#On My Own

[sxnshxnxxnddxxsxxs]

throwback to when i had to learn own my own from les mis when i was in like year 9 and knew nothing about the musical. so for years i genuinely believed that marius was literally blind and the reason he and eponine couldn’t be together was because he was disabled in a not disability friendly world.

[slfcare]

after it has been new, scary and uncomfortable, it’s going to be okay. isn’t that what we’re doing it for?

[grantaire-lover-69]

If you're not screaming and sobbing while singing it, are you really singing "On my own" and "I dreamed a dream"?

[asadgirlwithaprettymind]

the black sheep

[baba-the-yagaa]

When you remember Fantine's death, Valjean's death, and On My Own have the same melody and you cry about it

[cometomecosette]

The History of Angry Éponine

Since I'm listening to as many Les Mis recordings as possible in chronological order, trying to notice changes in characterization trends, this is a subject I'm curious about.

Angry portrayals of Éponine don't seem to have appeared until the musical was at least a few years old. Based on every clip I've seen and heard of Frances Ruffelle, she was definitely a sad, melancholic Éponine – not without spunk or street smarts, of course, but predominantly melancholy. And most of the other earliest Éponines were very much in her mold, acting like her, sounding like her, and even looking like her.

Around 1988 and '89, we start to hear fewer Frances imitators in the role, and get a taste of different characterizations, which sometimes include more feistiness. But in my personal listen-through, not until Lea Salonga in the 10th Anniversary Concert have I heard an Éponine whose core "thesis statement" seems to be "My love is unrequited and I'm angry about it."

Once, a long time ago, I read some comments about Lea Salonga from an older fan. They wrote that her angry characterization the concert was probably because she had been directed on Broadway by Richard Jay-Alexander, who was also the original director of the first three US tours and the first Canadian productions. This fan claimed that his productions always had angry Éponines.

Based on what I've now seen and heard of those productions, I can see some truth in that. For example, Jay-Alexander seems to have changed the blocking of the line "Little you know! Little you care!" so that instead of sadly singing it alone after Marius ran off, Éponine angrily blurted it out directly to Marius's face. Susan Tilson does this in the 1991 1st National Tour proshot, Debbie Gibson does it in a clip from her Broadway run, and every American Éponine I ever saw in person did it all the way through 2007.

I can also believe that Jay-Alexander might have made Éponine fiercer during "Attack on Rue Plumet." In the 1st National Tour proshot, she knees Thénardier in the nether regions!

But at the same time, in that 1991 video, Susan Tilson doesn't sing "On My Own" angrily. The few video clips I've found of Debbie Gibson's "On My Own" don't seem angry either.

Might I be correct in guessing that Richard Jay-Alexander encouraged his Éponines to bring more fierceness and anger to the role in general, but Lea Salonga was one of the first to bring anger into "On My Own"?

Are there any older fans who could share their own experience of how Éponine's portrayals and how the emotions conveyed in "On My Own" have evolved?

[one-time-i-dreamt]

Ben Shapiro

Ben Shapiro was ranking versions of “On My Own” song from every production of “Les Miserables”, but he hated the original London cast one, because the singer was apparently supporting Obama.

[lowlowmaoo]

I love him

But every day I'm learning

All my life

I've only been pretending …

[sherbertilluminated]

Last night I was talking with my friends @teefigotem and @calypsopond about the pacing of the musical Les Miserables. I think Les Mis' libretto is one of the best foundations for a musical out there, but the first act has so much more plot and more iconic songs than the second, and I worry that top-heavy structure diminishes the ultimate impact of the uprising in the second act.

Caly and Maddy agreed that the 2012 film adaption had the right idea when it swapped the positions of "Do you Hear the People Sing" and "One day More." Transplanting the former to the beginning of Act 2 maintains the balance of revolutionary fervor (and iconic songs) between the two acts, and a serves as a payoff to the tension at the end of Act 1. While "Upon these Stones/Building the Barricade" begins Act 2 in the current libretto, it's high on exposition and low on enthusiasm. Since "Do You Hear the People Sing" has become an international revolutionary anthem, making it the opening of the uprising, rather than the prelude to it, builds on *ahem* that connection.

Just picture it: the audience returns to their seats, the orchestra hums with tension, and the lights go up on a somber street with a single voice—Enjolras, probably—singing. Students emerge from the set, workers join in, the turntable starts turning and it becomes clear that soon a barricade will be built in the street. The subsequent Marius/Eponine conversation that transitions into "On my Own" would still probably work here. In the span of fifteen minutes, the thesis statement of the revolting students turns into the reveal of the final barricade. It'd be pretty damn rousing, right?

The potential problem with this change is the lacuna it would leave behind. In the current structure of Les Miserables, "Do you Hear the People Sing" is an elaboration on Enjolras' claim that "they will come when we call!" and going directly from that rallying cry to a quiet romantic interlude flattens the rhetorical tension between romantic love and revolution "Red and Black" and makes Mairus seem a little silly (which, to be fair, he is. But Enjolras is not.) Although "Do You Hear the People Sing" is a little too bombastic for Act 1, before the uprising actually begins, there's still got to be some kind of transition. Something needs to foreshadow the violence to come. But what?

I proposed that the best transition would be a reprise of Stars. And that Eponine should get to sing it.

Since the Broadway premiere of the musical Les Miserables in 1987 and especially following the 2012 film adaptation, Eponine's character has been a locus for fandom attention and discourse. Because she's really compelling: despite being the daughter of the selfish, abusive Thenardier, she devotes her life to protecting Marius and ultimately sacrifices it for him. But the closest she ever gets to being understood is by the audience; even Marius, one of two people in the show to be kind to her (the other being Valjean), doesn't really understand the full extent of her devotion to him. And that devotion is powerful, whether as a proxy for audience members' own experiences with unrequited love or a representation of the bourgeousie's reliance on unacknowleged suffering. There's a lot going on with her in the musical. But there's even more to her in the Brick.

