Les Miserables

Blogging Les Mis

October 11, 2013

5:37 AM

It’s very early on a Friday morning, and I’ve been awake for about an hour.  Sometimes the only way to clear your head is to put it on paper.  Here’s what’s been percolating, rolling and burbling in my head…. 

In about 2 months, my team and I will be holding auditions for our company’s production of Les Miserables.  The show is in April of 2014, and we have been prepping--together and separately- since October of 2012.  I am the director. 

2 months ago, I listened to the audio version of Julie and Julia while driving to visit my son in South Carolina.  You know the one where the author creates a blog about working her way through Julia Child’s book of French cooking as an exercise in self-definition? I had a fleeting thought of “Hey, I could do that! (Pause)  What could I write about?”  (Sometimes, a person can really be blind to the trees in the middle of the forest!) 

I write to sort out whatever is going on in my life and my brain; the wheat from the chaff, the quiet voice from the chatter, the truth from the various forms of untruth …and this show, this process, has  taken up a lot of space in my head.  Based on the vast—and I mean VAST—amounts of fan lit, critique, cyberspace babble, blogs and websites  about all things Les Miserables;  I think my thoughts will have a place to park, at least!

More importantly, I want to make sure that my ego doesn’t interfere with this beautiful story.  I want clarity and purpose.   This will be a place to dump the endless internal chatter of worry about my own preparation and performance.  The story is building inside of me, and I just want to get out of the way and let it rip!

Although it’s only with hindsight that I can see how I’ve been preparing since October of 2012, now that I have seen a pattern, I want to know more.  (I’m also relieved!  I actually DO have a process!)  It’s my own process: “herky-jerky” and the complete opposite of linear, but I’d like to examine it more, so I can use it again.

So…here goes!

Preparation, so far…

1.        We were chosen as the production team in October, 2012 (more about that later).  I had just had major back surgery, so had a lot of time to fill while resting, recuperating, rehabbing and reclining.  The musical is based on Victor Hugo’s novel, so I started with the novel.  I couldn’t even get past the first chapter!  Who’s this Bishop guy?  Where’s Jean Valjean?  Also, minor panic…um…now what?  I got Cliff Notes and Spark Notes and read those.  Wow.  There were A LOT of things that I had only the vaguest grip on:  Napoleon, ancient regime, The French Revolution, Bagne of Toulon, France in general, what‘s the big deal about Victor Hugo and why did he use SO MANY WORDS???

2.       Okay…Starting with the French Revolution seemed prudent.  I went to the library and asked if there were any non-fiction books about The French Revolution in the children’s section.  Yes!  There were!  Each one of the two that I found had about a page regarding “The Fall of the Bastille”, “The Terror”, Robespierre, The Bourbon Kings…and, wait…this is 20 years before Les Mis even starts!  I decide I’m going to make a timeline of events from the French Revolution through the time of Les Miserables. Then at least, I’ll know what’s going on.  To the internet!  There is lots of material, but when you don’t know exactly what you are looking for, it’s hard to decide what to keep and what’s important.  I print out pages of maps, timelines, Wikipedia articles and try to put them in some kind of order.  I go back to the library-to the adult section this time- and find William Doyle’s Origins of the French Revolution; The Seven Ages of Paris by Allistair Horne; Parisians, An Adventure History of Paris by Graham Robb and Paris, The Secret History by Andrew Hussey.  I dip in and out of these books, looking for dates, reading certain sections and skipping others.  I always check the index for Victor Hugo’s name, and each book includes him.  That’s pretty significant!  The tone of these books nags at me, though…they talk as if to an audience that already knows something about this place and these events, almost with a shrug and a nod.  I’m starting to get a picture of the place and the time but it’s vague and I can’t get a grip on the sequence or the chronology of it.  Why Revolution?  What happened after? What’s the June Revolution?  I know it’s important to understand, but what’s the connection to Les Mis?  I’m not even sure what questions to ask, but I start my timeline anyway.  Pages of hand-written notes fill my newly-created research binder:  The Bourbon Kings, regime ancien, The Declaration of the Rights of Man, the Terror, Robespierre, The Directoire, Napoleon, The Consulate, The Emperor, Louis XVIII, Charles X, the July Revolution, Louis Phillippe, Emperor Napoleon III?…wait a minute, we’re past the Les Mis time frame!  What does this have to do with Jean Valjean?  With Victor Hugo?  He’s obviously significant, but how?  Back to the library:  Voltaire, The Age of Enlightenment, Eugene Delacroix’s painting Liberty Leading the People, Beethoven’s Eroica….A picture is definitely emerging, but how do I hang the story of Les Miserables on it?  Where is the intersection?  How can I use this information as a director to help create the world of Les Mis on stage?

