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Alfie Boe as Jean Valjean<\/p><\/div>Alfie Boe played Jean Valjean in the Les Mis\u00e9rables 25th Anniversary Concert. He was incredible! Last year when it was announced that he would reprise the role on Broadway, I made a promise to myself that I would see him. This past weekend, Amanda and I kept that promise, leaving early Saturday morning for Albany where we caught a train to New York City. We stayed at the Marriott Marquis Hotel right on Times Square, next door to the Imperial Theatre where Les Mis\u00e9rables was playing.<\/p>\n
After the opening chain-gang scene, when Javert calls for \u201cprisoner 24601\u201d to be brought before him, the performance had to pause for a few seconds while the crowd applauded Alfie Boe. The man obviously has fans! And well he should, for his performance did not disappoint. He does not merely act the role, he becomes Jean Valjean. His performance was everything I expected. Indeed, after his \u201cBring Him Home\u201d soliloquy, the partial standing ovation carried on for a solid minute or more, all while he just sat there on the barricade, never breaking character.<\/p>\n
While Alfie\u2019s performance was beyond criticism, I cannot say the same for some of the other key characters. I was particularly disappointed with Brennyn Lark\u2019s Eponine. Her solo \u201cOn My Own,\u201d well-performed, will bring a tear to my eye. But to do that, I need to believe that the actress is feeling what she\u2019s singing. Lark just doesn\u2019t do that for me. I believe she was also playing Eponine when I last saw Les Mis in August of 2014. The same was true then\u2014I didn\u2019t feel it, because she didn\u2019t make me. Now, Samantha Barks, who played Eponine in both the 25th Anniversary Concert and the motion picture, makes me tear up every time. Maybe there is some benefit brought to the performance by the relative luxury of cinematography, but similar evoking of emotion is to be had when I listen to the complete symphonic recording with no benefit of visual queues. No, I found Lark\u2019s performance mechanically wonderful, but emotionally lacking.<\/p>\n
Chris McCarrell\u2019s Marius had me nervous at first. He seemed almost as if he was fresh out of school and that this was his first performance anywhere, let alone Broadway. At least he started out that way. By the end of the show I was convinced of his talent and ability without further question. Wallace Smith as Enjolras was up and down, almost warbling one minute and then bowling us over with the raw power of his voice the next.<\/p>\n
Every time I see or listen to Les Mis\u00e9rables it seems like I notice something new. My favorite minor character is Grantaire, the student whose first lines chide, \u201c\u2026is Marius in love at last?\u201d In \u201cDrink With Me\u201d after the barricade has gone up and the weight of what is to come becomes apparent, Grantaire asks, \u201cCan it be you fear to die?\u201d I have always regarded this as merely a rhetorical question, but the way it was portrayed in this performance (by Richard Barth) was as a challenge to all present, i.e., \u201cwhat the HELL is the point of all of this? Do you think anyone will remember what we do here\u2026or even care?\u201d He dares to ask the question everyone is thinking. The rest of the cast quickly rebukes him and he retreats, slumping and weeping against the wall stage left, with Gavroche offering comfort in the form of hugs. I never caught that before.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s hard to come away from any performance of Les Mis\u00e9rables disappointed. Actually, I\u2019m not sure that\u2019s even possible (for me)! I very much enjoyed this performance and recommend to anyone who has yet to experience it that you do so if you find yourself with the means.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Alfie Boe played Jean Valjean in the Les Mis\u00e9rables 25th Anniversary Concert. He was incredible! Last year when it was announced that he would reprise the role on Broadway, I made a promise to myself that I would see him. This past weekend, Amanda and I kept that promise, leaving early Saturday morning for Albany […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/romeyn.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/romeyn.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/romeyn.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/romeyn.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/romeyn.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=155"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/romeyn.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":159,"href":"https:\/\/romeyn.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155\/revisions\/159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/romeyn.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/romeyn.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/romeyn.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}