Châtelet Theater
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Forty years after the original and the colossal success of its English adaptation, Ladislas Chollat delivers an effective, but wise, staging of the musical comedy inspired by Hugo.
On the poster for the show given at the Châtelet, the little head of Cosette drawn by Victor Hugo himself seems to scrutinize with concern the reaction of his audience: it must be said that the musical, which has been making people cry in London cottages for almost forty years has never taken in France, where it was nevertheless born in 1980, under the pen of Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg. It is said that the French public would be too attached to the Hugolian letter to see it misused in such a popular form; we can rather bet that it has never been given the means to be truly well staged, in a French theatrical landscape disinclined to produce these musical forms, and which has very recently seen more of them flourish. She finds in this new production directed by the champion of private theater Ladislas Chollat a real effectiveness, which is undoubtedly due to a clever mix between the French spirit and the Anglo-Saxon tradition.
The room is full, the performances guaranteed. Under the lights of the theater for three hours, people sing (well), dance (little), the settings change with remarkable fluidity, sometimes shrouded in dark visions, which recreate on the stage sketches by Victor Hugo, like the trace of the great author, in what looks like a rather well-made compilation of his themes. Jean Valjean is the beating heart, played by a certain Benoît Rameau with obvious presence and a voice worthy of an opera tenor. Ex-convict
France
