Les Miserables--Great Community Theater
As we walked from our car to the Reston Community Center in Hunters Woods, a thin young man approached us, asking for money for food. His jacket was also thin, inadequate for the cold night air. He reminded us of those we had just heard interviewed on the radio—people who’d lost jobs in the recession and are now losing meager public relief thanks to the Congressional guardians of the top one percent. The brief encounter seemed sadly ironic as we headed to see the Reston Community Players production of Les Miserables. We had seen the movie Les Miserables. But, I could not imagine community theater pulling off a credible version of this classic story and epic movie. I was wrong. We joined a packed house for the opening night of a magnificent production! Les Miserables is a story set in a time of great tension in an emerging industrial society with growing wealth for the upper class and an increasingly restive poor majority. Revolt is in the air. The main character is Jean Valjean, a man who had suffered 19 years at hard labor and, though parolled, his jailer swore to return him to prison. The story follows him as he tries to escape his past and his jailer. Valjean succeeds in changing his life, starting a business and becoming a town Mayor. He adopts the destitute daughter of a dying poor woman. The girl grows up, falls in love with a young revolutionary gravely wounded in the failed battle at the Paris barricades. He too is saved by Valjean, a man of principle until the end. Other characters include the duty-bound, but strangely principled jailer, Javert; a comical, depraved innkeeper and wife, a precocious boy revolutionary, women of the night and more. And, did I mention it is a splendid musical? Where to start! The production was superb in every respect. The actors were all terrific--tragic, heroic, romantic, and wildly comical in their fight to survive. And they are all gifted singers. I thought that Ward Ferguson who played Javert the jailer resembled Hugh (Wolverine) Jackman who played Valjean in the movie version. But Mr. Ferguson has the better voice! The direction was outstanding. This intense and complicated—at times with more than one subplot unfolding and musical number being performed simultaneously—production worked seamlessly throughout. Sets too numerous to count, it seemed all had an authentic look, including the barricaded streets for the epic battle scenes. Those who designed, built and manipulated the sets deserve special praise. How they accomplished so much in the confines of a modest community theater stretches the imagination. A downer at times, the story actually ends well for the central character and those he loves most. The oppressed majority of France did not fare so well. It took a subsequent, violent revolution to improve their condition and to bring some egalite. One wonders what it will take in America. See Les Mis Friday-Sunday performances through February 9 at the Center Stage in Hunters Woods.
