Ten Little Chances to be Free (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tenlittlebullets) wrote2009-10-09 09:58 pm
tenlittlebullets) wrote2009-10-09 09:58 pm
Entry tags:
London! :D
London was eeeexcellent.
Uuuurgh, had to get up at 4:30am. Train left at 6:45, had to be there half an hour early for check-in, figure in getting up, getting dressed, getting my shit together, and getting to the Gare du Nord... yeah, 4:30. Could've been worse though. No assholes on the Metro, the border-control people were cheerful, there was plenty of room on the train so![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-syndicated.gif)
elyse24601 and I could sit together, and we slept most of the way anyway.
And then we were in London! It was kind of a relief really after a month and a half in Paris. Not just that things were in English, but that it was so very... Anglo-Saxon, as opposed to France and other countries of Roman origin. Inexplicable vibes and social cues and I just felt so much more at home. Which is not to deny the ass-kickingness of Paris, just that it was nice to relax in a more familiar culture for a day.
I knew we would be coming in at St. Pancras, but I did not know that St. Pancras was right next to Kings Cross. So yes. Because we are nerds, and it was right across the street, we went and tried to find Platform Nine and Three-Quarters. And we failed, because platforms nine, ten, and eleven are in a different part of the station and you need to have a real train ticket to get there. Boo!
After that disappointing detour we went to Camden as planned, Elyse ogled books in Waterstones, I ogled clothing in the gothy shops and stalls, and we both spent far more money than we planned to. £30 and a judicious amount of haggling got me kickass black-and-green stripy pants and a lot of hair dye. My excuse is that hair dye is twice as expensive in Paris, and the dollars-to-pounds exchange rate is still more favorable than it's been in years. Finding gothy stuff was nice, finding beat-up old gothy stuff that might've been around before the Sisters of Mercy went to shit was even better--I don't see many goths in Paris, and when I do they either look like they just bought the entire Lip Service catalog, or are Germans visiting the city.
(N.B.: I don't know about lodging or other living expenses, but right now, at the retail level, London is MUCH cheaper than Paris. The pound and the euro are almost at parity, and while in Paris everything is priced as though the euro were still equal to the dollar, in London everything is priced as though the pound were still close to $2.)
So yes. After leaking money all over Camden, we decided that £12 for Madame Tussaud's was sadly a bit much, and besides we didn't have time to do it properly. So we hopped on the Tube to the V&A museum and did a whirlwind tour of their historical fashion exhibit after grabbing a quick lunch. We emerged with renewed bewilderment at the ugliness of 1830s women's clothing, and renewed conviction that the world would be a better place if tailcoats and cravats came back into fashion.
And then it was off to Les Mis! We found the theater without any trouble (although I'm not sure what the people on the Underground thought of a couple of Americans with a French guidebook to London discussing how to get to the Queens in mingled French and English), found the stage door, picked up our tickets, met![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
eppiesue and Gulnare (from Abaissé), grabbed sandwiches and coffee and went off to fangirl for a bit.
I had BB22, which is front row all the way on house left and afforded me many lovely views. Elyse was stuck in rear orch for the first act, but managed to sneak into an empty seat in Row A for the second act, so she got to see Thaxton on the barricade without any mezz-overhang obstruction.
Seeing the London production after so many regionals was... weird. (Which, by the way, is the first word to go when I start losing my American accent. As I discovered at intermission.) There were times when it felt like another regional--a small one, both because I've seen regionals in bigger theatres and because the standard staging fills up the space really well. There were LOTS of times when I was struck by how smooth and well-oiled and generally non-awkward it was, compared to both regionals and the Bway revival. There were moments of unsettling familiarity where London unexpectedly brought in Bway revival elements like restoring the full prologue, or the window projection in Come to Me. And then there were moments where the music is just WRITTEN for the standard sets, moments I've never seen a regional pull off completely. The crashing chords where the barricade comes in after OMO. The oboe solo and the revolve. I was just so happy to see that again that I almost didn't notice that David Thaxton was covered in fake blood (how come we never got fake blood at the Broadhurst!) and lying in a position that should have been humanly impossible.
