Singing the song of angry men

I bought tickets for Les Mis at the Kennedy Center last August. I missed it the last time it came through DC; I had put off getting tickets, foolishly assuming they'd be available closer to when it got to town. Pretty much the entire run was sold out, which caught me off guard; obviously I love Les Mis (it's the best!), but I didn't realize how popular it still is. Little did I know the controversy there would be over this run.

There's been a decent amount of discussion of Trump's affection for Les Mis (and Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals), with people wondering (validly) how he could possibly miss, you know, the point of the show. People tend to focus on the plot of the student uprising of 1832. Trump and his followers clearly see themselves as being analogous to the students and critics are understandably like, "???" 

In thinking about the lyrics to the show, though, it's noticeable that we don't get a lot about what exactly the students are rising against. There's a reference to Lamarque ("the people's man") speaking "for the people here below." The students are rising against the government, fighting the army. Knowing what we know about Victor Hugo, we know who he would--and wouldn't--support in today's politics. But Trump's supporters seem themselves as the downtrodden. I'm not surprised that they think Enjolras is on their side. Politico has a really interesting article about all this.

Josh Davis and Nick Cartell. Photo by Matt Murphy.

But what I want to focus on is the rest of the show. Because that is what I think about when I have the "How can Trump not understand this show?!" thought. Les Mis is about a man who breaks the law for a good reason and then breaks parole and goes on to lead an exemplary life, all the while being chased by someone whose rigid view of the world doesn't allow him to see nuance in people. Javert kills himself because he cannot reconcile a world where a criminal is actually a good person. 

The way the government is functioning right now is all black-and-white thinking. It's Javert. Something is Good or it is Bad and no further thought is needed. I'd say the overarching theme of Les Misérables is the importance of love ("And remember the truth that once was spoken: To love another person is to see the face of God") and compassion ("You must use this precious silver to become an honest man"), and then the fight against social injustice. And that is what the Trump administration is missing.

Also, Trump is clearly Thenardier, the most morally repugnant character in the story.

Cosette hits the big screen

Christmas night--Les Mis!

The sad thing is, I'm sure I have more thoughts than these. I just can't think of them at the moment.

The Good

• I loved the incorporation of elements from the book that aren't in the stage version. Marius lives in an apartment next to Eponine! He has a rich grandfather, but lives on his own! Valjean and Cosette are taken in by Fauchelevent in Paris! The use of the cafe in the barricade scenes!
• Colm Wilkinson as the Bishop. I may have spent a good chunk of his scenes getting choked up just at the idea of him playing this role. Also, he's good.
• The improved clarity of the story. I noticed a good number of cuts of songs in the beginning, but it was fine--just actually being able to see the story in a way you can't on stage told the story. Also, everything about Lamarque and the cause of the student rebellion (and the fact that it wasn't the French Revolution) was so much easier to understand. And there's follow-up to Valjean taking Cosette from the Thenardiers. It always seemed odd that Javert just...disappeared.
• The acting, pretty much across the board. I wasn't completely enamored with everyone's singing all the time, but the acting was good enough to elevate the singing. I bought the soundtrack (it was only a few bucks, so why not?), but I doubt I'll listen to it a ton.
• Grantaire. Grantaire (i.e., the drunk student) is my favorite. They took out his verse of "Drink With Me" and "What's the difference--die a schoolboy, die a policeman, die a spy?" (BOO), but Hooper had enough reaction shots of him and Enjolras in "Red and Black" to make me happy. Also! Including the death scene from the book. Seriously, the rest of this movie could've sucked and as long as they left this scene in, I'd still buy the DVD. They downplayed the Grantaire/Gavroche relationship...I think. Grantaire looked a bit like another of the students, so I couldn't quite make out who it was who had the breakdown at Gavroche's death.
• Hadley Fraser. He was Grantaire in the 25th anniversary concert and Raoul in the Phantom 25th anniversary concert and played the officer who led the charge against the barricade. I adore him. I had thought his role would be a minor role, but he actually got a bit of screen time. And some interesting acting choices. He seemed conflicted about what was going on, which is not something you normally hear from the officer's offstage voice in the show.
• I kind of fell in love with Aaron Tveit as Enjolras.
• The scene with the Thenardiers and Javert. I could've watched that FOREVER.
• Russell Crowe. I was concerned about his voice going in, and he certainly didn't blow me away, but he sounded fine and he acted the hell out of the part.
• "Do You Hear the People Sing?" became much, much more powerful than it is in the stage version. Loved how it was done.
• The ending. I was practically sobbing. (In a good way!)
• Little Cosette. I instinctively roll my eyes at "Castle on a Cloud," but I enjoyed her for the rest of her time on screen. Great with Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter.

