Critics of “Les Misérables” call it bombastic. So what? Bitching that “Les Miz” is overwrought is like complaining a Dalmatian has too many spots: It’s the nature of the beast.
With a show like this one, you have to embrace the grandeur, the melodrama, the insane plot twists, the doomed romances and the “I’ll hunt you down till the end of time” mania. All the emotions are THIS BIG — people don’t just sing, they belt to the heavens.
And in this new revival, you mostly soar with them.
The latest revival of Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg’s spectacle rides the coattails of the Oscar-nominated blockbuster movie. After all, it’s not like “Les Miz” has been scarce on Broadway since its 1987 opening. Trevor Nunn’s original production lasted a whopping 6,680 performances, until 2003, then resurfaced after a mere three-year break.
Now the juggernaut’s back yet again, this time directed by Laurence Connor and James Powell. While we hadn’t really missed “Les Miz,” its return offers a welcome corrective to the 2012 movie — which, aside from Hugh Jackman, wasn’t very good.
So here they are again, the street urchins and fiery students, the bedraggled prostitutes and louche innkeepers, all thrown together in 19th-century France.
And, of course, the story’s two pillars are front and center: chain-gang escapee Jean Valjean (Ramin Karimloo) and his determined foe, Inspector Javert (Will Swenson).
Between 1815 and 1832, their destinies remain intertwined as Valjean finds redemption through his fatherly love for the orphan Cosette (Samantha Hill), while trying to escape Javert’s clutches.
Karimloo introduces himself with a bang — he opens up his shirt, crying “I am Jean Valjean!” His performance is affecting throughout, but Swenson is a bigger revelation.
He was miscast in his last few outings (“Priscilla, Queen of the Desert,” “Little Miss Sunshine”) but his furrowed-brow intensity and rich vocal tone are perfect here. Like every other great number in a show that kills off half its characters, Javert’s big “Soliloquy” takes place before his dramatic death, and Swenson nails it with fierce angst.
Too bad the inspector’s final leap into musical-theater greatness takes place in front of a murky projection — this underlit spectacle seems to explore the 50 shades of brown.
Overall, the staging sacrifices vision and ambition for brisk efficiency, and the highlights tend to come from individual actors seizing the moment by the throat.
Keala Settle (“Hands on a Hardbody”) and Cliff Saunders are fantastically funny as the Thénardiers, a pair of nefarious innkeepers. They make the interminable “Master of the House” a lot less painful than usual.
Less successful is Caissie Levy’s Fantine, whose “I Dreamed a Dream” is a soulless display of chops, especially for a single-mother-turned-prostitute on her deathbed.
But another just-before-I-die power ballad — “On My Own” — is a smash for Nikki M. James’ Éponine, who’s hopelessly in love with the dashing student Marius (Andy Mientus). Though she plays it to the rafters, as the show requires, James still creates a powerful sense of intimacy. You can hear Éponine’s heart break on the sorrowful pause between “I love him” and “but only on my own.”
Is that sniffling we hear in the audience? Yes, and that’s why “Les Misérables” endures.