Theater|Bringing Him Home, Yet Again

While I was watching the new revival of 'Les Misérables,' it occurred to me that this beloved stage adaptation of Victor Hugo's novel may have helped pave the way for the pop singing contests that have proliferated across the globe in this century.

Much like those televised competitions - 'American Idol' and 'The Voice' being the national brand leaders - 'Les Misérables' presents audiences with a stage full of singers who, one by one, have a chance to step into the spotlight (in this case a very smoke-suffused one) and astonish us with the mighty heft and range of their voices. The through-sung score, by Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil (the English lyrics are by Herbert Kretzmer), boasts a passel of throat-searing numbers that build to rousing climaxes. Theatergoers at the reviewed performance cheered as if they were indeed at a sing-off featuring fresh-faced young performers singing pop favorites with all the dazzling flourishes they could muster.

As pretty much everyone by now knows, the musical dramatizes the elaborate tale of an unfortunate French guy who stole a loaf of bread and lived to regret it. The production that opened at the Imperial Theater on Sunday night, returning the show to Broadway to capitalize on the popularity of the recent movie version, gives it an update of sorts. The original London staging by John Caird and Trevor Nunn, with its famous turntable set, has been set aside in favor of a new one, directed by Laurence Connor and James Powell, with nothing spinning around except maybe the drunken revelers at the tavern. (A short-lived revival that came to Broadway in 2006, just three years after the long-running original closed, was a facsimile of that production.)

What's that French saying? Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. 'Les Misérables' does not provide a director much leeway to tinker with its firmly typed good-guy bad-guy characters and its heaving, melodramatic plot. Casting and matters of crowd control are of paramount importance.

True, the sets by Matt Kinley, augmented by his 'image design' drawn from the paintings of Hugo himself, seem aimed squarely at mimicking aspects of the cinematic experience. There are several atmospheric video sequences projected onto a screen at the back of the set, for example, so that we can follow Jean Valjean (Ramin Karimloo) as he slogs through the Paris sewers with the wounded young Marius (Andy Mientus) on his back. Mr. Kinley's design also features lots of distressed-looking wood sprouting beyond the proscenium to encompass the boxes that flank the stage.

Scenic tweaking aside, and an orchestra shrunk to 20 from 27, this 'Les Miz' will offend none of the musical's fans with any directorial innovations, and will give them a chance to assess how a new generation of performers meets the challenges of the score. The big winners, happily, were the actors playing the dominating roles of hero and villain: Mr. Karimloo as the bread stealer, single father, long-sufferer and future saint; and Will Swenson as Javert, dogged pursuer of said hero and general scourge to all noble causes and pure hearts.

Mr. Karimloo, an Iranian-born Canadian performer, has appeared mostly in the West End of London, where he has played Valjean, Marius and Enjolras in this show, and the lead in Andrew Lloyd Webber's forgettable (and, at least in my memory bank, forgotten) 'Love Never Dies,' the sequel to 'The Phantom of the Opera.' Making a sterling Broadway debut, he sets a high standard in the prologue, performing Valjean's angry soliloquy with fiery intensity and full-throttled vocalism that gradually shades into more nuanced coloring as Valjean puts behind him the grim shadows of his imprisonment and forges a new life.

The highlight of his performance, and perhaps the production as a whole, is Mr. Karimloo's beautifully restrained but richly felt rendition of 'Bring Him Home,' one of the score's less thundering songs, in which Valjean sends up a prayer for Marius, who has fallen at the barricades after falling for Cosette (Samantha Hill), whom Valjean has raised after her mother's death. Mr. Karimloo's croon is as sweet as his belt is big.

Mr. Swenson, who has played nice guys with big hair in 'Priscilla, Queen of the Desert' and 'Hair' on Broadway, makes for an unusually dreamboaty Javert. (A beauty contest between hero and villain would be a tough call here.) He musters his inner sinister to snarl and glower with gusto, and his singing has both power and precision. (I liked the way Mr. Swenson emphasized an extra syllable in the word 'God' when he sang it at one point, as if the name of the deity naturally stuck in the throat of this vile character.) Javert has his own climactic soliloquy mirroring Valjean's opening one, in which he is forced to question his life's purpose, since Valjean's good seems to be triumphing so annoyingly over his evil. Eyes still glowing with thirst for vengeance, Mr. Swenson's Javert met his end with soul shaken, but vocal resources firmly intact.

The rest of the cast doesn't always meet the same high standards, although all are creditable performers within the limits of their roles. Caissie Levy's Fantine, the mother of Cosette who is forced into prostitution in the first act (you'll recall Anne Hathaway won an Oscar for the role), doesn't quite grab the heart as she must in her somewhat generic, pop-inflected rendition of 'I Dreamed a Dream.' I preferred her more gentle singing in the climactic moments, when she returns to usher an exhausted Valjean into celestial realms. As Éponine, who dies of unrequited love for Marius (more or less), Nikki M. James, who won a Tony for 'The Book of Mormon,' likewise sings with greater sensitivity when she is not required to push her voice into higher volume on her big number, 'On My Own.' (Though by the time this song arrives, one has becomes somewhat numb to the sound of the human voice rising to extremes in wrenching ballads.)

Mr. Mientus's Marius was on the bland side, both dramatically and vocally, and as Enjolras, the student leader of the rebellion seeking to bring forth a new day in repressive France, Kyle Scatliffe got a little pitchy at times, as they say on 'American Idol.' As the sweet Cosette, Ms. Hill sings and looks pretty, which is about all that is required of her.

That's more or less the full lineup for the primary contestants, but we mustn't forget to acknowledge the merry antics of the conniving Thenardiers, the innkeepers from whom Valjean rescues the abused young Cosette (nicely sung by McKayla Twiggs at the reviewed performance). This grasping duo infuses a mostly self-serious musical with some appealing comic vulgarity in their number 'Master of the House.' The diminutive Cliff Saunders capers around like a rabid monkey as he fleeces his customers with irrepressible high spirits, while Keala Settle ('Hands on a Hardbody') grimaces and grouses, shooting daggers at her husband as if deciding whether to endure him or put him through the handy meat grinder, the better to keep down the price of sausage.

This boisterous celebration of iniquity and greed has always been one of my favorite moments in the show. Here as ever, it's the dramatic equivalent of a double espresso, providing the necessary jolt of caffeine to keep us alert for all the singing and all the suffering to come.

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