The Bad

• Tiny nitpick: I actually thought the stage version did a better job of showing time passing in Fantine's descent as a prostitute. In the movie, it seemed like it took her about a week to catch Prostitute Death. 
• Taking out Grantaire's verse of "Drink With Me." Never forgive, never forget.
• Amanda Seyfried. Nobody likes Cosette to begin with, and her voice wasn't that impressive. Meh.
• It couldn't be helped, really, but "One Day More" was much less effective on screen than on stage. There isn't an act break, and that kind of number just doesn't work as well on screen. Also, the end of it was screaming for a pull-away shot. And we didn't get it.
• Though the action was easier to understand in general, I found the battle scenes at the barricade hard to follow (which is fine--you could tell that the students weren't having a good time of it, which is really all that you need). However, with the action all over the place, it lost some of its power to move me. The death of the students is one my tear-triggers in the show, and it just didn't happen. Despite the awesome Enjolras/Grantaire death scene.
• Gavroche. I know. Maybe I'm dead inside. I just don't really care about him, and he has a bigger role in the movie than on stage.
• Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe should've been aged more. At the end, it was like they realized that Valjean has to (spoiler?) die at the end of the movie and so had him be all, "Ooh, my back hurts!" Adding gray or white to the guy's hair wouldn't have been too difficult. This is what Colm Wilkinson looked like by "Bring Him Home" in the original production.
• "Suddenly." Don't care. Look, I get that they want to be eligible for Best Song categories. Still don't care.

The Direction
All of the criticism about Tom Hooper's direction is warranted. He got some fantastic performances from his actors, and did a great job with the casting. But...really, the criticism of all the close-ups is completely justified. I'm fine with tight shots during the soliloquies, but when two people are conversing, it's OK for them both to be on the screen at the same time. I wanted to see what else was going on. I want to see how the other characters are reacting--and there are moments in the movie where the reaction shot is more important than the shot of whoever's talking. I almost became nauseated at times. This is a major problem, because it greatly affected my enjoyment of the movie.

iTunes as an indicator that I have too many showtunes

I was listening to iTunes and a song called "The Robbery" popped up...and it was one of three with that title. From, yes, three different musicals: Blood Brothers, Les Miserables, and Oliver.

Do you want to know if you have too many showtunes? Check for things like the number of songs you have called "Overture" (my count: 23) or "Entr'acte" (9) or "Finale" (26). I also have 14 "Prologue"s and 4 "Epilogue"s.

I mean, I guess my "Showtunes" playlist with 1,662 songs (nearly 4 days' worth!) is another good indicator. (And no, I'm not entirely sure if it's up-to-date or whether I caught all the showtunes in my library.)

(Another note: I have 5 songs called "Confrontation," but two are different Les Mis recordings and two are different Jekyll & Hyde [don't judge!] recordings.)

Brings a tear to the eye

I was chatting with another usher last night at Side by Side by Sondheim, discussing various shows. He mentioned seeing Signature's Les Mis and being surprised at the people crying. He was all, "But I guess I remember seeing it for the first time and crying." I told him that even though the number of times I've seen it has reached double digits, I still cry. I didn't mention that sometimes I tear up just listening to a recording of it. Or how I bawled numerous times when watching the 25th anniversary concert.