But yes. This was overall one of the best performances I've seen. I was not actively blown away, but there was a deep, pervading sense of "this is how the show is supposed to be." Not awkward, no second-act letdown, no weird-ass performances or staging decisions.
David Shannon as Valjean: Wonderful. Sometimes you get Valjeans who are "that bearded guy who's holding the show together," sometimes you get Valjeans who are trying too hard to be more than that and end up taking the role in odd directions. David Shannon was neither of these things. Very expressive, especially at the very beginning and the very end. Powerful belt. Seemed very natural in the role. Reminded me of Drew Sarich's Valjean at some moments, but in a good way--something about his expressivity.
Earl Carpenter as Javert: Also wonderful. Extremely solid "classic" Javert. He could've been more interesting during Stars, and I feel like he probably is during other performances and I caught him on an off day. Great in Fantine's Arrest--the way he just stood there staring straight ahead and not reacting to Fantine in hysterics at his feet was very striking. As was the contrast between the beginning of his Suicide, which was almost too agitated, and the dead stillness of "I am reaching, but I fall..."
Rebecca Seale as Fantine: Not a standout, but she didn't suck. Very passive, spent a lot of time looking dismayed. Pretty voice. I've heard bad reviews of her Fantine, but she didn't detract from the show for me; she filled the part well enough.
Martin Ball and Lorraine Bruce as the Thénardiers: Excellent comic timing. I've heard them described as "very panto" but it worked--they weren't cute-funny, they were so horrible it was funny, and they knew how to milk that.
Alistair Brammer as Marius: Really the only disappointment in the cast. It wasn't that he was bad, it was that he wasn't at the same caliber as the rest of them and it stuck out--all you Bway revival regulars, imagine Blake Ginther as Marius. I suppose if you're really trying to play up the "Marius is a human among archetypal übermensch characters" idea, he works, but this cast needs a real romantic lead as Marius, not someone who makes you want to fluff his hair and pinch his cheeks.
Nancy Sullivan as Eponine: Fab for a conventional Eponine. Blonde, scrappy, charismatic. I liked her ALFOR, it was very... "oh fuck this hurts but I am HAPPY. So happy to be in your arms. See how happy I am?" And Alistair was awkwardly smiling back with contagious happiness and then went wait, she's DYING, and made himself stop smiling.
Katie Hall as Cosette: Cute and sweet and I felt so bad for her because her role is such utter shit. I felt like she wanted to do more with it but making musical!Cosette interesting would've required going out on a limb, and she wasn't entirely prepared to do that.
David Thaxton as Enjolras: Was really good. Okay, he was incredible, but I've been hearing so much about how OMGAMAZING he is that I was prepared for it and never had the "HOLY SHIT THAXTON" moment. So the things that really struck me were the ones I wasn't expecting--the sad little smile at "but we will not abandon those who cannot hear," the intense fist-clenching on "IIIIS FREEEEE." Overall, great voice, great charisma, completely in character, completely in control of this whole revolution business. He is such a fanboy and it comes through in his performance. And it doesn't hurt that he's blond and pretty.
Actually, though, I have a dirty little secret: much like I could never get into Dan Bogart's Marius because he resembles one of my former professors too much, I cannot get Thaxton into my head as Enjolras because he LOOKS LIKE RUSSELL CROWE AS JACK AUBREY. It works when he's being commanding in battle, but I do not need the mental association of Jack's haplessness on shore--or the speculation about where the Abaissé pun came from.
Martin Neely as Grantaire: Was very slashy. With Marius. What the FUCK. Thaxton is right there willing to bring the ambiguously-gay Enjolras/Grantaire hugs, and you go and spend the whole first attack cuddling Marius to console him about Eponine?
Ensemble: Mark Dugdale as Courfeyrac has taken on Thaxton's "SHOOOT THE BAAAASTARD!" duties. Sophie Josslyn, the factory girl, was very good and I kept picking her out in other scenes, and it doesn't hurt that she is HOT. Master of the House was very fun--I was mostly preoccupied with watching the uptight middle-aged travellers get harassed by the drunk, since they played off each other very well, but I did spy armwrestling on the table off to one side. Nothing will ever beat Nehal in MotH, but the London ensemble is very entertaining.
