Acting and Behaving

Acting and Behaving

Review of Cheshire Academy Black Box Theater  “Les Miserable”

By Victor Hugo, Directed by Jennifer Guarino

February 23-25, 2018

Cheshire Academy, Cheshire

Alexa Williamson as Jean Valjean
Jenna Denomme as Javert
Julia Rafferty as Fantine
Maddie Silano as young Cosette
Sam Weed as Thénardier
Gianna Dimarino as Mme. Thénardier
Mariel Docabo as Éponine
Ruth Berganross as Gavroche
Yuanjun Luo as Marius
Nan Zhou as Enjolras
Margaret Guarino-Trier as Cosette

The story begins when Jean Valjean is one of the chain gangs. After 19 years, he is freed by Javert. However, he is never been treated as a normal person after he goes back for living. When he is suffering, the Bishop treats him nicely regardless that he steals the silver in the church. Jean Valjean accepts the silver the Bishop gives him and decides to live another life without being Jean Valjean. Years later, Jean Valjean becomes the mayor of a town. He sees Fantine being mistreated and becomes a prostitute. He decides to help Fantine and to take care of her child Cosette. However, his decision exposed his real identity to Javert. Jean Valjean leaves the town and Javert starts his hunting. Jean Valjean goes to the Thenardiers and picks up Cosette. He changes his name again and thus is able to live peacefully for years. Years later, a group of students lead by Enjolras starts yelling for revolution when they see the people of France are mistreated by the government. Eponine, the daughter of the Thenardiers, likes Marius, who is one of the students. In an occasion on the street, Marius meets Cosette and falls in love with her. Meanwhile, Jean Valjean is having a quarrel with the Thenardiers. In this event, Javert rediscovers Valjean’s traits. Valjean thus decides to leave with Cosette. Before the revolution starts, knowing Cosette is leaving, Marius writes a letter and asks Eponine to deliver the letter to Cosette. Valjean gets the letter and thus decides to find Marius in the revolution group. During the revolution, Javert tries to spy the students but is discovered by Gavroche. Valjean frees Javert. After the failure of the revolution, Marius and Valjean are injured, while all other students die including Gavroche and Enjolras. Valjean takes Marius and leaves. On their way back, Javert finds Valjean again but this time he lets go Valjean and Marius. Under a depression of Valjean’s personality, Javert commits suicide by jumping into the river. Marius meets Cosette again and remorses about the death of the students. In a rejoicing moment, Valjean calls up to Marius and tells Marius his true name. Marius dislikes the bad part of him without knowing Valjean saved him in the battle. Marius marries Cosette without Valjean presences. In the wedding, the Thenardiers accidentally tells Marius that Valjean saved him. Marius and Cosette thus storms back to Jean Valjean in his last minutes.

This play is interesting. There were many parallels and oppositions presented. There are two pairs of parallels and oppositions in the play in terms of characters. One of them is Jean Valjean and Javert, and the other one is Cosette, Eponine, and Marius.

The relationship between Jean Valjean and Javert is complicated. In this version of the play, is presented as an opposition. Jean Valjean sees Javert as a potential of life ruiner who can stripoff Cosette’s happiness without mercy, while Javert sees Valjean an exception of Law who he should hunt to redefine the justice. Their relationship is thus not just hostile, they are all fighting for their “law” but none of them is wrong. Since I did not have chance to see these two people on the stage at the same time often, I could not tell many choices that this production make in terms of positions and lightings. However, I can tell, by hearing, the choices that made in term of musics and solos of these two characters. For example, the music in the scene one, where the chain gangs are singing, is played throughout the whole show every time these two people meet as Valjean and Javert. To show that they are in some degree similar, Jean Valjean and Javert also have similar solos. For example, the melody of Jean Valjean decides to live another life as another person is the same as the melody of Javert’s suicide. Even the lyrics are similar and both contant “I’m reaching but I fall.” If the plot put these two character into opposite position, the musics shape them as similar people.

It seems like the relationship between Cosette, Eponine, and Marius is harder to analysis. However, their relationship on stage is more obvious than the relationship between Jean Valjean and Javert. Cosette knows Eponine because they live in the same house when they are young. After they grow up, Eponine loves Marius and Marius never knows. Marius fells in love with Cosette in the first sight. The position when they were on stage explains the relationship well. In almost every scene the three of them are on stage, Marius is always standing between Cosette and Eponine, without focusing on Eponine. Even when the first time he meets Cosette, he has to face towards the Thenardiers, he tries to look back to Cosette. This creates a sense that between Eponine and Cosette, Marius would always choose Cosette. In term of Eponine’s position, the lights always create a scattered feeling for her. When Marius and Cosette are having duets, Eponine is standing aside and is almost ignored. During the trios, Eponine would sing in different melody and again being ignored. Her nature of constantly being singled out creates a sense of loneliness, which not only shows the relationship between these three characters but also helps the audience better connect to her “On My Own” solo.

I was acting as Marius in this production. Acting as Marius requires some key feelings to make this character appealing; they are: hesitation, love, sorrow, and remorse. Among those feelings, hesitation and sorrow are presented the most.

Hesitation occurs when Marius is facing the choices between the revolution and Cosette. On stage, I tried to look hesitated by shifting my body and turning my head when Enjolras says: “To the street!” and in the song “One Day More.” Body shifting creates a sense of second thinking and head turning shows that Marius is weighting the two choices. The feeling of hesitation is also used in the song “A Heart Full of Love.” The hesitation in the lines “I’m doing everything all wrong… would you tell…” makes the feeling of love more realistic. By putting down Cosette’s hands, the hesitation here explains the words “A heart full of love, a heart full of song” as a thoughtless action. Under the second thought, Marius realizes his action might be inappropriate. However, Cosette’s next line “A heart full of love, no fear, no regret” comforts Marius and keeps the conversation onwards. The hesitation creates a dramatic effect that makes “no fear, no regret” sounds more rejoicing to Marius. This effect, lifted by the hesitation, escalates the feeling of love in this scene and makes both of the characters more convincing.

The feeling of sorrow was less fun for me to act, and it is usually related to the feeling of anger. The climaxes of the feeling is shown in these scenes: Eponine’s death, Gavroche's death, and the cafe song. Besides feeling on stage, which will be addressed later, I managed to cry in these scenes. In Eponine’s death, I kept my eyes open. Thus the tears were produced to moisture my eyes and leak. In Gavroche's death, I was emotionally triggered and cried. After the army officer sang her lines, I was feeling angry and sad at the same time, so did Nan Zhou and Julia Rafferty. In the cafe song, I was emotionally triggered, but my nose started running then I was not able to finish the song nicely. In the last performance, during Valjean’s death, I saw Jean Valjean was crying and I started crying, too.

On stage, I did feel the emotions that listed above. I managed to do so by creating emotional memories. For example, during the cafe song, I tried to remember myself the previous scene in the ABC cafe. By thinking and missing the faces and their enthusiasm, by convincing myself I would never see them again, I was able to create the similar feeling of losing my friends in the battle. I was able to create the sense of loneliness and anger. Besides the artificial memories, I also used my memories in the real world as a base to act out the feeling of sorrow, love, and remorse. However, these memories became less effective after I used them for many times. I had to think of other similar memories to replace the “worn out” ones.

Les Miserable is the best musical I have ever done in Cheshire Academy. The staging adopted the advantages from the musical “The School of Rock” and make the black box possible for delivering the show. The actors are all skilled singers and actors. The most importantly, the cast members and others held strong bonds that made the whole production completed and thrilling.