Unlike my esteemed Les Mis mutuals I'm definitely not informed enough to do original analysis, but I'm a big fan of the Javert/Eponine wolfdog theory. My introduction to it was with this post by @pilferingapples, although I don't know whether it originated somewhere else. The theory posits that Javert and Eponine, who are both compared to wolfish dogs for their ferocity and devotion to their idiosyncratic systems of morality, are character foils who represent the limited choices offered to people excluded from. I definitely don't know the op who suggested they trade methods of death (if anyone does, please let me know!) but that's also in the Brick. And while the musical adaptation doesn't preserve Hugo's canine/lupine symbolism, it keeps Eponine's one-sided committment to guarding Marius. And it keeps Javert's devotion to the institution of Law.

"Stars" is the hymn of that devotion. It's more sinister than Eponine's love for Marius, but in the grand scheme of things it's just as pathetic. Giving a short reprise of that song to Eponine not only explicates that parallel and gives new life to relatively-unused musical motif, it has the potential to tie together the action of the first act and add a new dimension to subsequent scenes.

Imagine if, instead of beginning "Do You Hear the People Sing" immediately after "Red and Black" or transitioning directly to the Rue Plumet, the scene changes to the outside of the ABC cafe. On the other side of the turntable/wall, Eponine is waiting. And worrying. She knows her father's going to rob a house tonight and that the girl Marius asked her to find lives there*. She can't let her father hurt him. She's smarter than him. She'll do whatever it takes to keep him safe, she swears—not to God or the stars, as Javert does, but to herself. The promise is shocking, because the audience heard that melody two songs ago and are just now discovering there is another way to be. There is another vow that can be made.

While she's singing, the ABC society files out the door. Maybe some hand out pamphlets or chat with people on the street. If the production wants to emphasize Eponine and Gavroche secret sibling bond, maybe they interact a little. But no one pays her too much mind. No one ever does.

The last person to emerge is Marius, looking a bit shaken. The timeline of the students' plans has been unexpectedly accelerated, he says. In case it's his last chance—nevermind why, 'Ponine, don't worry about me—he needs to see her once. You've found her, haven't you? Could you show me? Please? For my sake?

Consumed by shame and dread and the sense that he'll probably do something really stupid if she doesn't tag along, she agrees. And the stage begins to turn into the Rue Plumet, where "In my Life" begins. The whole interaction would take maybe two minutes.

There are of course thematic objections to this plan. There's the argument that "Stars" ought to be a unique, distinct song like "Bring Him Home." But those motifs are reused in instrumental form after Javert's and the students' respective deaths, so I don't necessarily think they're scene- or character-specific. There's also the argument that the melody of "Stars" is altogether too rigid for Eponine's character. I think there are a couple moments that would work quite well with the emotion("and if they fall as Lucifer fell," for example) but if you really don't want Javert's and Eponine's motif to cross, the melody of "A Little Fall of Rain" ("and you/I will keep me/you safe") could work for this moment too.

There's also the argument that Eponine already gets "too much" attention in the musical adaptation and doesn't need. But I don't know if that's true either. She interacts with Marius in several short scenes, she's present for "A Heart Full of Love" and "One Day More," she goes on her errand to Valjean, sings "On my Own," goes back to the barricade and dies shortly after. She gets about as much stagetime as Cosette does, and a little less than Marius.

It's true that she stands out as a character, but that's because she's got such interesting writing and is so isolated in the narrative. And while it's important to keep her "on [her] own," for the plot, using shared motifs to emphasize her symbolic similarities with other characters might make her character fit more cohesively into Les Miserables' grander thematic narrative. It could even make "On my Own" that much more powerful if she has a little hope that saving Marius from her father might get him to like her, and subsequently understands that this is not happening. But there's a lot more to her than being Marius' rejected best friend** and this choice has the potential to make that clear onstage.

In conclusion: moving "Do You Hear the People Sing" to the start of Act 2 letting Eponine do a wolfdog reprise of "Stars" between "Red and Black" and "In my Life" would be sick as fuck and maybe resolve some pacing issues in the libretto.

*There is a moment in the show where she realizes that she and Cosette grew up together. I like it in concept but it's a little awkwardly-placed and integrating it into the unnamed Red and Black/In my Life transition song would be great. Overall, her interactions with Marius seem like afterthoughts in between the larger numbers, which isn't fair to either of them.

**And for the record: this not a post pitting her against Cosette! They are both good characters and I wish the best for both of them!

[mtvscreengrabs]

Brain Stew/Jaded - Green Day (1995)

[howtomakeyousee]

Wandering the void.

Artist credit: Babs

[thepiecesofcait]

So the Éponine from my Les Mis production had her school ball recently, and I sewed her ball dress out of the stars fabric that we used in our set.

[estellamiraiauthor]

I am going to see Les Mis tomorrow and this absolute QUEEN is going to be our Eponine. (She is singing in Korean here; she has also played the role there but it’ll be in Japanese tomorrow… absolute queen, yes?)

[maeslastbraincell]

In the new Châtelet version of Les Mis, Eponine sings

All my life, I've been chasing a shadow. My story is an empty shell.

And I think everyone needs to know those lyrics.

(Unfortunatly I can't see this live but I've been listening to the songs and I'm glad my first language is french because OH MY GOD. Might make a post about my favorite lyrics of the french version.)