Les Miserables hits Calgary!

June 26, 2013 immrfabulous

It’s 7:05pm and my driver is ringing the door bell…

I’m in my suit and away I fly, thanks to the one and only Mr. Fab… A VIP night on the town; I haven’t had this much fun since Gucci became a publicly traded company…

I’m Randy-Lee, as known to Mr. Fab, but my actual name is Jimmy-Lee and tonight I had the honour of fulfilling a life long dream of mine.

With a hot date in tow I was blessed with 2 tickets to the grand premiere of Les Miserables presented by Broadway Across Canada at the Southern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium.

I’m taking my seat… The lights go dark and I can barely contain myself… I’m like a kid in a candy store… The overture starts and two-hours & thirty-three minutes later I’ve gone thru multiple tissues as each epic “known” song that comes on moves me in one way or another.

As most of you know the recent award-winning movie that came out was totally different than the show… Why? Well considering this was my first time seeing it on stage versus the cinema it was so much more. More in the singing, More in the sets… And just more being there in person with the actors and actresses.

My mentionable standouts:

The Set!

Where the heck did they keep it all? The pieces kept coming and coming. Each time the curtains fell or the stage went into a blackout I was wow’ed!

I’ve performed on the Jubilee stage myself a number of times and I know first hand that it’s not that big in the wings… So I guess this mystery will remain…

The stand out performance for me came from none other than… Eponine played by the fabulous Briana Carlson-Goodman.

Her power house voice and stunning perfection as a stage actress was bar none the best in the show. This girl has a set of lungs that could blow out any house fire and for sure after her show stopping – On My Own… (I’ve decided to rate each song with how many tissues I used for my tears… this one was the max @ 6)

But with the good came the ‘hummm’

My not so favourite performance was from Javert played by Andrew Varela

What I find interesting about this is that I didn’t like Russell Crow’s Javert either. Maybe it was just that his singing was too fast and I couldn’t understand what he was saying or perhaps his random moments of over acting.

And although I did have one tear drop, it certainly wasn’t worthy of a ’tissue point’. To be honest, I think it was the lighting and the set that moved me to have that tear…

And the rest of the chorus? Perfection!!

The fighting scenes with the Revolution fight we’re perfectly staged and I never once felt that I was sitting in a packed theatre watching a ‘show’. Instead I was with them, in France, and we battled together!