Mandle Medley

For years, Broadway’s Les Misérables has been a performance I overlooked in favor of other classics like Phantom of the Opera or modern epics like The Who’s Tommy. If musicals were even on the docket to begin with. I usually prefer spoken theater to the singing variety.

Last weekend Catherine and I both finally saw what all the ruckus has been about over the past 25 years. It was amazing.

Not just a story about the destitute, as I had supposed given some of the promotional photography.

Not at all about the French Revolution, although social upheaval and the political and militaristic implications of the lower class are integral to the plot.

And yes, despite the title this was all in English!

What has stayed with me the most, though, is the music. Powerful trumpets. Choral bass. Harpsichords. And that recognizable medieval flute instrument.

The performance jumps right in to the music from the get-go. I don’t even remember the House blinking the lights to warn us to our seats. Everything went dark and BOOM! we were on our way.

And that’s where Peter Jackson comes in. Listen to the director’s voice-over for The Fellowship of the Ring, and you hear the fantasy film director explain why he always starts his movies off with such a bang.

It’s like a form of whiplash to be sitting in your seat before the movie starts, thinking about that meeting you had at 1:00, or the breakfast you’re planning for your family tomorrow—and then suddenly getting whisked away to a battle of orcs and the union of elves and men.

Or, in the case of Les Misérables, under the deck of a mid 19th Century French warship suffering with imprisoned men paddling a boat forward.