#I'm in love with Nat's waistcoat I want to steal it from him

[nathaniel-underwood-is-an-intj]

The two greatest loves of Bartimaeus' life and the two greatest loves of mine 🥺🥺🥺

Ptolemy&Nat＋Bart Ptolemy and Nat give me the impression of the sun and the moon, warm and cold colors. The colors of their skin and costumes also contrast with each other. They are polar opposites. But they are both stubborn and make the same choice in the end. They seem to be opposites, but they are surprisingly similar. I like this contrast between them.

[winter-parrot]

went and saw the les mis nat tour. thought i maybe wouldn't cry so much this time, was wrong. having lots of thoughts and feelings. i'm gonna dump them here in whatever tangle they come out in because i want to document some of it while it is still Fresh.

act 1

did not expect the prologue (esp on parole) to hit me that hard. i almost cried and that was when i knew i was in for it tonight.

there were!! little brick moments esp in the prologue!!! that i really loved!!!

valjean stealing a coin from a kid. this has to be a petit gervais reference even it it came early during on parole instead of the brick-accurate what have i done

baptistine and mme. magloire were there with myriel!

fauchelevent got his leg wrecked by the cart and specifically had to be carried off, which doesn't feel like a detail i've seen often

the entire town coming out with pitchforks to see valjean arrested was A Lot.

they didn't do the parole slip rip-to-the-beat thing!! they just did one (1) at the end i miss it.

they gave?? most of the factory girls solo over to the foreman??? that was a weird choice

they made fantine's firing more personal for valjean, mainly by having her try to talk to him and be brushed aside during the factory fight. valjean also paused to look back before he walked offstage. i dislike this.

lovely ladies was so brutal. oh my god. i felt her degradation and despair in the lovely ladies descent a lot more viscerally than i usually do. and but god i wanted to punch bamatabois so bad. good work to the actor, but fuck that guy

tiny tiny nit but they kept saying monsieur mayor which was driving me nuts. pick a langaug dammit!

runaway cart continues to feel choppy bc of all the lines they cut out of it.

it's not by the face, it's not by the voice, no, it's by the lifting that you recognize a man. this will always be funny to me.

there was!! a french flag!!! flying over the courtroom scene!!! it had words on them but i couldn't see all of it. the middle looked like egalite as you'd expect, but the far right was justice?? fraternite seems like a weird one to replace with justice, so maybe the whole thing was different? I couldn't even see the left where liberte would go bc of the stage lights.

little cosette was so good. oh sweet child you desrve all the hugs.

surprisingly managed to mostly enjoy master of the house. hated the opening more than i ever have before, specifically watching the audience laugh at mme thenardier abusing cosette. i realize it's not entirely the audience's fault, the show is absolutely playing it for laughs, but the ick was high today.

i will never not find show me where you live funny

look down broke in while jvj and cosette were stil having their sweet moment. idk if it was intentional but it felt very ominous and it worked

oh god gavroche was so tiny. i've never seen a gavroche feel so viscerally young, with all the invincible courage and rashness and childness bravado. i almost cried when he first appeared just because he was so small and so young and i knew what was coming.

i did a lot of crying in not-technically-sad scenes because i knew what was coming. oh god.

gavroche seemed to have a bit of hero-worship of enjolras, a la his relationship to bahorel in the book. this did become relevant in the most painful way that i feared.

i love enjolras's red waistcoat in look down

on the topic of enjo's costuming, i make fun of him for being half naked a lot. but i realized today that all the students are fully dressed (buttoned up, waistcoat + cravat, jacket) in act 1 but end up at more-or-less enjo level of (un)dress on the barricade.

is?? state of (un)dress being used as a visual shorthand for revolutionary fervour???

i think??? enjo almost got arrested after the look down scene. i missed the actual onset but i looked back towards him to find an officer waving a truncheon menacingly in his face, so.

in my life felt very ick!! which is not what was expecting. mostly it's the staging where cosette is trapped inside the courtyard pushing out at the bars, valjean comes in, unlocks the door for himself, and then locks the two of them back in. it brought back beeblemis trauma honestly.

(obligatory???) acknowledgment that vlajean does kind of become cosette's jailor in the brick, but the musical doesn't really have the room for that kind of nuance. not when we see so little of them.

courf just?? randomly grabbed a gun at the from nowhere?? at the end of red and black???

enjolras then shouted to the streets! raising said gun right before do you hear the people sing. this isn't the baricades yet!! this is a demonstrably bad choice like one (musical) day before your planned rebellion. especially if he's already been almost arrested. boy, what are you thinking???

i miss the revolve. they had to do some weird snaky maneuvers to keep marching without walking off stage. it looked stupid honestly.

garoche & enjolras's deaths area also elevated by the revolve imho

also the barricade revolve is just cool

oh god how am i not at the end of act 1 yet.

the one day more overlapping medley at the end felt werid disjointed and i'm not sure why?

one day more also made me cry not bc the song itself is particualrly sad but i couldn't stop thinking in one day more most of you will be dead which was. heartbreaking.

okay now i'm done act 1

act 2

i have less to say about act 2 i mostly just cried a lot

the tragedy of on my own really struck me, i think bc eponine felt more defiant?? like more angry about her fate, less lovestruck.

i cried at now we pledge ourselves to hold this barricade. more anticipatory grief knowing what was coming.

enj felt like a very good leader which i always appreciate. i love him, my boy.

javert's uncovering felt so violent in a way that i'm not used to seeing on stage. they fought. several times. it was very physical and tense.

also gavroche was so fucking proud and i was so fucking proud of him too and so fucking sad.

