Recently I stumbled
into an old friend from High School, on one of my drinking adventures. Long
story short, he had came back to Sarnia from Toronto for personal reasons about
a year ago. In the past month, he was in this musical production of Les
Miserables. For the reason why this part has any reverences to my review:
Eleven years ago I had seen almost the exact same play. Same director: Carrie
Beauchamp, same theatre: Imperial Theatre, and almost the same cast. The stage
setup, the props they used, the script, and songs were all the same. Even my
friend, Adam, was also in it eleven years ago with his minor role. This time
around he had the role of Marius. The true difference this time around is that,
eleven years ago Hidden Talents' cast of Les Miserables were no older
than 19! So, there I was finding all this out and, feeling obligated to
go see this, because of the obvious reasons.
For some of you who
don't know what Les Miserable is about: The story starts off with an
ex-convict, Jean Valjean, who was imprisoned for 19 years for stealing a loaf
of bread. This takes place wayyy back in the days of the french revolution.
Breaking his parole, Valjean escapes to start a new life. In his efforts of
redemption, Valjean agrees to care for a young girl named, Cosette, for her
late mother, Fantine. As Father and daughter, Valjean and Cosette live a quiet
life together. Well, almost, Valjean is being ruthlessly tracked by Inspector
Javert over the years since Valjean escapes his parole. And the rest is an epic
story that unfolds.
(And yes, this is a
novel by Victor Hugo, also a movie that was recently made in the passed year or
two. Let alone a musical production from Broadway.)
The cast line up they
had this time around was amazing in the musical and on the karaoke stage at my
local bar of Lizards. I already knew that Adam could sing for, I have seen him
in S.C.I.T.'s production of Little Shop of Horrors as the lead of
Seymore. Let alone other school musicals and some songs he sang in the band
called Canteen back in high school. The lead role of Les Miserables,
Valjean, was portrayed by Andrew Colboure. I have no prior information on him
but my goodness, the man can sing! For what I did read on Andrew, this is his
dream role and also that, he is artistic director for Dance Academy. With all
that being said, he is also directing the upcoming musical of Catch me, If
You Can in the month of October this year. I am certainly going to go see
that. Other amazing voices of Les Miserables are a music teacher, Jen
Brown Nead (Fantine), Newly HS graduate, Garbrielle Drapeau (Eponine) and
Jayime Cowen (Young Cosette) just to name a few of my favourites of this
musical. Other people that I know in this musical are Joe Bainbridge, a fellow
drama classmate of mine and Linda Morin, Ryan of the LBC's girlfriend. *It's
a small world after all!*
The other amazing
part of the musical was the orchestra playing all the music and, the crew who
ran the sets, lights, props, and whatever else so smoothly. I don't know anyone
personally or any works prior to Les Miserables but hopefully, they'll
all get together for another musical, if not Les Miserables years down the
road.
As the seats were
filling up in the audience, I was lucky enough to have both seats beside me empty.
Even though when I picked my seat, Row E 29, both seats beside were already
booked, in reason why I went alone. However, I was content that the seats were
empty anyways. The red curtains open... and the opening scene was prisoners in
the aisles of the audience, pulling on a rope to a huge ship on stage, singing
the prolonge of, "Look down, look down, don't look them in the
eyes.." while getting whipped by the prison guards. I started getting
goosebumps as I was having an odd feeling of DejaVu watching this. The opening
scene is also where I discovered Joe Bainbridge was in this musical, as I'm
thinking to myself, "Is that Joe? My goodness... it's Joe!"
Essentially, I got goosebumps every time my favourites started singing like,
Andrew, Adam, Garbrielle.. and the whole musical was certainly a case of DejaVu
in a good way. I personally think that the whole thing was better than it was
eleven years ago.
After the musical was
done, a huge crowd and I were chatting and waiting in the lobby for the cast to
slowly appear. Joe and I were talking at one point, catching up and all the
jazz. Until Adam and I caught each others glances as we were looking over the
shoulders of the people we were chatting with. When we finally made it to each
other, we hugged, and chatted a bit on how the musical was amazing and then I
got him to sign my ticket. On my way home, the only thing I could listen to
from my MP3 player to match Les MIserables was Nightwish. Of course, Les
Miserables had an orchestra and Nightwish is metal but both equally epic in
regards of vocals. I was also thinking that going to see this was worth penny I
spend on my ticket.
