They'll storm the Bastille to get to this 'Les Mis'
Perhaps you are not among the 51 million people worldwide (yes, you read that number correctly) who already have seen one of the many "original" editions of "Les Miserables" -- the show that became the second-longest-running musical on Broadway.
Or perhaps you have seen this work by Alain Boublil, Claude-Michel Schonberg and Herbert Kretzmer many times by now, yet still thrill to its soaring score, and to Victor Hugo's sprawling epic of 19th century France, with its unsparing look at police brutality, child abuse, economic hardship and revolutionary fervor, as well its abiding belief in the redemptive power of love as a counter to man's inhumanity to man.
(Courtesy)
Highly Recommended
Through May 11
Marriott Theatre, 10 Marriott Dr., Lincolnshire
Tickets: $45
Phone: (847) 634-0200
Either way, you might very well be knocked out by the splendidly staged, ravishingly sung production of the show that opened Wednesday at the Marriott Theatre in Lincolnshire. The Marriott is one of just five theaters nationwide to be given the rights to produce "Les Mis" in its initial post-Broadway incarnation, and director Dominic Missimi has pulled out all the stops in this tremendously effective, emotion-charged production that features a number of Broadway veterans.
And don't think downscaled. Think intimate and winningly human-scale (despite a cast of more than 30 actors), intensely acted, exceptionally clear (every lyric can be heard, unlike on Broadway) and exquisitely lit (Diane Ferry Williams' work has the quality of an Old Master painting). True, there is no turntable (this is a plus, and of course the Marriott's in-the-round configuration more than compensates in many ways). But there are barricades (credit Thomas M. Ryan for the ingenious set pieces), and a sewer, and a real sense that the audience is part of the scene.
John Cudia (who played the title role in "The Phantom of the Opera" in the recent national tour here) is a young-looking Jean Valjean, yet he is a most intelligent actor with a gloriously wide-ranging voice. And you will not hear a more heart-piercing version of the prayerful "Bring Him Home" than his, with all its honeyed falsetto notes, nor will you hear a more forthright take on "Who Am I?"
Playing police inspector Javert, Valjean's lifelong "law-and-order" nemesis, is Richard Todd Adams, whose clarion delivery of "Stars," as well as his final soliloquy, all but stops the show. Adams and Cudia are superbly matched.
The creamy-voiced Kathy Voytko is a very real and sympathetic Fantine, and she delivers a heart-piercing rendering of "I Dreamed a Dream." The revolutionaries -- led by Patrick Cummings (as Enjolras, the firebrand) and Chris Peluso (as Marius, the young romantic) -- also are well-cast and golden-voiced, with Leah Horowitz, as Valjean's "adopted" daughter Cossette, bringing just the right in-the-dark quality to "In My Life," and Anne Letscher's martyred tomboy Eponine refreshingly real rather than rock-star cute.
Michael Accardo and Catherine Smitko are full of Dickensian vulgarity as the money-sucking Thenardiers. And 10-year-old Jonah Rawitz is such a zesty presence as the little messenger Gavroche, you might wish he had more to do.
But it is not just the leading players here. There are times when the voices of the ensemble mass into such a multilayered, soaring chorus (applause for musical director Brad Haak and conductor Patti Garwood and her orchestra) that the music creates its own form of redemption and even banishes memories of the witheringly funny sendup of "Les Mis" found in the satirical revue "Forbidden Broadway."
Boublil and Schonberg may have lost their way in their recent effort, "Pirate Queen," but they've always said that "Les Mis" would be their enduring achievement, in large part because Hugo's story is so monumental and heartrending. This splendid Marriott edition proves their point, and then some. A truly grand achievement.
