Imperial Theater. 2014.3.18
Ramin Karimloo & Will Swenson
Oh my goodness me can I just say I really, really love it when Valjean and Javert are played as being incredibly physical? That slap of Valjean’s hand away by Javert and his near shout, ‘Valjean, take care!’ How much you can hear something like panic in his voice, anger and incomprehension at Valjean’s choice to spare him, that desperation when he grabs him and goads him to shoot him. And then yesssss Valjean who may be a gentle and forgiving man of God, who may be aging but who is also brutishly strong, who can shove Javert back and pin him with a forearm across his throat like an iron bar and kajsdhfalksjdas YES
I was about to say something similar to this, but culumacilinte expressed it better than I ever could… Gosh this scene. Seeing it live was amazing, the whole thing, but this part, how the played it, really was what surprised me the most.
But yes, everything culumacilinte said.
(Can we just give all the awards to these two, in this scene to Will in particular?)
….I think this was the best interpretation of this moment that I’ve ever seen.
(Ramin Karimloo’s up for a Tony for Valjean, at least! It’s a shame that Will Swenson isn’t, too, because that’s an amazing Javert right there.)
“….I think this was the best interpretation of this moment that I’ve ever seen.”
I KNOW RIGHT?
I saw this live when I was in New York, and me and my friend just sort of looked at each other when that scene was done. Thing is, you expect it to be played in one way, and then they change some things, and it’s not what you expected, and me and my friend talked about it later, and he expressed it like this “emotional gut-punch”, since you weren’t prepared for it, and I think that’s rather fitting. I mean, this video is still very intense, and it was even more so live. Tbh, Will’s Javert didn’t make a huge impression on me in the first act, but that’s pretty common for most Javerts. He has more good sons later on. Though he did do Stars very well. But it was after he became a spy and the whole barricade scene that I really went like ‘wow he knows how to play musical Javert, doing the whole very aggressive thing, and he does it SO WELL’. And then this scene happened and well. Yeah. That settled it for me. His suicide was amazing as well, it had all the emotion you want it to have. So yeah. It was good.
But yes, all luck to Ramin! He really deserves it, so I hope he gets it.
(via yoyo-inspace)