Some things just have that effect on me. For example, Apollo 13. I watch it every time I run across it on tv. And pretty much every single time, I wind up at least tearing up. It's always the moment when they're waiting for them to emerge after reentry. It's the moment with Lovell's kids, when they think the module burned up. The daughter has tears in her eyes, and looks down a bit, clearly thinking, "My dad is dead--it's real." The son, at school, looks up at the clock, to remember the time it happened. And me? I cry. It's like a switch.

And I can't resist it.

Reevaluating Pradon

A good 10 years ago or so, I became obsessed with the most recent Jesus Christ Superstar, the one recorded for DVD. Glenn Carter was Jesus; Jérôme Pradon was Judas. I found Pradon captivating, but I wasn't blown away by his voice. And by that, I mean that I liked his performance despite his voice. (Witness his performance of "Superstar," which perfectly illustrates my point. The moments that he interacts with Jesus are very layered.)

Recently, I found out that he played Javert in Les Mis in the West End back in the early 2000s. I knew that he had been in the show in France, and he was in the 10th anniversary concert (as one of the students).

(Side note: He was in Assassins in France?! WHAT? What role? Wikipedia, help a girl out! He has the charisma to pull off Booth, but I need this information!)

(Huh. Czolgosz. Interesting.)

I was intrigued immediately. Thank God for YouTube, because I immediately pulled up clips of him in the role. And I was really pleasantly surprised. Here he performs "Javert's Suicide":



I'm impressed. He's not the best Javert I've heard, but he definitely pulls it off. Watching "The Confrontation", I think it's that Javert is much more suited to Pradon's voice than Judas is. Judas is too high; clearly, Pradon excels in a lower register.

It's always fun to find somewhat random actors to follow. Apparently Pradon is currently performing in Mamma Mia, as Sam. It would be interesting to hear him do ABBA.

I do hear the people. They are, in fact, singing.

To commemorate the 25th anniversary of Les Miserables, Laurence Connor and James Powell restaged the show, and it's this production that's currently on tour. (Amusingly enough, both the new and original productions were playing the West End at the same time. I admit that it'd be kind of cool to see one at a matinee and the other in the evening. I'm not sure if one has closed at this point.) It was this production that I saw Tuesday night.

In case anybody doesn't want to know the details of the new production, I'll keep discussion of that to the end of the entry, and let you know when I'll start on it. However, I pretty much assume everyone knows the story itself. (People die?)

Lawrence Clayton's Valjean didn't blow me away. At all. I don't know if it was an off night, or he's getting the plague that has struck pretty much everyone this winter, or what, but his voice just seemed very weak.

My only other criticism of the cast was would be Chasten Harmon's Eponine. Don't get me wrong--she has a GREAT voice. But hers is a mature voice, and if there's one thing Eponine isn't, it's mature. She just sounded too adult to be this girl suffering through unrequited love. It's not that 30-year-olds DON'T deal with unrequited feelings, it's just that it's expressed completely differently. "On My Own" is the best song EVER...if you're 16. At 32, it makes me cringe. Plus, a lot of the time, it didn't seem like Harmon was that into the role; it was like she was going through the motions, not feeling anything. Sad. Felicia Curry, you remain the best Eponine!

I'm not sure whether I can say anything about Jeremy Hays's performance Enjolras. Here's the thing--his hair is CRAZY. I spent a LOT of time being very distracted by it. I'm sure he sang as well, but HAIR. I do have to give kudos to Joseph Spieldenner's Grantaire--young! cute!--and Justin Scott Brown's Marius. Sounded good, acted well. No Michael Ball, of course.

OK, the new production.

The quotes I've read from the creative team talk about how it's completely different--new orchestration, new direction, new costumes. Well...some new costumes. Javert, Enjolras, Valjean, Fantine...all in the same outfits you're used to seeing. And some new staging. But some old staging. At times it seemed like a totally new production; sometimes it seemed like the same production, with a different backdrop (Fantine enters from stage left, not stage right! Totally new!).

