Les Miserables Marches On

Les Miserables

at the colonial Theater,

106 Boylston St., T: Boylston

through June 17

tickets $45-65, call 931-2787

student rush (not Fri. or sat. night) 1hr. before curtain, $15

Les Miserables' world conquest has been fueled by its universal message. It is the classic triumph of good over evil translated into and out of a great French novel and onto a revolving stage with full chorus. Like all moving theatrical experiences from Greek tragedies on, Les Mis invites the audience to apply themes from the show to their own lives.

To a Harvard audience watching the current touring production at the Colonial, for example, the tale seems eerily familiar. Wasn't this just the subject of a national uproar? A juvenile, branded a criminal, overcomes unsurmountable obstacles through strength of character to attain ephemeral renown, only to have the dreadful past arise like a demon to snatch it away?

Like Gina Grant, Jean Valjean (William Solo) has served his time, and only wants to resume a normal life. But the shadowy obession of a figure from the past haunts his every victory.

Despite its endless applicability, Les Miserables is successful simply because it is one of the most entertaining pieces of theater to surface during the last decade. In 23,000 performances since Cameron Mackintosh and the Royal Shakespeare Company first produced it in London, thirty-six million people have enjoyed Claude-Michel Schonberg's memorable melodies and Herbert Kretzmer's powerful, alarmingly addictive lyrics.

Nine years after Cosette and company immigrated to the United States, it is safe to say that Alain Boubil's epic adaptation of Victor Hugo's 1500-page toms has a death grip on popular culture. It is the great international cry-fest, the teariest tear-jerker of them all. Its every laugh is tempered with reminders of the pre-revolutionary tribulations of France's lowest classes; and the jubilation of Valjean's victory over his past is mitigated by the despair of the students' doomed rebellion.

Solo leads the company, adding softness and sensitivity to Valjean's nominal roles as protagonist and patriarch. When Javert (Richard Kinsey) damns Valjean for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his family, the audience experiences Valjean's sense of injustice at his 19-year labor sentence, and lives his hope upon his parole. When Valjean protests his martyrdom while Javert blindly upholds his self-righteous resolution for law and order, we know that this will be an epic struggle.

Jacquelyn Piro--Cosette during the musical's 1988 Broadway run--brings a delicate urgency to Fantine's struggle for survival. Fired from her job in a factory owned by Valjean, now Monsieur Madeleine, the town's mayor and benefactor, she fears for the survival of her daughter Cosette, kept by an innkeeper in the French countryside. Piro delivers one of the most touching and powerful performances of the evening, "I Dreamed a Dream," as she recalls the only summer she spent with her child's father.

We finally meet young Cosette, a plucky little waif portrayed by Jeaneen Garcia (and Olivia Oguma on alternate nights), and her caretakers the Thernadiers (J.P. Dougherty and Kelly Ebsary), at their roadside inn in Montfermeil. Garcia has a charming--though perhaps overly mature--voice, and the audience feels the abuse she suffers in her foster home. She watches the innkeeper and his wife pamper their own daughter, Eponine (Oguma and Garcia on alternate nights), while she is treated like a servant.

The Thenardiers' role is to add bawdy fun and frivolity to the show, while oppressing the long-suffering Cosette. Dougherty and Ebsary, however, are simply obnoxious. Their roles call for crudity, but they are so raw (grabbing crotches and mimicking penises with rolled up paper) that they detract from the otherwise spectacular staging. The two crooks are scene-stealers in the worst possible way.

The adult Cosette (Jodie Langel) is unengaging, and her Marius (Tom Donoghue) looks and sounds far too much like Richard Marx. We hardly care whether they end up together. Fortunately, these minor barriers cannot slow the theatrical steamroller that is Les Mis.

Caren Lyn Manuel, a first-year on leave from Emerson College, plays the adult Eponine flawlessly. Her journey from the Thernadiers inn to the slums of St-Michel is tragic. When she falls for the unsympathetic Marius; the audience feels her despair. Her devastating rendition of "On My Own" rivals Piro as the evening's most spectacular solo.

Robert Vernon's performance as Enjolras underscores the definat determination of the students; and their eventual defeat does not detract from their honest resolve.

The towering set is a perfect re-creation of the Broadway production, down to the revolving stage and spinning barricades. Les Miserables survives a few weak performances to retain the powerful message and exciting drama of the original script.