3.       Sebastian, our team’s dramaturge, sets up a meeting with a French professor from the local university.  We meet her for coffee, and after 90 minutes of our questions about the revolution, the people, Napoleon, the water and Victor Hugo, she has to leave to get back to her office and classes.  One thing she says, sticks.  “Remember, that these people- for over 50 years -experienced revolution and reaction, revolution and reaction, revolution and reaction.”  Ahhhh!  That’s a FEELING that I can attach to these events…that’s something an actor can grab hold of…I can feel that that idea is important to understanding the people of France, Parisians and the characters in Les Mis.  My timeline makes a lot more sense.  I go back to the library and the internet and collect information about Victor Hugo.  I’ve decided that I don’t have to be an expert on the whole of Les Mis, I just have to understand  “it”….and what is “it” exactly?  The background of the story, what makes the characters significant, why Victor Hugo chose to write what he did, when he did.  Okay!  I have a definition of what I’m looking for!  I have been striving to understand the first “big picture” of this directing process:  the background of the story.  (That’s part of the reason that the novel is so giant—because the background is intricate and immense all at the same time.) 

4.       My research binder now has pages of notes and print outs about Victor Hugo.  I find a website that matches up the timeline of events from history, from the novel and from Victor Hugo’s life.  BINGO!  Victor Hugo’s LIFE is the story of Paris, France and its people.  The idea is huge and almost too big to digest.  I do it in chunks:  revisiting the books from the library, touching on the research that I’ve collected, adding in the chronology of VH’s life.  I make another attempt at the actual novel and actually enjoy it.  I do it in chunks, moving from book to book, looking for the characters that I have come to know and love through the musical.  Although it feels like cheating, I look at dozens of synopsis so I can find my way.  I carry a copy of Julie Rose’s translation in my bag, and I fall in love with Victor Hugo’s details, and grand comparisons, his whole world.  The enormity and beauty and power of the story hit me all over again.  I begin to appreciate the enormity of the task that Schonberg and Bouibil achieved:  They made a musical of this book!  And it works!  And it’s beautiful!  And faithful to the heart of VH’s story!  Wow.  Wow.  Wow.  And I get to direct it!

October 12, 1:46AM

Just got back from a wonderful evening of theatre with some smart, passionate, powerful women… I am honored to be in their company!  Several people asked about Les Mis:   “How’s it going?”  I finally said, “You know, there are so many words to describe it that there aren’t any words.”  I am physically unable to say, simply “Good” or “Great”, and feel compelled to share how excited I am to be approaching this story!  I think I seem slightly crazed. 

Some more thoughts about preparation…I like the feeling of having a full “tool kit” as a director.  And everything that I’m researching and discovering about the time period, the diseases, the politics, the culture, the art, and the people is all tools, all grist for the mill.  It enables me to make connections—for me and for my actors—to help and guide them toward the farthest reaches of their ability to tell this story.  What tidbit will get someone’s creative juices going?  What snippet of thought will crack someone open?  I want to be prepared, so there is no fumbling or interruption in the work that we’re going to be doing.

What’s next?  Let’s see…I want to mount the maps of Paris that I got (foam core?), and pinpoint the old locations so we can place ourselves on actual streets.  I think I’ve articulated the theme that I want to work with…so now I have to go into the script and craft individual character choices:  superobjectives, scene objectives, ideas for obstacles and tactics.  My brain is dancing to get at that and experiment.  I know that it’s just a framework and that my actors will flesh out the ideas, but again, I want to be ready.  And actually, I want to lead them.  I think that is what’s going to make this show feel crafted and put together:  these interconnected and over arcing ideas that will be physicalized by my actors. 

I also want to watch more youtube clips of different performers and productions.  I haven’t actually seen that many because I didn’t want to be swayed by any one performance.  I wanted to decide what I wanted, first.  So now that I have a clearer idea, I want to watch! 

It’s fascinating to see actors’ different choices.  More about that later, but right now Colm Wilkinson as JVJ thrills me every time.  He has such a range and coloration in his voice!  Such a ringing rock and roll tenor and such satisfying, rough, full baritone sounds.  Breathtaking.  John Owen Jones as JVJ seems so effortless as he travels through the vocal score—he is powerful and beautiful, but smoother, somehow.  “Pure”, is the word that comes to mind.  I think every time I listen to a cast album or a  you tube clip, I fall a little bit in love with these performers who are putting themselves on the line to tell the story.  Each is moving in his own way, just because they are committing.

I also want—for my own sake—to once and for all, make the damn timeline of events from the Revolution up through June 1832.  Clarity!  I want to find and flag the sections of novel that are so rich in details:  descriptions of the Bishop’s sister’s clothes, Fantine, the barricades, the streets,  Javert, Thenardier, Marius, all of them.  There is so much there that we can use!

More later!