Les Misérables



Hippodrome Theatre courtesy of their website

 Last night, I went to see Les Misérables at the Hippodrome Theatre in Baltimore.  The last time I saw it I believe I was 21 and the first time I was 16.  Of course, those were the original productions and not the 25th anniversary production I saw last night.

from http://www.broadwayinchicago.com/

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the musical, Cameron Mackintosh re-staged the whole thing.  All the sets were redone and the revolving stage taken out.  It was definitely a different experience from my previous ones and not entirely because of the fancy new pieces in the show.  I feel like this show was shorter than the previous two I've seen (we were finished by 11:00pm and the show started at 8:00pm) and the stage felt much smaller.  The last time I saw this show, it was in the same theatre, the revolving stage took up several of the first few rows.  So it was a physically smaller space, but my father described it as more intimate and I have to agree.  I noticed there were a couple of verses cut on minor songs and the scene transitions didn't take as long.  But it all flowed very well and I had to actually listen to my Complete Symphonic Recording from 1988 to remember the differences.

I also noticed that the singing style was a little different from the previous times I've seen it.  I had my suspicions confirmed by a review in the Chicago Tribune,  The orchestrations and singing were updated for a more contemporary sound.  Which explains why Eponine could have easily been seen on American Idol.  I also have to agree with the author of the article, the stationary barricade lost something in this production.  Gavroche is killed offstage in this new production and I personally feel that takes away from the emotional impact of that scene.  Also the sight of the barricade after the battle with all of the students in their final poses isn't nearly as powerful as it was in previous showings.  Still, I couldn't help but cry in the usual places.  One lady was even kind enough to offer me a tissue.

I am a very different person coming to this show, too.  I loved this show when I was younger.  I have the original Broadway cast, the London cast, and the Complete Symphonic Recording (aka the All-Star version).  But sitting there last night I couldn't help but realize how incredibly depressing the entire show really is.  I was also unaware of how religious the show is.  Everything is tied up in this idea of religion and absolutes.  Very good commentary on it, of course, but it makes me wonder how heavy-handed it might be in the original book.  But back to the point, always before I identified with Eponine, pining away for someone that will never return her affections.  And to be sure she is developed better, as a character, than dear Cosette.  "On My Own" really struck me differently this time, however, and looking back I can't help but think of the lyric "without me, his world will go on turning," this morning.  Because it is really true, she dies in his arms at the barricade and then he's right back to Cosette.  I felt bad for Eponine, as I usually do, but I also had this feeling like she could have done better and I sincerely doubt that Marius and Cosette have a true and lasting love.  Oh, wait, maybe I don't feel that differently about the love triangle.

Still, I didn't feel every song the way I used to.  It wasn't like the words were written for my specific situations.  Of course, my life was never quite as desperate as Fantine's or as hopeless as Eponine's but it felt that way sometimes.  This time, I truly was an observer.  I watched the show and I was moved to tears, but it wasn't part of me.  I know that doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but I was glad for it.  It was like a measuring tape for how far I've come in the last 14 years.  I still have my compassion and can, literally, sob for the characters but it's no longer my life.

Life, the universe, and everything

 I came across an interesting article on Google Reader today, Voyager and the Will to Explore.  It's talking about how amazing it is that there are still working components on the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2.  It goes on to talk about the estimated decay of the current components and how 50 years after its launch into space it will still function.  They were originally intended for a 3-10 year mission, to Jupiter and Saturn, but are currently in what is called an extended mission, for over 20 years.  They've both been in space for over 33 years and traveled about 8.452 billion miles, a little over What amazes me is the amount of time involved in a project like this.  Not just the time involved in designing and testing the materials and components before the actual launch into space, but the scope of the entire project.  Certainly there were short-term goals for the mission, but they had to think about possible benefits of the extended mission.  According to the article, there are only two members of the original team still alive.  Can you imagine beginning work on a project that you may never see to completion?  Not because of funding or lack of interest in the project.  Just something that will simply outlive  you.

The only other type of job I can think of, offhand, where one will not see the finished product of one's work is landscaping.  I'm not talking about simple bushes and trees around someone's home.  In Devil in the White City by Erik Larson, he talks about Frederick Law Olmstead.  Olmstead designed several public park areas around the country, most notably Central Park in New York City, and his biggest complaint in Devil in the White City was that people weren't patient enough to see his designs to fruition.  Larson details how Olmstead would create a plan for a space and then return a year later to find the owners had modified it on their own and completely ruined the design that would take 10-20 years to develop.  Larson even states that the plan used for Central Park was one Olmstead would never have seen completed as it was designed for 50-100 years of development.  Of course, with Landscape Architecture on that scale one has to think not only 20-50 years, but hundreds of years, in the future and even then it's always going to grow and change.

Both of these jobs require a tremendous amount of forethought and knowledge of the materials at hand.  I can't even conceive of that amount of time, let alone plan an entire project to extend that long.  It gives me a different perspective on life.