the audience laughed at now hat i know that you love... me as well which was. weird??? is that normally a laugh spot???

a little fall of rain wrecked me, partly for eponine's death, but partly for gavroche showing up just in time to see her die. musical gave no indication of their relation but i know and i was sad.

the progression from they will see the people rise to the people too must rise to the people have not stirred. god!!! this is not new but it did strike me anew today!!

courfeyrac??? told valjean well done, sir and like banged his gun against the barricade as a gesture of respect/praise??? that was weird on so many levels. idk where that came from.

i started crying near the end of bring him home and basically did not stop for the rest of act 2. only lessened in intensity at times.

grantaire's verse in drink with me was very belligerent and enjo was not putting up with it. i'm used to seeing this as a moment for enjo to comfort/soothe r (at least in the last ~10 years of productions) but this enjo was not fucking having it. it was more hostile than comforting. gavroche ran off to comfort r after.

oh my god gavroche's death. sans revolve they obviously couldn't show him on the other side of the barricade. so we just hear some shots, and then he throws the ammo over, and then he gets to the top of the barricade -- and then he gets shot down, right into enjo's arms. he then gets passed to grantaire, who stands there holding him for the entire lead up to the final battle.

enjolras was?? the first to die??? he ran up to the top of the barricade not to shoot but to wave the red flag, and then was the first to get shot down. then the rest of the amis in the standard cross-beam of spotlights thing. and then, last of all, grantaire puts down gavroche, runs up to the peak where enjo died, and is shot.

i'm not exactly upset about grantaire getting that moment, but him getting it alone -- esp after enjolras was the first to die -- felt like a weird choice.

the oboe solo pause after the final battle continues to be my downfall

thenardier says [God's] as dead as the stiffs at my feet while standing over marius. i have yet to decide if this is an intentional staging choice as commentary on "God may look dead but he's alive, i promise" or just a coincidence

they dropped valjean's there is a life to save line, no idea why

javert was so unhinged during his suicide. he was waving a pistol around for the first half and i briefly but genuinely feared they were going to restage his suicide to be by gun. thankfully it was an unfounded fear.

the candles are still my undoing!!!! i knew exactly what was coming when they brought them out during turning and yet. and yet. the simultaneous blowing out made me bawl.

side note, ghost!grantaire and enjolras appeared flanking gavroche and my first thought was are they his parents now??

dear god please do not let them parent anybody. they're bad enough individually but as a pair??? unthinkable.

i almost laughed during valjean's confession bc all i could think was ahh yiss story time with papa. i was still crying but it did not stop me from snorting.

can we cut that weird opening to beggar at the feast. you know the one.

this one's a jew is more ick than usual given current events

tacking on i might try it too after this one's a queer does not, in fact, make it gay liberation!!! it just makes it gross!!!

you've already cut so many lines from this show, why is this bit still here

take it away and give me back the i remember eponine lines in the same damn song!!!!

i think that's all for act 2??? even if it it's itls fucking late and this post has exceeded 2k words so fuck it.

general notes

i can trace the 2012 movie influences in places, that was unexpected

splashing waves as the opening imagery of work song

were the msurm factory uniforms always that blue?

did fantine's death always have that white curtain?

fantine spitting on valjean was a hathaway thing, wasn't it?

gavroche gets to keep his this is the land that fought for liberty line! i'm torn about this bc i love those lines but also this is my school, my high society bit was good too

the harmony at the end of red and black!!!! it was like my favourite music change for the move i love that they kept it

entire master of the house scene staging felt very movie-ish, just in the ~vibes~ of it

nose boops!! valjean boops cosette like four times i'm p sure that's a movie popularization

actor / character interpretation thoughts

valjean was good! i liked him better in the first act 24601/madeleine side than on the act 2 fauchlevent side, but still good

fantine was angry and i liked that.

thenardiers were mostly good. weird that they made mme obviously lust over other people??

marius was fun! good balance of earnest lovable genuine and idiot himbo booby.

did not like cosette. this is the first time i've actively disliked a portrayal of cosette and it was a big pity. the musical does enough infantalizing of adult!cosette already, i really did not need the actress to play that up.

mixed opinions about javert. honestly i think he's a fine musical javert i just like my book javert too much. obsessed with jvj, openly defiant to madeleine, very Godly, that kind of thing. but his voice was good and his suicide was extremely unhinged in a good way.

i fucking adored enjolras. he felt older?? which is not exactly the right vibe but it came with the right vibe of authority and calm that i super super appreciated. also he sounded beautiful and his hair was a glorious mane of curls.

grantaire is a delightful garbage bastard man.

i've already talked about gavroche but god gavroche!!!

courfeyrac kept catching my eye in both good ways and bad. kind of felt like he became ami #3? (after enjo and marius, per the musical). very often on enjolras's left, the first to seize a gun, the first to praise jvj on "killing" valjean (that was weird, what was that), etc etc.

song list in playbill was not incorrect but kind of weird. notable mentions:

the entirety of prologue was just listed as prologue

both what have i done and javert's suicide were just listed as soliloquy (not even x's soliloquy)

confrontation wasn't listed at all?? i'd think it was folded into come to me, odd as that seems, except that just has fantine and valjean listed.

drink with me became drink with me to days gone by???

all the little bits and pieces of song missing was expected, but seeing none of the battles listed at all felt a little weird. not even the final battle.

the spotlights on stage were mostly yellow/warm white, except for when someone died/was near death, where they got bright cold white spotlights. except javert -- he got the cold white spotlight in stars, too, and in one day more.

was this an intentional choice to make a statement about javert??

was this just an accidental coincidence??

did other non-dying people get the white spotlight too and i just didn't notice??