#this is a stunned rambling Statement without Eye powers to make it coherent

[pilferingapples]

I have seen Gavroche the Musical and maybe that's why I can't sleep

Spoilers under the cut though this is NOT a coherent review post , it's gonna be long and confusing like the musical itself HEYOOOOO and somehow have spoilers so. here we go

this show...is definitely a show

seriously all the songs are very "Musical! The Musical!!" you know?

The Thenardiers are running a welfare scheme

ignoring that this is genuinely straight up right wing propaganda about how welfare works, yeah ok they would run any grift but

their whole "fraudulent scheme" consists of trying to convince ...canon era social workers? Aid for Dependent Children? IDEK-- that they are Super Poor and have children to feed and they need help

And ?!? they ARE super poor! They DO have children to feed! Their welfare scheme is just applying for welfare that they definitely need

They do this by kicking Eponine and Azelma out so the Social Services People...of 1832...will only see the momes

which if anything means they are applying for less welfare than they are entitled to

but the song is in minor key and the Ts are transparently bad parents so this is supposed to be Evil somehow , and we're all supposed to cheer when the cops arrest them and then do not help the kids at all

It's hare to tell because the costuming in the version I saw was very haphazard but I think the cops?? were only posing as social workers? So they could arrest the Ts for a totally different crime? But we're still supposed to cheer when they arrest the parents because haha , they were poor and bad! Who do they think they are, asking for *checks notes* financial aid they are entirely entitled to have?

the cops are the good guys?? sort of?? they keep showing up to arrest the Ts and the show always frames it as a good thing

the revolutionaries...are also the good guys

I was very unclear on how the revolutionaries died but hilariously they ALL die, even Marius , because there's no Valjean in this

oh yeah, there's no Valjean, no onscreen Cosette, and no named Javert, though there are cop characters who could be Javert

there IS Mabeuf, and Eponine goes to him for info about Marius, but the show seems to think he's called "Father" Mabeuf for religious reasons, oh no

I was also unclear about what they were fighting for, which is an absolute trip when this was an uprising with an exceptionally clear and direct purpose ("MONARCHY BAD, REMOVE MONARCH BY FORCE IF NECESSARY")

I was VERY clear on the momes naming themselves Grizzly and Croissant

I am not gonna forget that possibly ever , my loved ones will gather round me and I'll murmur " but those names...are so bad...they aren't even easy to use in...a song" and Perish and my last thoughts will be of frigging Gavroche The Musical , a dire fate

Azelma and the momes live and go to America alone?? and have a great life?? does anyone remember what happened in the book. Does anyone remember what was happening in the US in this time period?? certainly THIS musical does not!

It is pretty directly stated that Grizzly and/or Croissant came back to Paris to tell his family's story--which, I gotta say, he has no way to know since most of it happened when he wasn't around and no one survived to tell him about it -- and became the tour guide in the first scene

but the tour guide in the first scene showed them the Gavroche statue

..that statue went up in 1904

This is Love Never Dies levels of Timelines Happening

Gavroche the Musical 2 is gonna be about Gavroche running an amusement park on coney island

ngl I'd watch that

I haven't covered HALF the things About the Show

I gotta apologize to action movies for making fun of "well THAT happened" dialogue because truly. It IS an emotion, and it's the one I'm feeling now.