andrew Call is awesome. Also, I need a "Batshit Javert is batshit" icon once we have production photos. Because god, was Tom entertaining. Like Hal Fowler ages ago was entertaining. Like we hoped Brad Little would be entertaining (he screamed his first lines of Suicide the same way Brad did, and I loled, but the rest of the song was crazy, too, unlike Brad's).
Ok, I need to get food and go to class. Expect a new post related to this on Saturday.
Most of it is fairly stylised, and they cut the runaway cart but not the sequence - instead, it's something like building materials (or at least something heavy that has fallen on a guy) and therefore there are some lines and music cut but we don't have to contend with slo-mo running. It works really well in the small space.
This is a very dark production. Nearly everyone is in shades of black or brown or extremely dark colours and most of the light is from pinpoint spots. The set is predominantly twisted metal. Javert is wearing leather (long leather coat, leather vest, and you couldn't tell he was wearing a shirt until he took off his coat to join the students because it was black and blended right in, like ChauChau's bell).
Was only second preview, so some stuff hasn't been teched, particularly related to Javert's suicide. Right now, he's blowing his head off, and it's a little abrupt and not fitting with the music (and rather much anyway, but this is batshit Javert), but they're going to be flying him at some point.
Cosette gets a pink dress, which is gorgeous, and Marius gets a matching pink vest (well, ok, they're more rose or mauve, but it's a really gorgeous dress and it's adorable that they match - they're the only people who get really obvious colour to their costumes) and Steph has a wig that's lighter than her natural hair colour, roughly the same colour as Tracy's Fantine wig, a dark blonde, thank god.
Wig issues - there should be a petition to get Chris Sizemore a better wig. I adore Chris, and he's vocally great, and he has some really brilliant acting moments, but I cannot look at him if he's going to continue wearing this wig. It's dark and sorta puffy and if it were actually curly, one could call it a fro, except it isn't, it looks like someone sheared a sheep and stuck it to his scalp. It's really bad.
Tracy is gorgeous, but the staging isn't as tough as I'd like for Fantine. She has some really beautiful tiny gestures, though, of constantly feeling for her money, shifting it between in her corset and in her glove, always checking that it's still there. She needs to act sick earlier, but she definitely coughs like she's dying when she's in the hospital (though there's something going around - several people accidentally dropped kleenex on stage). She gives the impression of being tough enough to handle the foreman as necessary, but she doesn't get to spit in Valjean's face, which is sad. It's staging, not Tracy - I love Tracy.
Tom Zemon's Javert is batshit. I mean, he makes Jerome Pradon look sane. He enjoys watching the convicts get beat up, he kicks the gang members around when threatening arrest, and he's about to do some fairly nasty things to Fantine, one would suspect from how he storms over her to on "Honest work, just reward". He seems vocally off at the moment - as I said, something's going around, and Suicide was better and he may have been holding back for that. He's also kind of angry snippy. and he stares a lot. It's freaky and weird and vastly entertaining though really not accurate.
Greg Stone is sick, but he's still awesome, and his BHH was still gorgeous. He was my first, I will always adore him, and he's still really really good. Oh, and in good news, for once we have convicts with cropped hair! Sadly, Valjean still has the beard, but at least there's a distinct difference in appearance between convicts and not convicts and thus it's obvious when he's released that he's not like the other people. Unfortunately, they are using the numbered brands, which is fraking stupid because if Champmathieu has a brand, it wouldn't say 24601.
Revolutionary boys, instead of flags and blue white and red stuff, get lovely underground socialist bits of red cloth to use as armbands or scarves or whatever - really really awesome because a) it's accurate and b) you get the sense that they need something they can quickly hide or that makes sense only to an initiate. Sadly, R has been replaced by Bahorel. I'm serious. There's the student who drinks too much and goofs around and Enjolras can't really control, but he's wholly for the revolution, until on the barricade he gets shot - first one shot - and turns all bitter (because it's all fun and games until you personally get a bullet to the arm). I can see Bahorel being pissed off at getting shot had he not been shot dead. So the lines still work, but R is not a character. Still, at least the lines make sense coming from the person delivering them, which is better than several of the regionals.
Andrew Call has an incredibly gorgeous voice, the Marius part has been pulled down for him, I think I'm in love, and he's just generally awesome.
Christopher Bloch and Sherri Edelen are absolutely amazing as the Thenardiers. He's practically a klepto (he steals from everyone in the inn - oh, and the travelers are friends meeting up there on the journey, which is cool in itself); she's a drunken hag who partners with him in everything. Eric has her in the sewers! They are slimy, they are conniving, they don't push the material because the material is fine, and they are actually funny because they don't really see the humour in what they are doing until Beggar at the Feast. I was looking forward to Thenardier scenes because they are awesome.
Felicia's Eponine spends a lot of time in her head. She's not one of the tough Eponines, or insane in that kind of way, but she follows Marius around with this hopeful and almost beatific smile on her face, just kind of basking in his presence, except he's always ruining it by not doing what dream!Marius would do. The first bit of OMO, she sits down on a pile of rubble and is imagining Marius there beside her and is practically feeling him up, with the same look she always has when she looks at him, so you realise that she seems to live in her head a lot.
Steph is gorgeous, as always, and while most of the show is Broadway script but with Little People instead of 10 little bullet, the whole IML has been restored (if only the whole Come to Me had been restored). So she gets to work up to her little tantrum, and Greg doesn't take the bait, and after he walks off, she runs off after him to apologise.
Chris, other than the wig, is pretty good. It's particularly awesome that, after Valjean "shoots" Javert, Chris keeps looking into the alley with a really worried look on his face, and possibly hoping that Javert wasn't actually dead, because shooting a cop is kinda, you know, grounds for getting killed.
No women on the barricade - women's harmony in DWM done by a couple pairs on the side, which looked like the women waiting at home, but together, seeking friendship with those who would understand their worries. But female ensemble is at times more than just there - Madeleine has a personality! (She's trying to get pushed into going with some skanky guy and doesn't want to do it, and her pimp sorta gives her sympathy instead of being a total dick.)
R and Combeferre both shot in first attack. Everyone gets blood packs for final battle, which need some work, because everyone dies really badly. Most die on the barricade, which gets pulled upstage and then hidden behind a screen that is in constant use for entrances and exits (it's Valjean's house, for example, and where the poor people enter for Look Down, etc.), except for one boy, who is left in a pinpoint spot and becomes the body Thenardier's robbing.
It's really generally awesome and I'll take questions - obv. I'm doing this quickly and can't remember what all I want to get down other than OMG Andrew Call is awesome. Also, I need a "Batshit Javert is batshit" icon once we have production photos. Because god, was Tom entertaining. Like Hal Fowler ages ago was entertaining. Like we hoped Brad Little would be entertaining (he screamed his first lines of Suicide the same way Brad did, and I loled, but the rest of the song was crazy, too, unlike Brad's).
Ok, I need to get food and go to class. Expect a new post related to this on Saturday.