Afterwards it was raining buckets and generally miserable (hi, welcome to London!), so stage-dooring was quick: Thaxton signed a playbill or two, we fangirled for a minute about how book-tastic his Enjolras was, and he went "Brilliant, we like to hear that" and took off. I saw Katie Hall halfway down the street before I could tell her how cute her Cosette was, Elyse fangirled Dylan Williams who played Joly, and then we all (plus 9430 from Abaissé, who recognized us as we were leaving the theatre) departed in search of noms. We found a crunchy-granola vegan place called VitaOrganic down the street, which was surprisingly tasty for being all healthy and stuff. Also cheap, at under five quid for all the food you could fit on your plate. By that point there were five of us so we sat down and had ourselves a fangirl party.
And then it was time to go home. Train ride was uneventful and put me right to sleep again, Metro trip home was surprisingly free of assholes given the time and the neighborhood. Did fuckall Thursday, then Friday I cleaned up some bureaucratic messes about my residence permit and attempted to register for my classes. I say attempted because Paris VII is still a gigantic mess and ONE of my classes had no problems with registration, but for the OTHER I got denied because somebody at Smith put me down as a languages-and-letters major and the people in charge of third-year computer science courses don't want to let me register.
Today I slept until 2:30pm, drank tea, read more Mystères de Paris (there will probably be an LJ post about that soon), and finally emailed the Théâtre du Châtelet about group tickets for Barricade Day. And tomorrow I am going to student-rush Barber of Seville. Life is good.
Oh yes, and I had kind of been keeping the Les Mis obsession on the down-low in front of my host mother because she is kind of a nagging harpy who loves criticizing everyone about everything. Turns out I shouldn't have worried; her father was obsessed with horses to the point of collecting obscure editions of the same book about dressage just to compare them, and her oldest daughter pretty much learned English by writing X-Files fanfiction when she was fifteen. Her attitude about it is "Ha, fanfiction about classic literature? That's a new one. And if you think seeing Les Mis eighty times is stupidly expensive, you should meet my friend who's gone to Bayreuth every year for the past forty years to see the Ring cycle." So that is one thing I do not have to worry about.
Uuuurgh, had to get up at 4:30am. Train left at 6:45, had to be there half an hour early for check-in, figure in getting up, getting dressed, getting my shit together, and getting to the Gare du Nord... yeah, 4:30. Could've been worse though. No assholes on the Metro, the border-control people were cheerful, there was plenty of room on the train so
elyse24601 and I could sit together, and we slept most of the way anyway.And then we were in London! It was kind of a relief really after a month and a half in Paris. Not just that things were in English, but that it was so very... Anglo-Saxon, as opposed to France and other countries of Roman origin. Inexplicable vibes and social cues and I just felt so much more at home. Which is not to deny the ass-kickingness of Paris, just that it was nice to relax in a more familiar culture for a day.
I knew we would be coming in at St. Pancras, but I did not know that St. Pancras was right next to Kings Cross. So yes. Because we are nerds, and it was right across the street, we went and tried to find Platform Nine and Three-Quarters. And we failed, because platforms nine, ten, and eleven are in a different part of the station and you need to have a real train ticket to get there. Boo!
After that disappointing detour we went to Camden as planned, Elyse ogled books in Waterstones, I ogled clothing in the gothy shops and stalls, and we both spent far more money than we planned to. £30 and a judicious amount of haggling got me kickass black-and-green stripy pants and a lot of hair dye. My excuse is that hair dye is twice as expensive in Paris, and the dollars-to-pounds exchange rate is still more favorable than it's been in years. Finding gothy stuff was nice, finding beat-up old gothy stuff that might've been around before the Sisters of Mercy went to shit was even better--I don't see many goths in Paris, and when I do they either look like they just bought the entire Lip Service catalog, or are Germans visiting the city.
(N.B.: I don't know about lodging or other living expenses, but right now, at the retail level, London is MUCH cheaper than Paris. The pound and the euro are almost at parity, and while in Paris everything is priced as though the euro were still equal to the dollar, in London everything is priced as though the pound were still close to $2.)
