Say, Do You Hear the Distant Drums?

“On Parole,” US 5th National Tour, 2018. Nick Cartell as Jean Valjean, unknown Bishop.

The video isn’t very high quality and the view of the stage is partially blocked, but the talents of the performers and the emotional power of the scene still come across.

Nick’s Valjean sings with a bright, clear and piercing tenor voice, excellently suited to the role, and with the appropriate fierce, feral energy in this early, bitter stage of his journey. The Bishop is uncredited, but his warm, sturdy baritone voice is just right for his role too.

I think I’ll always have mixed feelings about Laurence Connor and James Powell’s tendency to enhance the aggression throughout their staging of the musical, not least in this scene. The brutal beating of Valjean after the fight at the inn is always uncomfortable to watch. Then again, it’s supposed to be uncomfortable, and part of the very reason why it’s so disturbing is the knowledge that ex-convicts and other “dregs of society” really are constantly abused that way. I also have mixed feelings about Connor and Powell’s addition of Petit Gervais – this video mostly blocks that moment from sight, but we do hear him exclaiming “Monsieur!” to try to ask for his coin back, then glimpse him running when Valjean scares him away. On the one hand, it’s a powerful moment from the novel, and it certainly does highlight how ruthless Valjean’s years of hardship have made him. But at the same time, placing it before Valjean meets the Bishop, having him take the boy’s coin with full consciousness rather than only half-consciously while lost in a Bishop-induced mental fog, and having him never show any remorse for the deed or even mention it again is a distortion of what Hugo wrote. It’s a creative touch, but if I were to direct a new production, I probably wouldn’t include it.

“On Parole,” North Shore Music Theatre, 2014. Will Ray as Jean Valjean, Joseph Spieldenner as the Bishop of Digne.

I saw Will as Enjolras back in 2007 at the Sacramento Music Circus. Here he seems to have grown nicely into the role of Valjean. He sings with a rich, burnished tenor voice and effectively conveys his increasing rage throughout his struggles on parole, culminating in the theft of the Bishop’s silver with a very impressive “...FLIIIIIGHT!” His ad lib of “Oh no, please, please...” when the constables arrest him is effective too.

Unfortunately, the inn scene is cut, leaving only the farm scene to convey the oppression of ex-convicts. Of course this cut was made in all productions from late 2000 until 2006, but I’m surprised to hear it made again in a 2014 production.

I didn’t see this production, so I don’t know for sure, but it sounds like Valjean sneezes just before the Bishop’s first lines. That could be effective staging: Valjean shivering in the night air outside the Bishop’s house, then sneezing just as the Bishop strolls near him, thus attracting his attention. It would imply that the Bishop saves him from getting sick by inviting him in out of the cold.

Joseph’s Bishop sounds appropriately warm, wise and caring, with his handsome baritone voice, even if he does sound a little bit young for the part. By the way, it was an interesting choice for this production to double the roles of the Bishop and Grantaire. The possible symbolic implications of that doubling are worth pondering.

US 3rd National Tour, Los Angeles, February 7, 2000: Part 1 ( “Work Song,” “On Parole,” “Valjean Arrested, Valjean Forgiven” and “Valjean’s Soliloquy”)

Ivan Rutherford as Jean Valjean, Stephen Bishop as Javert.

This complete performance from the 3rd National Tour, filmed in 2000 at the Ahmanson Theatre in LA, is one I’ve been meaning to watch for some time. Now that I’ve started my Tumblr video review project, and now that the once-missing Prologue and Epilogue have been uploaded, I’ve decided to share one video from this performance a day until I’ve shared it all.

Ivan’s Valjean lives up to all my positive memories of the three times I saw him onstage. His voice is excellent for the role: bright, rich and mellow, yet with a hint of grit that suits the convict, and effortlessly capable of both sweetness and power. Acting-wise, he’s subtler than some other convict-Valjeans, but still portrays a fully realized, nuanced and engaging character. Other actors are more aggressive to Javert and more visibly ecstatic on “Freedom is mine...” but Ivan’s portrayal seems a bit truer to Hugo’s Valjean, who was always a quiet, self-contained man and whose hardening from his years in prison makes him even less inclined to show emotion. Yet his anger becomes clear with his increasingly fearsome responses when others reject him. The growing darkness in him is evident when he shouts at the innkeeper’s wife, especially with how delicate, polite and frightened she’s portrayed as being. Then at the Bishop’s house we see him disturbingly become “a thief in the night,” as he plots the theft of the silver in a sneering, calculating tone, and then bows his head before the Bishop in feigned abject gratitude, only to steal the silver with a sneaky, quietly growled “...flight!” rather than a wild shout. The theft definitely feels like a premeditated, malevolent act rather than an impulsive, desperate one. Yet he still conveys sympathy-earning vulnerability too, with the abject, beaten dog-like fear he shows when the Bishop first approaches him and when he thinks he’s about to be sent back to the galleys. And at the end, he gives us a truly impassioned Soliloquy, full of rage, anguish, confusion, and ultimate determination to change.

