Skyscrapers and Barricades

Dubai is known for its skyscrapers, shopping malls and propensity to be the first and biggest of anything imaginable. It seemed befitting that Les Misérables, one of the most exported and successful musicals would be running at the Dubai Opera, the modern district and development built in 2016. The opera house has a capacity of 2000 seats and is promised to be a destination of worldwide cultural experiences.

I saw Les Mis when I was a teenager, in my twenties and thirties. I wore the grey sweatshirt, and owned the Cossette mug all throughout high school. I must have first discovered coffee in that mug. It was also the second musical I saw, probably in 1992 or 1993, after Cats, also coming to Dubai Opera. Over twenty years later, the first two musicals I ever saw are now playing consecutively in my own neck of the woods.

Victor Hugo’s masterpiece is a well-known in the Arab world, with numerous translations of the novel and a number of film adaptations set in Egypt. Its message of perseverance of the human spirit set against a student uprising and revolution, Les Mis feels especially topical following the Arab Spring.

Producer Cameron Mackintosh typically assembled a bespoke company and production crew rather than plucking one of his worldwide companies to perform in Dubai. It’s not unprecedented, following a recent run in Singapore which also specifically assembled a new cast for the that run, but it is a new experiment here, considering Dubai (and anywhere else in the Gulf) is an untested ground for commercial mega-musicals.

The UAE premiere is based on the 25^th anniversary tour that started in the UK, with spurts in Toronto, Spain, Poland, South Korea and just concluded a two-year run on Broadway. Trevor Nunn’s and John Caird’s original innovative use of a stage revolve is now replaced with a more conventional set, utilizing some of Victor Hugo’s own water color paintings for scenic backdrops.

John Owen Jones plays the escaped convict Jean Valjean (having played the lead on and off since 1998, and just concluded the run on Broadway) opposite Australian Hayden Tee, also from the recently concluded Australian and Broadway revival. I saw John Owen Jones in 2009 during 25^th anniversary tour when Les Mis returned to its original home at the Barbican Centre. Jones is a fine singer, but he’s plain, short of stamina, and hard to see as a tough convict with a golden heart. Seeing him in 2016, his voice remains powerful, but his Valjean is even heavier and slower.

West End veteran Peter Polycarpou, an original London cast member from 1985 and Jodie Prenger play the vile and comical Thenardiers. Prenger won the search to play Nancy in a major West End revival of Oliver!, also produced by Mackintosh. Alistair Brammer plays revolutionary student leader Enjolras, prior to making his Broadway debut in Miss Saigon.  Carrie Hope Fisher, very much known to play estranged Eponine in London, reprises her role and is probably one of the finer cast members.

Despite great efforts for assembling a premium company, it’s evident that the cast hasn’t developed a cohesiveness and chemistry that would come with an organically grown and rehearsed team.

By all accounts, this was a massive feat for Dubai Opera, and the start of a trend of future projects and tours like Cats, Mary Poppins, Jersey Boys, West Side Story and Evita, all productions running in the UK with occasional stops in Europe, Asia, and finally in the Gulf.

Patti LuPone: Just a little touch of star quality

Forget West End Live as the West End theatrical calendar event. Patti LuPone was in town, bitches! Fiercely belting, splashing her martini glass and performing musical theatre sequences that we’ve only fantasized about.

I opted to see the last two performance of the one week engagement at Leicester Square Theatre in Soho, simply due to my travel plans, and also to attend what could have been the best culmination of musical choices by then, knowing that no performance would be identical to the other. Accompanied by sassy pianist and Sirius Radio talk-host, Broadway pundit, comedian, producer, Seth Rudetsky, Patti gives background knowledge about her process, the history of the shows she was in, and a wee bit of gossip here and there about her fellow cast members and peers. Pulling members of the audience to the stage with her (quite impromptu, but I’m sure has been casually rehearsed), she delves into full on sequences from Evita (“Eva, Beware of the City” with current UK tour Magaldi, Nic Gibney, and segueing into “Buenos Aires” as well as Book of Mormon‘s Gavin Creel to perform “Fantine’s Death/Come to Me” from Les Miserables).

Patti LuPone is quite remarkable. At 65, and out of all her peers who have reached such Dame of Musical Theatre designation, take Betty Buckley and Elaine Paige, no one at this age could possible have such zest and stamina, let alone the pipes and throat to hit such high notes, and sustain.

One of the biggest surprises is that she sang “With One Look” from Sunset Boulevard, which I have personally campaigned for! Seth Rudetsky has been Tweeting about various Evita numbers that he’s been rehearsing with Patti, so I naturally jumped on the bandwagon and have been repeatedly campaigning of her to sing one of my favourite musical theatre “arias”:

   

While she did not sing them at the first few shows, I believe the “premiere” of “With One Look” happeneed on 19 June. I am very grateful that she got to sing “With One Look” on both performances I attended.