REVIEW! CONCERT EDITION!

Okay, don’t go falling off your chair in surprise. I didn’t really go to a concert. Not lately, anyway.

I watched one.

This one.

I know. It doesn’t make me any cooler. But it is so, so good, and I want to tell you everything in the world that I thought of it. Ready?

Go.

* Oh, Les Miserables. I love you with all my heart and soul, and I’m not even being a tiny bit insincere. For more than twenty years, I have loved you. And this concert was nearly perfect. The orchestra? Phenomenal. Also? There were fireworks. I do not make these things up.

* I found Jean Valjean strangely handsome. Does this mean I’m getting old?

* I always fall a little in love with Enjolras. When I see the show, or read the book, or even listen to the music, my heart goes lurch for him. What can I say? I’m a sucker for the doomed emutee-leader. *Sigh* for revolutionaries. Also? He may have been played by the following middle-Eastern god (behold):

Even had he been a troll, I’d have loved him. But, notice? Not a troll. Yes, the dimple may have helped. Also? He could sing. Oh, yes he could.

* Cosette’s teeth? Distracted me. (The two in front were long. And curved. Unto a beaver, a little bit.) I had to look at her beautiful eyes or the cute mole on her cheek in order not to be sidetracked completely from her perfect performance. I am shallow. I know.

* Shall we talk about Nick Jonas? Firstly, he bears a striking resemblance to my cousin’s husband Ron. And pondering this, I realize that I’ve never seen the two of them in the same room. Hmmm. But I don’t think Ron sings. And, it turns out, Nick Jonas does. (Even if, in Crash’s opinion, [1] he doesn’t hold his notes long enough.) The short notes did not bother me. Want to know what did bother me? Nick Jonas’s propensity toward the earnest eyebrows. Yes. Marius is earnest. But really? Nick was distractingly earnest. Want to see?

Those eyebrows came at me all night. Both times I watched it. I stifled the urge to rub the lines out of his forehead. Through the screen. Eyebrows notwithstanding, he was terrific. Really. This was my first taste of any of the Jonas brothers, and I approve. Of his performance, anyway.

* Eponine. After all these years, at least 10 readings of the novel, and many, many hours spent singing along with her, I still want to be Eponine. Not in real life. Just on stage. (Yes. I know I am too old. I don’t care. Not at all.) This Eponine (Samantha Barks from the London cast) was stunning. Vocally and costume-wise and characteristically. I wanted to bring her home with me. See her up there, singing “A Little Fall of Rain” at Nick’s earnest eyebrows? She also had a killer dimple and glorious eyebrows.

* Costuming/makeup did something to both Mr. and Madame Thenardier’s teeth. A gruesome, yellowy-brown something. Fascinating. I want to know how that happened.

* Gavroche looked like a tiny Aladdin, and I wish he’d been able to do all the “Little People” song, or die on the barricade. Alas.

* Lea Salonga played Fantine. If that sentence means nothing to you, we can still be friends.

* At the end of the show, there’s some Family Reunion-type stuff which made a tear or maybe two fall out of my eyes.

* I borrowed the movie from Netflix. But don’t be too surprised if I end up spending too much money to own it forever, as long as a DVD shall live. I loved it that much. The traveling show was in a City Near Me until today, actually, and I decided not to sell an internal organ in order to take the Kids to see it. So I made them all watch the concert with me after church today (with the added bonus of fast-forwarding through the Lovely Ladies scene, you’re welcome, small Kid 4). I remain of the opinion that this is a piece of literary genius turned musical genius that will (or at least should) remain for generations. At least.

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[1] I love that Crash and I watched this at the same time. I’d drafted this, and then I read her post, and then, saw that we even stole used the same images from Goooogle — except hers are big, and mine are teensy. Perhaps I’m stalking. Or maybe it’s just a Great Minds moment… or something.