Stephen was my first Javert and his performance here is exactly the way I remember him. Tall and imposing, with a rich, robust baritone voice, and just the right attitude of dignified condescension. Well I remember his snide, disdainful “No” in response to Valjean’s ‘Yes, it means I’m free!” I remember that Arlene C. Harris, the author of the Les Misérables sequel series Pont-au-Change, wrote in her review of this cast that his Javert was too smug, too much like ‘Gaston (from Beauty and the Beast) in a police uniform,” and I’ll admit I can see a little of that here. But at the same time, he’s very professional and avoids needless aggression. He’s the only Javert I’ve seen so far who doesn’t intimidate Valjean with his nightstick on “Do not forget me, 20601!” and despite his disdain, he hands Valjean his yellow passport in a civil way, not playing the games with it (e.g. smacking it against his chest, pulling it out of his reach at first, or dropping it for him to pick up) that other actors do.

The Bishop has a very nice voice and gentle, serene bearing, though he doesn’t make as strong an impression as some others.

The 3rd National Tour was always known for its outstanding ensemble and they do indeed seem excellent so far. One thing that stands out for me, though, is their subtlety. They don’t do too much shouting when Valjean turns aggressive, nor treat him with too much physical brutality. Compared to some other productions in more recent years, the crowd scenes are definitely understated here. But it works: sometimes less is more. That said, the warders in Toulon have a more brutal edge than in some other productions, noticing every time a convict stops working and either kicking him or shoving him with a gun butt. Even later performances in this same tour toned that business down.

If I’m not mistaken, the short and stocky yet gorgeous-voiced convict who sings “The sun is strong...” is Randal Keith, who at the time would have been understudying Valjean, but later became the final Valjean of both this tour and the original Broadway production, as well as the first Valjean I ever saw in 2001.

“On Parole,” Broadway, 2014. Ramin Karimloo as Jean Valjean, Adam Monley (?) as the Bishop of Digne.

Ramin might not look much like Hugo’s heavyset middle aged Valjean (to have spent 19 years in prison, this Valjean must have been a young teenager when he stole the loaf of bread), but he fully inhabits the role, from his blissful relief at being free, to his increasingly vicious rage at being rejected everywhere, to his range of emotions throughout the sequence with the Bishop. A minor standout moment is the way he seem to laugh scornfully to himself when the Bishop invites him in and then shows him the yellow passport again, assuming the Bishop simply didn’t read it or understand it the first time and expecting to be turned away once he does. His reaction to the Bishop’s final lines is oh so poignant too, as he seems to completely break down, doubling over on his knees, shaking with silent sobs of remorse, and at the very end clings to the Bishop’s arm when the latter gets up to leave, like an anxious child clinging to his mother. His piercing tenor voice is outstanding too, as always: his “...took my FLIIIIIIGHT!” is magnificent.

By the way, I’ve sometimes heard it said that Drew Sarich’s unique 2007/2008 Valjean has changed the way the role has been cast and acted ever since. I can believe it watching Ramin. Not only does he share Drew’s traits of being younger and physically leaner than an old-school Valjean, with a more contemporary rock-opera voice far from the classic Colm Wilkinson mold, but the rawness of his acting also brings Drew to mind. The way his Valjean slurps the soup at the Bishop’s house with his bare hand and then wipes his hand on his pants evokes the way Drew’s Valjean would wipe his nose with his hand and then wipe his hand on his pants during the Work Song.

I notice that he sings “Like a cur I walk the street...” in place of “In their eyes I see their fear...” and vice-versa. Was this a mistake or did this revival deliberately switch those two lines?

Laurence Connor and James Powell have repeatedly tweaked their staging of this sequence since 2009, but I like the way it’s done here. I see that they removed Petit Gervais after having previously included him before Valjean arrives at the inn; this is just as well, as I always thought shoehorning him in before the Bishop made Valjean too cruel too early on. Instead, this staging and Ramin’s performance seem to gradually build Valjean’s bitterness until he reaches the theft of the silver. At the farm, we see our first hint of his compassion when a little girl trips and falls while playing and he goes to help her, only for her parents to shoo him away. But by the inn, we see the dangerous man emerge, as he shouts aggressively at the innkeeper’s wife and then gets into a brawl with all the men. But when the men finally manage to subdue him, they give him a disproportionately brutal beating. I think this staging strikes the right balance between “Valjean the embittered aggressor” and “Valjean the unjustly despised victim,” neither making him too much of a brute nor overly pathetic.

The excellent Bishop is uncredited, but I assume it’s Adam Monley because he was the regular. His sumptuous baritone voice and wise, kindly demeanor are perfect for the role.

“Valjean’s Soliloquy,” plus the end of “Valjean Arrested, Valjean Forgiven,” London, 2012. Geronimo Rauch as Valjean, Adam Linstead as the Bishop.

What an intense Valjean! So much passion and turmoil, and such a rich, powerful voice! It must have been so exciting to see him in person. I love the way he thrusts the bag of silver away from him like some repulsive thing after the first two verses (as he did with the candlesticks while the Bishop was singing), only to frantically grasp it on “I am reaching, but I fall...” and then sling it resolutely over his shoulder on “I’ll escape now from that world...” He treats it as the concrete symbol of the change he resists at first, but ultimately embraces.

Adam’s Bishop is excellent too. Warm and compassionate, yet firm in his convictions and faith, and with such a strong and distinctive baritone voice.