by contributor Wendy Gordon
Photo credit: Courtesy of Les Miserables
It’s been 26 years since Les Miserables debuted in Washington and it’s back for a limited engagement December 13-30.
This will be the show’s 10th performance in DC – this time at The National Theater – and for the second time with legendary producer Cameron Mackintosh’s all new production inspired by the paintings of Victor Hugo which appear through staging and projections.
This makes Washington the first city in the country that will feature the stage version and the movie simultaneously (the movie premieres Christmas Day). Do you hear the people sing?
For those who haven’t read the book or seen the musical (and there may be one or two of you out there), set in early 19th-century France it is the story of Jean Valjean, a burly French peasant of unusual strength and potentially violent nature, and his never ending quest for redemption after serving 19 years in jail for having stolen a loaf of bread for starving relatives.
Valjean decides to break his parole and start his life anew with the inspiration of a kindly Bishop, but he is relentlessly tracked down by a police inspector named Javert.
Along the way, Valjean and a slew of characters he becomes entangled with get swept into a revolutionary period in France, where a group of young idealists make their last stand at a street barricade: Cue the romantic subplot of Valjean’s adopted daughter Cosette and the student Marius; unrequited love of a peasant girl Eponine; the evil Thenardiers; and Cosette’s deceased mother Fontine.
Of course, there is the larger class message – the minor characters, etc. In short, it’s a story of the survival of the human spirit. This all is an over-simplification, but you get the general idea.
Peter Lockyer portrays the fugitive Jean Valjean. He is joined by Andrew Varela as Javert; Timothy Gulan as Thénardier; Shawna M. Hamic as Madame Thénardier; Genevieve Leclerc as Fantine,; Jason Forbach as Enjolras; Briana Carlson-Goodman as Éponine; Devin Ilaw as Marius and Lauren Wiley as Cosette.
The Broadway production of Les Miserables originally opened at the Broadway Theatre on March 12, 1987 and transferred to the Imperial Theatre on October 17, 1990, running for 6,680 performances. There have been four national touring companies of Les Miserables that have played more than 200 cities. Broadway audiences welcomed Les Miserables back to New York on November 9, 2006, where the show played the Broadhurst Theatre until its final performance on January 6, 2008. To date, Les Miserables remains the third longest-running Broadway production of all time.
Seen by nearly 60 million people worldwide in 42 countries and in 21 languages, Les Miserables is undisputedly one of the world’s most popular musicals ever written, with new productions continually opening around the globe.
Over the years and numerous productions, more than 84,000 people have seen Les Miserables in Washington for a box office gross of $53,226,585. Washington has played host to Les Miserables during the administrations of five Presidents (Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama). The 1988 national tour of Les Miserables performed Happy Birthday for First Lady Nancy Reagan’s birthday on stage at The Kennedy Center.
If you don’t already know the score by heart, you’ll walk out of the theater singing. If you do, you’ll walk out of the theater singing. Kleenex alert: Unless you’re made of cardboard, and we don’t know about you, we’re feeling like it’s an impossible task to not shed at least one tear during the course of this theatrical endeavor.
For more information, visit www.nationaltheatre.org.
To miss this would be criminal.
