Les Miz is back, and more gorgeous to listen to and look at than ever, as the Pantages welcomes the latest U.S. tour of Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg’s legendary musical juggernaut Les Misérables.

As in Victor Hugo’s classic novel, Les Misérables The Musical centers on two men in early 19th Century France—heroic one-time thief Jean Valjean, the hunted, and his implacable nemesis Inspector Javert, the hunter.

When first we meet Valjean (Nick Cartell), the Les Miz protagonist has just spent nineteen years in prison for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his starving sister and her family. (Talk about the punishment not fitting the crime.)

Not long after, Valjean breaks his parole and Javert (Preston Truman Boyd) determines to pursue him to the bitter end.

Valjean later becomes the adoptive father of Cosette (Cora Jane Messer as a child, Addie Morales as an adult) as a way to compensate for the harm he did her mother Fantine (Haley Dortch), unjustly fired from Valjean’s factory and forced into a life of prostitution.

Other major characters include student revolutionaries Enjolras (Devin Archer) and Marius (Gregory Lee Rodriguez), the latter of whom falls in love with Cosette, and Gavroche (Henry Kirk), the beggar-boy turned child revolutionary, with an additional dozen-and-a-half performers in various supporting roles.

Last but not least are the Thenardiers (Matt Crowle and Christina Rose Hall), who provide comic relief as a couple of lying, cheating innkeepers, and their daughter Eponine (Vivian Atencio) who as an adult (Christine Heesun Hwang) falls hopelessly in love with Marius.

Les Miz is, if nothing else, a really BIG SHOW.

It is also entirely “sung through,” and though I personally prefer musicals that feature a mix of spoken dialog and song, I’m in awe of performers who can sing and emote simultaneously, and do so throughout Les Miz’s three-hour running time and countless costume changes.

The combination of Matt Kinley’s set and image design (“inspired by the paintings of Victor Hugo” and made possible by the extensive use of projections, many of them animated), Paule Constable’s exquisite lighting design, often bathing the stage with an amber glow, Andreanne Neofitou’s extraordinary bevy of costumes both fancy and tattered, and a sound design by Mick Potter that fills the Pantages with glorious melody add up to a production worth seeing if only for its breathtaking design.

Add to that a phenomenal cast of leading and supporting players and an ensemble that matches them every step of the way under Laurence Connor and James Powell’s powerful direction and you have a Les Misérables that fans in particular (and even those less taken with sung-through musicals) can cheer.

Cartell is simply magnificent as Jean Valjean, a heady combination of soaring vocals and powerhouse acting chops, and Boyd is equally superb as his arch-nemesis, the relentless Javert, making the indefatigable inspector’s signature ballad “Stars” a bona fide showstopper—and just wait till you see Javert’s exit, a stunning visual feat if there ever was one.

A deeply moving Dortch sings “I Dreamed A Dream” with the most glorious alto vibrato this side of heaven, Morales’s Cosette solos “Castle On A Cloud” with the loveliest of coloratura sopranos, and Hwang’s spunky Eponine sings a power-piped “On My Own” that dazzles.

SoCal favorite Archer, who played Marius at Musical Theatre West a few years back, makes for one of the most dynamic, charismatic, and sensationally sung Enjolrases ever.

Rodriguez’s Marius is swoon-worthy indeed, Crowle and Hall score a gazillion laughs as the dastardly Thenardiers, and pintsized showman Kirk wins plenty of hearts with Gavroche’s spunky “Little People.”

Smaller but similarly well performed supporting roles are brought to life by Kyle Adams (Grantaire), Ciaran Bowling (Banatabois), Daniel Gerard Bittner (Feuilly), Randy Jeter (Bishop), Andrew Marks Maughan (Combeferre), and Christopher James Tamayo (Montparnasse), and by delightful child performers Atencio and Messer.

Rounding out the biggest, most versatile, hardest working, and most vocally gifted ensemble now touring the U.S. are (at the performance reviewed) Jenna Burns, fight captain Steve Czarnecki, Arianne DiCerbo, Kelsey Denae, Genevieve Ellis, David Young Fernandez, Daelynn Carter Jorif, Olivia J. Lu, Eden Mau, Benjamin H. Moore, Nicole Morris, Sofie Nesanelis, Julia Ellen Richardson, Emily Somé, Hazel Vogel, and J.T. Wood.

Ben Cherington, Michelle Beth Herman, Morris, Ashley Dawn Mortensen, Tim Quartier, Christopher Robin Sapp, and dance captain Kyle Timson are swings, and Milo Maharlika alternates with Kirk as Gavroche.

Michael Ashcroft scores high marks for his “musical staging” (i.e. choreographed moves in a non-dancey show). Music director Brian Eads conducts Les Miz’s pitch-perfect fourteen-piece orchestra.

Finally, carrying on the work of the production’s original directors and choreographer are resident director Richard Barth and musical staging associate Jesse Robb.

Ryan W. Gardner is production stage manager and Claire Farrokh is stage manager. Chris Danner is company manager and Elle Aghabala is associate company manager.

With Les Miz’s national tour set to continue for at least another year, you can bet it will be a good long while before regional theaters once again get the rights to stage Les Misérables locally, all the more reason to reserve your tickets while it’s still in town.

This is one Les Miz that is not to be missed.

Pantages Theatre, 6233 Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles.
www.broadwayla.org

–Steven Stanley
August 3, 2023
Photos: Matthew Murphy & Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade

Tags: Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg, Broadway In Hollywood, Los Angeles Theater Review, Pantages Theatre, Victor Hugo