Les Miserable – Segerstrom Center For The Arts (OCPAC), Costa Mesa, CA

An all around decent production. Nice to see it on the big stage again.
Biggest problem? The pace. Now it’s Les Mis, so I know what you’re thinking, and you’re wrong! 😉 The pace wasn’t too slow, but too fast! When we got to intermission, we felt like we were both out of breathe and that we had just run a marathon!

Fantine was not impressive.

How did a white baby Eponine grow into a black adult Eponine? A reverse Michael Jackson??? And why did she have to try and turn her one song into a pop ballad?

No turntable. Instead they had a giant projection screen for a cyclorama. Didn’t really notice it as an awesome effect until Valjean drags Marius from the barricades to the sewer….it was AMAZING!!

Speaking of the barricades…meh.. My first major encounter with Les Miserable had the barricades being formed by massive rotating robots where the scenery suddenly turned and clicked together like magic in a way you couldn’t begin to imagine just looking at it…here they just opened their fancy doors and ta da!

Valjean was good. Javert was better.

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