Les Misérables @ Capitol Theatre - Theatre Review

Les Misérables @ Capitol Theatre - Theatre Review

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Posted 2015-05-12 by John Andrewfollow

Thu 26 Mar 2015 - Sun 02 Aug 2015


This was the third stage production – and in some aspects the best – that we had seen of Les Miserables. The others were in London's West End, and New York's Broadway.


The story was still engaging and with many layers: is it about faith or doubt, idealism or pragmatism, zero tolerance law enforcement or redemption? Probably the best answer is that it is about all those things, and much more.

For the few who don't know the story, Jean Valjean is a convict, who stole bread to feed his starving family, whose encounter with a Christ-like priest turns his life around, and who adopts Cosette, the daughter of Fantine, an abandoned mother forced into prostitution.


Valjean and Cosette, fleeing Inspector Javert who wants to imprison Valjean for breaking his bond, encounter students planning revolution against an oppressive regime. Cosette falls in love with Marius, as he joins his fellow revolutionaries in an idealistic but clearly doomed enterprise. Valjean is determined to protect the man Cosette loves.

The venue (Sydney's Capitol theatre) works well – its shabby gentility fits the period of the piece, and its stage, sound, and lighting enhance it. The set is the best we've seen, discarding the revolving stage of earlier productions, and using sliding panels to great effect. Advances in audio visual effects dramatise the scenes in a sewer, the crashing waves as the convicts row and wish they were dead, and the fall of Javert into the Seine.


The cast are, almost without exception, superb. At the start, I wondered if Simon Gleeson had any other approach than full voiced roar – he has, and his sensitive and powerful rendition of "Bring Him Home" is a memorable highlight of the show. Lara Mulcahy and Trevor Ashley steal their part of the show with an outrageously hammed up comic portrayal of the Thenardiers, with enough range to take in their sinister exploitation of the dying revolutionaries, and their abuse of the young Cosette. Hayden Tee as Javert is nothing less than wonderful throughout – we fully believe his driven need to impose the letter of the law, and his implosion when Valjean, whom he has stereotyped as for ever a criminal, does not act according to that pattern. Kerrie Anne Greenland (Eponine) captures superbly the angst of unrequited love. Perhaps slightly weaker links were Emily Langridge (Cosette) and Euan Doidge (as the revolutionary Marius). However for virtually all of the show the singing was excellent – capturing the passion and pathos brilliantly, and the choral singing was flawless and unforgettable.

We went to the show knowing most of the songs, but with music of the quality of Les Miserables all that meant was that we were waiting for, and welcoming, old friends.

"Bring him home", "One Day More", and "I dreamed a dream" sung as this cast sings them cannot fail to stir emotions. "Master of the House" rocked the house into a frenzy of clapping and stamping, and an awed silence greeted Javert's credo "Stars".

This musical tells a story with resonances that are timeless: about love, and heartbreak, about justice and redemption, about idealism and pragmatism, about privilege and inequality, about the tragic wastes of war.

And this production does it proud. We saw it, not on an opening night nor on a gala occasion. Yet quite clearly the cast was giving of their best, and the rapturous response and lengthy standing ovation was well deserved.

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!date 26/03/2015 -- 02/08/2015
%wnsydney
195678 - 2023-06-16 04:11:37

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