So yes. After leaking money all over Camden, we decided that £12 for Madame Tussaud's was sadly a bit much, and besides we didn't have time to do it properly. So we hopped on the Tube to the V&A museum and did a whirlwind tour of their historical fashion exhibit after grabbing a quick lunch. We emerged with renewed bewilderment at the ugliness of 1830s women's clothing, and renewed conviction that the world would be a better place if tailcoats and cravats came back into fashion.
And then it was off to Les Mis! We found the theater without any trouble (although I'm not sure what the people on the Underground thought of a couple of Americans with a French guidebook to London discussing how to get to the Queens in mingled French and English), found the stage door, picked up our tickets, met
eppiesue and Gulnare (from Abaissé), grabbed sandwiches and coffee and went off to fangirl for a bit.I had BB22, which is front row all the way on house left and afforded me many lovely views. Elyse was stuck in rear orch for the first act, but managed to sneak into an empty seat in Row A for the second act, so she got to see Thaxton on the barricade without any mezz-overhang obstruction.
Seeing the London production after so many regionals was... weird. (Which, by the way, is the first word to go when I start losing my American accent. As I discovered at intermission.) There were times when it felt like another regional--a small one, both because I've seen regionals in bigger theatres and because the standard staging fills up the space really well. There were LOTS of times when I was struck by how smooth and well-oiled and generally non-awkward it was, compared to both regionals and the Bway revival. There were moments of unsettling familiarity where London unexpectedly brought in Bway revival elements like restoring the full prologue, or the window projection in Come to Me. And then there were moments where the music is just WRITTEN for the standard sets, moments I've never seen a regional pull off completely. The crashing chords where the barricade comes in after OMO. The oboe solo and the revolve. I was just so happy to see that again that I almost didn't notice that David Thaxton was covered in fake blood (how come we never got fake blood at the Broadhurst!) and lying in a position that should have been humanly impossible.
But yes. This was overall one of the best performances I've seen. I was not actively blown away, but there was a deep, pervading sense of "this is how the show is supposed to be." Not awkward, no second-act letdown, no weird-ass performances or staging decisions.
David Shannon as Valjean: Wonderful. Sometimes you get Valjeans who are "that bearded guy who's holding the show together," sometimes you get Valjeans who are trying too hard to be more than that and end up taking the role in odd directions. David Shannon was neither of these things. Very expressive, especially at the very beginning and the very end. Powerful belt. Seemed very natural in the role. Reminded me of Drew Sarich's Valjean at some moments, but in a good way--something about his expressivity.
Earl Carpenter as Javert: Also wonderful. Extremely solid "classic" Javert. He could've been more interesting during Stars, and I feel like he probably is during other performances and I caught him on an off day. Great in Fantine's Arrest--the way he just stood there staring straight ahead and not reacting to Fantine in hysterics at his feet was very striking. As was the contrast between the beginning of his Suicide, which was almost too agitated, and the dead stillness of "I am reaching, but I fall..."
Rebecca Seale as Fantine: Not a standout, but she didn't suck. Very passive, spent a lot of time looking dismayed. Pretty voice. I've heard bad reviews of her Fantine, but she didn't detract from the show for me; she filled the part well enough.
Martin Ball and Lorraine Bruce as the Thénardiers: Excellent comic timing. I've heard them described as "very panto" but it worked--they weren't cute-funny, they were so horrible it was funny, and they knew how to milk that.
Alistair Brammer as Marius: Really the only disappointment in the cast. It wasn't that he was bad, it was that he wasn't at the same caliber as the rest of them and it stuck out--all you Bway revival regulars, imagine Blake Ginther as Marius. I suppose if you're really trying to play up the "Marius is a human among archetypal übermensch characters" idea, he works, but this cast needs a real romantic lead as Marius, not someone who makes you want to fluff his hair and pinch his cheeks.
Nancy Sullivan as Eponine: Fab for a conventional Eponine. Blonde, scrappy, charismatic. I liked her ALFOR, it was very... "oh fuck this hurts but I am HAPPY. So happy to be in your arms. See how happy I am?" And Alistair was awkwardly smiling back with contagious happiness and then went wait, she's DYING, and made himself stop smiling.
