Les Miserables Review

Les Miserables Did NOT Make Me Miserable This Time...

On the night of February 23th, 2018 after a tiresome Friday I found myself in the Cheshire Academy blackbox to watch Les Misérables written by Victor Hugo The CA production helped me further understand Les Miserables The first time I watched the movie, I was lost. The main faculty of the production were Ms. Guarino, Mrs. Monohan, Jaime Lynch, Nathalie Michiels, Nate Trier, Jesse Ofganag, Sally Pollard and Eunyoung DiGiacamo.



The major themes of Les Miserables are social classes, power of war, love, and doing the right thing. The play starts out with multiple prisoners shoveling dirt while singing  "Look Down."  Jean Valijean prisoner 24601 is in the middle of the prison line. Valijean has been imprisoned for stealing a loaf of bread. Confronted by Javert, Valijean is brought his parole papers, and Valijean is free to go. Valijean comes across a Priest who feeds him. That night Valijean steals silver but is caught by guards and brought to the Priest. The Priest lies to the guards, and says he gave Valijean the silver, and decides to give him more. The priest tells Valijean to use this silver to turn his life around. Many years go by and Valijean is now mayor of a French town. Fantine, a poor worker for Valijean has a child named Cosette. Fantine dies, but not before Valijean promises to take care of Cosette. Valijean raises Cosette. When she meets a man named Maruis the two fall in love. Valijean is not on board with their love at first. Marius, who can't be with Cosette because of Valijean's joins the French Revolution and is severally injured in battle. Once Valijean sees how genuine their love is Valijean decided to save Marius unknowingly. Still being chased by Javert, Valijean shows Javert that he has in fact really turned his life around. Javert kills himself because he doesn't understand his own purpose anymore. At the end of the play Valijean tells Marius about his crime life, and Maruis shrugs Valijean; He only to forgive him once he is about to die. 

The Cheshire Academy production helped me understand a very unclear movie I watched months in advance. I remember writing a review of the movie and being less optimistic then than I am now about Les Miserables. Seeing the play acted out by my peers, has helped with the understanding of the themes and the overall feel of the play. Lexi Williamson took a tough role in playing Jean Valijean. Many of her solos stood out to me. Her makeup was awesome! I loved how the makeup crew was able to make an authentic looking beard on a girl! Fantine's solos in a similar way stood out. Played by Julia Rafferty, she was emotionally inspired and portrayed her character perfectly. I could feel the struggle in Fantine brought out by her acting. I loved how she was able to really cry on stage. Jenna Denomme playing Javert was great. I liked the comedic twists with her character especially in some of the combat scenes between Javert and Valijean. I thought Jenna also did a good job of having good stage appearance. Her constant movements made me feel engaged. I especially liked the death scene of Javert, and the using of the bridge. Peter Deng played a couple different parts, but his main one of the mister was awesome. I never knew Peter could sing the way he did. Maggie Guarino-Trier playing Cosette fit her acting strengths perfectly. Having multiple solos, Maggie's singing really impressed me. Her tone is second to none, and along with having a great stage appearance, I could tell she is an experienced actress. Overall all the actors in the play did a unbelievable job especially where taken into consideration for small stage space. Staging in the blackbox always seems to be limited. I feel in this particular play the Cheshire Academy drama department did a nice job of overcoming these obstacles by using portable backdrops.  In recent productions, I was kind of turned off by having the one constant backdrop, so having the ability to change the background really helped  the overall feel for the play. The stage crew did a wonderful job of flawlessly changing them in between scenes. The main backdrop stood out to me. Whoever painted it did a really nice job. Lighting in many of the scenes could have been improved. I felt the lighting was too strong in some scenes. In the solos, the lighting was so great I could see the actors sweat on stage. From where I was sitting it was extremely tough to see the actors when on the ground. I really needed to sit tall in my seat so I could peek over the first rows heads. My seat was also crammed with very little leg room. This indicated to me that the seating arrangement could've been better.


In my overall opinion I thought all actors did a wonderful job playing in a tough play. If there were hiccups with lines or movements on stage they really weren't noticeable to me or the audience. The emotion I felt from the Senior's stuck with me on the car ride home. I could see how much effort they put into the 3 hour play. Seeing it come out the way it did was really special for them. The Cheshire Academy production of Les Miserables helped me further understand this classical piece of literature. The first time I watched Les Miserables,  I had no idea what was going on. If I were to rate the CA production, I would give it a solid 4-5 stars.