Speaking of, I LOVE the backdrops. I had never noticed, but the old production really didn't have any backgrounds. The designer used some of Victor Hugo's own paintings to make the backdrops and it works fabulously.

However, I don't know about the beginning. Instead of a quarry, the show starts on a prison ship. Official descriptions describe Valjean as a "slave" on the ship. The issue here is that Lawrence Clayton is black. And Javert wandered around carrying chains. The whole thing made me a bit uncomfortable.

Very well done at the beginning was "Les Miserables" being shown on the scrim just after the prologue, as Valjean tears up his ticket of leave. It really shows that that is a prologue; now the real story can begin. I literally got chills.

The whole show was a rougher production than the old. Not rough in the sense of unpolished; rough in the sense of being more violent and sexual than I'm used to. Valjean was looking for a fight before he meets the Bishop of Digne. The students attacked Grantaire during his verse of "Drink With Me." There's a prostitute giving a guy oral during "Lovely Ladies" and a couple having sex--in a few positions, no less--during "Master of the House." I felt for the mother of the two teens sitting next to me.

The show works quite well without the revolving stage. There are more large set pieces that are used to great effect. The only time I really felt the absence of the revolve was during the barricade scenes. That's the one area that I'm really conflicted on; I still don't know how well it works.

Because you can only see one side of the barricade, you only hear Gavroche's death. In some ways, this works; it's how most of the men on the barricade experienced it, and it allows the audience to immediately see their reactions (Grantaire! Love!). However, it loses some of its impact. Similarly, the deaths are done a bit differently; each student gets what I call the "death light"--that bright, pure white light used when someone dies. However, there's so much smoke that it's hard to tell who was who. Enjolras didn't grab the red flag over his head...but he was waving it, which made me wonder whether the flag was just stuck. I kind of hope so. He died, and then, instead of seeing Grantaire run up as I was used to (maybe he did? Like I said, lots of smoke), each student dies in his or her turn. (With some help from explosions, and kudos to those, because it worked very well.)

(It just hit me that this is kind of ironic, that Enjolras and Grantaire are generally the first two to die; in the book, they're literally the last two.)

The lack of a revolve, though, means that things need to move faster. In that instrumental after everyone dies, you get to spend some time seeing the students laying there, the barricade turns, and then there's Enjolras draped over his flag and Gavroche on the ground. This gives time for the barricade to clear and move on. Without the revolve, though, it felt a bit rushed, getting Valjean and Marius into the sewer, the barricade set going off stage, and then Javert running across a cart with Enjolras and Gavroche.

Admittedly, that was kind of a great moment, mostly because of how awesome Andrew Varela's Javert is. I was quite literally in the last row of the theater, but his pause as he stared at Enjolras and Gavroche conveyed everything it needed to. Even so, it lacked the emotional impact of seeing them on the barricade. So I don't know.

I also enjoyed the tweaked "Empty Chairs" and I really appreciated them changing one of the lines on the barricades. Instead of "Everybody stay awake, we must be ready for the fight, for the final fight. Let no one sleep tonight" followed immediately by "Marius, rest"--which has bothered me for YEARS--they changed it. YAY! I don't remember the new lyrics, but I was just glad to hear them.

It's still Les Mis and I still found myself with tears streaming down my cheeks at the end of the show. There's a lot to discuss here--obviously, brevity is NOT my strong point on this topic--but the soul of the show remains firmly in place.

It's called acting, Nick. Look it up.

I was conflicted when I heard that Nick Jonas not only was portraying Marius in Les Mis, but that he'd be part of the 25th anniversary concert. I justified that it wasn't really stunt casting because he had played Gavroche when he was little; plus, he's clearly the talented Jonas Brother (at least, he's the one who writes their music; plus he plays drums AND guitar!) (and probably piano?). (Though it isn't like Les Mis hasn't resorted to stunt casting in the past but LA LA LA I can't hear you.)