Katie Hall as Cosette: Cute and sweet and I felt so bad for her because her role is such utter shit. I felt like she wanted to do more with it but making musical!Cosette interesting would've required going out on a limb, and she wasn't entirely prepared to do that.
David Thaxton as Enjolras: Was really good. Okay, he was incredible, but I've been hearing so much about how OMGAMAZING he is that I was prepared for it and never had the "HOLY SHIT THAXTON" moment. So the things that really struck me were the ones I wasn't expecting--the sad little smile at "but we will not abandon those who cannot hear," the intense fist-clenching on "IIIIS FREEEEE." Overall, great voice, great charisma, completely in character, completely in control of this whole revolution business. He is such a fanboy and it comes through in his performance. And it doesn't hurt that he's blond and pretty.
Actually, though, I have a dirty little secret: much like I could never get into Dan Bogart's Marius because he resembles one of my former professors too much, I cannot get Thaxton into my head as Enjolras because he LOOKS LIKE RUSSELL CROWE AS JACK AUBREY. It works when he's being commanding in battle, but I do not need the mental association of Jack's haplessness on shore--or the speculation about where the Abaissé pun came from.
Martin Neely as Grantaire: Was very slashy. With Marius. What the FUCK. Thaxton is right there willing to bring the ambiguously-gay Enjolras/Grantaire hugs, and you go and spend the whole first attack cuddling Marius to console him about Eponine?
Ensemble: Mark Dugdale as Courfeyrac has taken on Thaxton's "SHOOOT THE BAAAASTARD!" duties. Sophie Josslyn, the factory girl, was very good and I kept picking her out in other scenes, and it doesn't hurt that she is HOT. Master of the House was very fun--I was mostly preoccupied with watching the uptight middle-aged travellers get harassed by the drunk, since they played off each other very well, but I did spy armwrestling on the table off to one side. Nothing will ever beat Nehal in MotH, but the London ensemble is very entertaining.
Afterwards it was raining buckets and generally miserable (hi, welcome to London!), so stage-dooring was quick: Thaxton signed a playbill or two, we fangirled for a minute about how book-tastic his Enjolras was, and he went "Brilliant, we like to hear that" and took off. I saw Katie Hall halfway down the street before I could tell her how cute her Cosette was, Elyse fangirled Dylan Williams who played Joly, and then we all (plus 9430 from Abaissé, who recognized us as we were leaving the theatre) departed in search of noms. We found a crunchy-granola vegan place called VitaOrganic down the street, which was surprisingly tasty for being all healthy and stuff. Also cheap, at under five quid for all the food you could fit on your plate. By that point there were five of us so we sat down and had ourselves a fangirl party.
And then it was time to go home. Train ride was uneventful and put me right to sleep again, Metro trip home was surprisingly free of assholes given the time and the neighborhood. Did fuckall Thursday, then Friday I cleaned up some bureaucratic messes about my residence permit and attempted to register for my classes. I say attempted because Paris VII is still a gigantic mess and ONE of my classes had no problems with registration, but for the OTHER I got denied because somebody at Smith put me down as a languages-and-letters major and the people in charge of third-year computer science courses don't want to let me register.
Today I slept until 2:30pm, drank tea, read more Mystères de Paris (there will probably be an LJ post about that soon), and finally emailed the Théâtre du Châtelet about group tickets for Barricade Day. And tomorrow I am going to student-rush Barber of Seville. Life is good.
Oh yes, and I had kind of been keeping the Les Mis obsession on the down-low in front of my host mother because she is kind of a nagging harpy who loves criticizing everyone about everything. Turns out I shouldn't have worried; her father was obsessed with horses to the point of collecting obscure editions of the same book about dressage just to compare them, and her oldest daughter pretty much learned English by writing X-Files fanfiction when she was fifteen. Her attitude about it is "Ha, fanfiction about classic literature? That's a new one. And if you think seeing Les Mis eighty times is stupidly expensive, you should meet my friend who's gone to Bayreuth every year for the past forty years to see the Ring cycle." So that is one thing I do not have to worry about.