4:49 PM, February 25, the last production of CA winter musical Les Miserables ended with awarding ceremony to those seniors who finished their last production with CA. This production of Les Miserables had been performed 3 times in CA’s black box. Leading cast members: Lexi Williamson as Jean Valjean, Jenna Denomme as Javert, Julia Rafferty as Fantine, Aaron Lou as Marius, Maggie Guarino-Trier as Cosette, Mariel Docabo as Eponiem, Samantha Weed as Thenardier, Gianna Dimarino as Mme Thenardier, Nan Zhou as Enjolras...... I have heard some of them complained about the long practice everyday even sometimes they went to practice when the school was cancelled. However, when I saw this production myself, I was amazed and I want to say that it was worth for them to put in so many efforts.
Jean Valjean, a 19 years prisoner who had been put into jail for steeling bread for his sister and has been released, after feeling the discrimination from everyone on this “former prisoner, he decided to steel again when a nice priest who accepts him and offers him food. However, after he has been caught by the police, the priest claims that Jean Valjean has no guilty and he gives the silvers to Jean Valjean and teaches he to be a honest man. After several years, Jean Valjean disguises as someone else and becomes the mayor of a city. He saves Fantine and he confesses to Javert when an innocent person looks like him has been arrested. After Fantine died of disease, Jean Valjean flees away and promises to take care of Fantine’s child Cosette. After years of revolution, when Javert finds out he has been saved by the “criminal” Jean Valjean in both physical term and mental term, he doubts his value deeply and commits suicide. In the end, Cosette finds out her family background with her lover Marius when Jean Valjean passes away.
I watched a Les Miserables production in Hartford last year, it addressed multiple themes: love, family, justice, honesty, fate, class conflict. However, in this CA production of Les Miserables, I did not find it was especially addressing any themes. Rather than stressing themes, the CA production was devoted on some characters. That could be caused by not many people signed up for musical so the cast could not find enough substitutions. Also, we did not have singers that both meet the need of number and quality. As a result, this production of Les Miserables focused on characters themes rather than themes of the overall plot. When some of the performers really stood out, the audience felt that the specific character was probably the hero or heroine of the play. For example, when Julia Raff was doing her solo on Fantine, her sound pressure level was high enough to make the audience to forget other characters and only attracted by her performance.
The Les Miserables production in Hartford used a pretty big stage and advanced technology and property. Nevertheless, because of the physical limitation, many details and scenes were not able to represent as its original effect. For example, in the Hartford production, they used a two story stage for the Thénardier’s hotel, which showed the level of the characters and vitality of the scene. However, the black box’s lower roof restricted the space that people can set up a larger or higher stage. Though the physical limitation hampered our performers reproduce some scene of the plot, the continuity between scenes and conversations was nearly perfect, which should give credit to hard efforts of our musical people and stage crews.
My favorite character of this play was Fantine. What she moved me was her solo “I dreamed a dream”. The cast choice was perfect for Fantine because I feel that the songs for Fantine are right at Julia’s golden range. Her voice is dark and strong enough to make the sadness and desperation overwhelming the black box. Her reliability during the whole play was worth everyone’s compliment. Compared to other performers, her performance was very smooth that people almost ignored how well she was doing. But other performers, because of the performers choice were not able to meet every character’s need, some people had to perform songs that they were not good at.
Overall, this CA production of Les Miserables was quite successful. The story of forgiven criminal, blinded justice, dismantled family and the tear of longly star—Cosette. Except the poor cast choice—there was not enough boys there to play male characters, everything was nearly perfect and it was the most impressive play I have ever seen in CA. Seniors finished their final production in CA, our best performers and singers are leaving us. Maggie, Sam, Julia and Lexi, who can take over their roles next year? I believe everyone will miss them by that time.
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