In Which I Draw Conclusions

(Originally I was going to try to cram this into a Facebook status.)

Tonight Mr. Graham and I went to see a one-night showing of the recent Les Miserables 25th Anniversary concert. It was three hours and $15 a pop, but it turned out to be well, well worth the cost and time.* During these three hours I compiled the following list of conclusions:

• It IS possible for "Bring Him Home"--one of my least favorite songs in the world--to sound like it is being sung by a man. Thank you, Alfie Boe, for singing like a man.
  
• While I can give Nick Jonas some credit for being involved with something that is not a Disney Channel byproduct, for an event on this scale, he just didn't have the (Marius) goods. That said, he didn't embarrass himself, but he did sound comparatively underwhelming.
  
• Lea Salonga as Fantine is just as good as Lea Salonga as Eponine. (She *may* have made someone that is not me cry...)
• Ramiiiiiiiiiin! It was nice to see him in a show that is good and stuff. His inclusion as Enchiladas ("Enjolras," says Mr. Graham) was 50% of my motivation for seeing it in the first place. I want to turn him into an iPod and put him in my pocket.
  
• Oh my, Michael Ball is not as young as he once was, though his hair looks exactly the same.
  
• I enjoy Les Mis probably 40-50% more as a concert. Granted, I have seen most of the 10th anniversary concert many times, and on stage only once. However! I think the show itself is kind of fundamentally flawed in its characters and storytelling, but it works better when you can see people's faces well and identify all the characters better. For whatever reason, probably because some minor things are cut, the story seems much more focused in concert versions.
• I find it frustrating that even though I only really, really like about 1/3 of the songs I still find the whole thing so very spirited and rousing. It puts me at odds with myself. When the original 1985 cast came out at the end I was ready to squeal like a little girl.
  
• Why don't they do concerts for any other big shows? How has ALW not been all over this for years?
  

Anyway, it was a good time, and it was really fun to see a lot of the cast members that we saw live this summer. We even spotted that most dreaded Marius--he who makes Nick Jonas look good, or at least better.

*As a sidenote, we were finishing up our Harry Potter movie-a-night marathon and had to watched the first hour, go to the show and then finish it after. Last night we had to interrupt Order of the Phoenix with a rather lackluster local production of The Scarlet Pimpernel...bad French accents were ever-y-whare.