Anyway, someone linked to a clip of his performance in a discussion of the British series I'd Do Anything, which followed the search for a Nancy in the West End production of Oliver! Apparently, one of the runners-up not only ALSO was in that concert (Eponine), but she and Nick are an item.

ANYWAY. So I heard the clip a bit and was actually impressed. He didn't sound bad at all! So that's good. And then I watched the clip. And dude did NOT impress me with his acting. He seemed very...samey. His character in JONAS was very dry, and maybe that's just his personality, because watching that clip, I just saw Nick Jonas. Not Marius. I mean, he's obviously trying to act. It just looks odd (his entrance is at about 3:00).



And then, of course, is the originator of the role, My Boyfriend Michael Ball. Here he is in the 10th anniversary concert, when he's both too old and too puffy for the part. But because he has actual theatrical training, he is Marius (entrance around 2:00). Just because you can sing a role doesn't mean that you're necessarily acting it.



(Need to keep going? "A Heart Full of Love" is here.)

"I'm one of them."

So I was thinking about why I'm so interested in the Grantaire-Enjolras-Marius relationship in Les Mis. There are a few reasons.

One is that at this point, I've seen the show [Mr. Rooney voice]nine times[/Mr. Rooney voice]. It's one of more dynamic elements in the show; it varies greatly from performance to performance.

Another is that at the height of my obsession, I subscribed to a zine about the show, called The Barricade, which was done by Sharon Taylor who is awesome and sent me tapes of Michael Ball and Anthony Warlow. I think I still have some of those issues. Anyway. I read a bunch of analyses of this relationship in there, and now I can't help but look for it myself.

The third I realized the other night, when I was flipping through my copy of the novel. It's all about Enjolras's death scene...which follows. Keep in mind while reading this that Grantaire has spent pretty much the entire battle passed out, drunk, in the cafe.

Relegated, as he was, to one corner, and sheltered behind the billiard-table, the soldiers whose eyes were fixed on Enjolras, had not even noticed Grantaire, and the sergeant was preparing to repeat his order: "Take aim!" when all at once, they heard a strong voice shout beside them:

"Long live the Republic! I'm one of them."

Grantaire had risen. The immense gleam of the whole combat which he had missed, and in which he had had no part, appeared in the brilliant glance of the transfigured drunken man.

He repeated: "Long live the Republic!" crossed the room with a firm stride and placed himself in front of the guns beside Enjolras.

"Finish both of us at one blow," said he.

And turning gently to Enjolras, he said to him: "Do you permit it?"

Enjolras pressed his hand with a smile.

This smile was not ended when the report resounded.

Enjolras, pierced by eight bullets, remained leaning against the wall, as though the balls had nailed him there. Only, his head was bowed.

Grantaire fell at his feet, as though struck by a thunderbolt.

Beautiful. How can you not want to watch these guys after reading that?

Yes, a couple more thoughts

Somehow, I forgot a few quick things in my last post about Les Mis. (You wouldn't think that possible from the length, right?)

• Would it really be that hard to give Eponine pants for the second act? It's hard to buy people calling her "boy" when she's wearing a skirt.
• I saw this with a friend who didn't know the show, and only knew the "One Day More" and "Do You Hear the People Sing?" from the Obama videos. She really enjoyed it.
• When you're sitting that close, it's kind of intimidating to have actors about a foot away from you singing "At the End of the Day" and "Look Down."
• There was a minor technical problem (some of the mics stopped working) in the middle of Act Two, but it was handled very smoothly. Of course, given the small space, this isn't a huge surprise. But well done to the actors.

I think that's it. For now.

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.

Round-up

It's not that I'm not partaking of any entertainment lately. I am. Just nothing particularly inspiring (though I did do the dance of joy when Dan won Big Brother last night--and even more so when Keesha won the Juror Prize; woo!). So what have I been up to lately?

