Yes, I have many thoughts about Les Mis

I saw Les Mis at the Signature last night. And wow. It was awesome. It's one of the first productions done with its own staging, i.e., not the West End/Broadway staging. If you don't want to know any of the changes, stop reading. But you should definitely go see it. And maybe I'll go with you. Asking me to see Les Mis is like asking me to go to a baseball game--it doesn't take much convincing. (Though the tickets are a bit more spendy.)

Anyway, my thoughts? In detail? So glad you asked!

Things I Didn't Like So Much

• The end of "Who Am I?" was a bit weak. They didn't do the brief courtroom scene, so it was Valjean saying it to Javert. Who...just stood there. I suppose he could've been flabbergasted to the point of not being able to move, but it was like, "Dude, go get him!"
• I didn't quite feel the zing at the end of "One Day More." I read an article that said that contractually, the Sig couldn't use some elements of the original staging (starting ~1:10), specifically mentioning the formation during that song. I'd bet dollars to donuts that the waving reg flag was also verboten. [Side note: The article also explains why the show wasn't announced until this fall: The Sig legally couldn't until the production that ran at Wolf Trap at the end of the summer had closed.] Anyway, the students standing around, waving their red armbands...just didn't quite do it for me as much. Still a fab song, but it was a teensy bit lacking.
• The ensemble all took off in "Beggars at the Feast," seemingly much earlier than I remember it. It just felt like the Thenardiers were up there alone for a long time. It was just kind of weird.
• The Bishop's candlesticks didn't show up again at the end, which did really bother me. We did see Valjean packing them during "One Day More," but...nothing at the end. They're just such a potent symbol of who Valjean is, I was disappointed not to see them at the end.
• Thenardier's wig. Just no.

Things I Liked a Lot

• The cast. Seriously. Just awesome, all around, really.
• Felicia Day as Eponine. Holy crap. It's almost hard for me to listen to "On My Own" at this point in my life, just because it is so associated with stupid high school angst. But she just hit it out of the park. Crazy awesome.
• Chris Sizemore's voice. He plays Enjolras and looks pocket-sized (a lot of the cast seemed short, but I'm not sure whether that's because I was so close--I was in the front row), but his voice is insanely powerful. Like, "Oh, that's why the people would follow you."
• Andrew Call's "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables." He's no Michael Ball (but then, who is?), and this is a song that can be kind of blah. But dude totally brought it. And he was crying after "A Little Fall of Rain" and completely won my heart.
• Javert (Tom Zemon) was kind of hot. There were leather pants involved. It probably helped that they didn't really try to age Javert and Valjean, but yeah. Then I looked at Zemon's credits. He was Chauvelin in The Scarlet Pimpernel (three words: "Where's. The. Girl.") and, yep, John Wilkes Booth in Assassins. Sigh. He was also good with the acting and singing and such. This is eerily reminiscent of when I totally started liking the Judas in a production of Jesus Christ Superstar.
• Actually, a lot of people were wearing leather pants. (Judas in that production? Also wore leather pants. I don't know of a Booth in leather pants, though, so there's that.)
• The orchestra. Sounded phenomenal.
• Fantine's death. I liked it way better than the traditional staging, which I always found somewhat mockable.
• Greg Stone as Valjean was really expressive. Again, maybe it's just that I was so close, but I loved watching his face.

Marius, Enjolras, and Grantaire

I'm a big dork, I know. I could almost start the show with the Paris, 1832 section, and love watching the interactions among Marius, Enjolras, and Grantaire. It's great because it's not explicitly in the script and it varies wildly from cast to cast. And there really wasn't much there in this production--no accusing looks from Grantaire, no apologetic glances from Enjolras, no mediation from Marius. All three guys were great, don't get me wrong, though I would love to talk to the actor who played Grantaire (who kind of looked like Seth Rogen); he seemed way more into the revolution than most Grantaires. So it was interesting. And I loved everyone's reactions to Gavroche's death--Enjolras totally took it personally, even without Grantaire's accusatory looks.

Other Thoughts

• The Gavroche and Young Cosette and Eponine were all really little. They seemed very young. (And it was kind of bizarre that the Young Cosette didn't also do Young Eponine and vice versa.)
• They had Madame Thenardier hanging around during "Dog Eats Dog." I'm not sure why. She didn't really do anything. Did they think the audience wouldn't recognize Thenardier if he was alone?
• The biggest change was Javert's suicide. Instead of jumping off the bridge, they ditched the book and had him shoot himself. Which made sense, because dude had been stroking that gun the entire show. But it caught me 100% off-guard. "There is no way to go-" BANG. Holy crap. I liked it.
• I was bummed that Eponine didn't kiss Marius at the end of "A Little Fall of Rain." I love it when they go for it.

To Sum Up

I didn't really miss the turntable. The barricade was less impressive, but still worked. And this show...I can't resist it. The students die? I bawl. Eponine shows up at the end? Tears. Seriously, I was sitting there, like, "Oh, I'm not crying this time," and then BAM. Blubbering. This show is my kryptonite.

And watching it, I didn't sit there comparing it to the original staging. I mean, sure, I haven't seen the original staging since 2003, but the eight times I've seen it (and the six souvenir programs--like, was I made of money at some point? Why do I have that many?) have pretty much ingrained it in my mind. And the Signature's production totally stands up to it. Go see it.