• I'm in the middle of three books: Ghost Map, Invisible Cities, and Baseball Between the Numbers. I'm enjoying Ghost Map the most; interesting topic (cholera!), good writing, fascinating people. Plus, history and London. Win win! Invisible Cities is more enjoyable than I thought it would be; in general, I'm not a huge fan of abstract writing. But the descriptions of some of the cities are quite fun. Baseball Between the Numbers is best read in small doses, with some skimming when the numbers get a bit too dense. Some of the revelations are interesting, but I fear that I'm not retaining much.
• I haven't stopped watching tv. Maybe at some point I'll write about the shows I'm watching; Privileged, for example, is cute, but I have a feeling that unless I remember to season pass it on my DVR, I'll totally forget about it.
• Haven't seen any movies lately. The last thing I watched from Netflix was a DVD of extras to a season of Dr. Who. Right now, I have Catch-22 and Mad Hot Ballroom out.
• Signature is doing a production of Les Mis. As you can imagine, I am through the roof. Signature + Les Mis = WIN. I'm so psyched for this. And they're doing backstage tours! Holy crow! Made of awesome! The only thing that might make it better would be if Will Gartshore were in it, but I don't know who he could play--he's a bit too old for the students, I think.
• There are some other productions coming up I'm excited about--Ragtime at the Kennedy Center, Grey Gardens at the Studio, Arcadia at the Folger. It's a good theater season. Altar Boyz is at the Bethesda Theatre, and I'm thinking of checking that out.
• I need to make it to the Newseum and see the FBI exhibit. I have until next June, at least.

Why history and literature make a good double major

Not to delve into politics, but this video is awesome. And since it involves Les Mis, I'm posting it:



Actually, it's not so off-the-wall that Les Mis would be used for political means. The book itself is overtly political, written in response to the 1848 student risings (though cleverly disguised by writing about the 1832 risings!). Robert E. Lee thought it symbolized the Confederate cause and had his troops read it; they were called "Lee's Miserables."

Let others rise to take our place...

Speaking of theatre online, here's a clip from the 21st anniversary of Les Mis, when they had the original cast come back to perform "One Day More." This is just evil. Les Mis is actually playing at Wolf Trap at the moment, and now I totally want to go.

"A Little Fall of Rain" will still kill me, I bet

Les Mis is my favorite musical. I've seen it eight times (plus once by a high school, but I really don't count that), and only the latest time seemed a bit different; it was after the revamp earlier this decade (not the revival; this was still the original run), and egregiously cut the "Drink With Me" reprise, among other things. I saw that it's coming to Wolftrap later this summer, and was flirting with the idea of seeing it again; after all, I haven't seen it since 2003.

And then I saw this article, about how Cameron Mackintosh is allowing some theaters--including one in Philadelphia--to completely restage the show. I just wish I could figure out what that involves, other than the lack of a turntable, the runaway cart done differently, and the barricade being one piece. The quote about telling the story in the "most expedient way" scares me a bit...unless that means cutting "Castle on a Cloud." (One can dream.) The glimpses in the article intrigue me.

For a while I've been thinking about heading up to Philly (I hear the new Constitution center is fantastic); this just gives me more motivation to get up there--and soon.

Thank you, EW photographer

When I first got my Entertainment Weekly on Friday, I wasn't blown away by the cover. At first. Then I noticed a blurb about John Krasinski. And, flipping through it, I also noticed an article on Jason Segel. Sweet!

Let me tell you, the picture of John Krasinski is very good. The story is also nice, confirming that he's a nice guy. And I may have swooned a bit at the sidebar, in which he imagines life as an English teacher. I already have a soft spot for teachers, and John Kras + English teacher = Hot. I'm just bummed that the picture goes across two pages, making it harder to tear out and put up in my cube. Because I'm 12 years old. And I saw License to Wed for him. (And will totally see Leatherheads when I have the time.)

Sadly, the article on Jason Segel doesn't mention that he also enjoys musical theater. One of my favorite YouTube clips is Segel and Neil Patrick Harris singing "Confrontation" from Les Mis on The Megan Mulally Show. Awesome. I totally want to hang out on the How I Met Your Mother set.

Also worth checking out from this week's issue is the list of top baseball players in the movies.