Column: Thoughts from Dr. Joe: La Cañada High actors, singers transform ‘Les Misérables’
Theater involves a leap into a void. It doesn’t give us anything that isn’t already there. It simply stirs our curious consciousness and sparks a fire that illuminates who we’ve always wanted to be. It’s passport to all the possibilities of life.
In late April I was enthralled by the La Cañada High School student production of “Les Misérables.” I realized this show was special and that it met the expectation of “theater magic” because I entered the theater as an individual and left a part of a collective group of theatergoers. We were all bound together by a similar experience, a gift from the remarkable actors.
The production was the culmination of the superb efforts of the theater director, Justin Eick, choral director Jeff Brookey and music director Jason Stone. What makes this production unique is that the show was run entirely by students and is one of the largest casts I have seen at LCHS.
The production was brilliant, but I think that we would be remiss if we didn’t understand the scope of “Les Misérables.”
The story is the product Victor Hugo’s genius and considered one of the greatest masterpieces of the 19th century, an era unsurpassed by literary excellence. At approximately 1,500 pages, “Les Misérables” is one of the longest novels written.
I understand the enormous difficulty of crafting a novel. Yet, his ability to weave a story that encompasses five volumes with multitudes of characters covering the spectrum of human evolution, thought, and anticipation suggests to me Hugo was a savant.
Victor Marine Hugo (1802-1885, French poet, novelist, dramatist and the leader of the Romantic Movement in France) lived life on the grand scale and was present — hiding in a storefront — during the Paris June rebellion of 1832. The novel examines the ageless clash of heroes and villains, which is reminiscent of the mythological battles between the Olympians and the Titans. For more than half the novel, Hugo deals with moral philosophy, justice, redemption, political strife, love and romance, both from a philosophical and pragmatic perspective. His continuous diatribes do not push the plot forward yet are vignettes of insight into the realm of human thought.
Hugo spent 14 years laboring on “Les Misérables.” I have yet to read a more powerful or deeply moving book than this. It is perhaps one of the most quotable books ever written. Explained in the preface, he lays the foundation for social justice.
“So long as there shall exist, by reason of law and custom, a social condemnation, which, in the face of civilization, artificially creates hells on earth, and complicates a destiny that is divine with human fatality; so long as the three problems of the age — the degradation of man by poverty, the ruin of women by starvation, and the dwarfing of childhood by physical and spiritual night — are not solved; so long as, in certain regions, social asphyxia shall be possible; in other words, and from a yet more extended point of view, so long as ignorance and misery remain on earth, books like this cannot be useless.”
The best summation of the power of “Les Misérables” was penned by the English scholar and critic Algernon Charles Swinburne: “Les Misérables is the greatest epic and dramatic work of fiction ever created or conceived. The epic of a soul transfigured and redeemed, purified by heroism and glorified through suffering; the tragedy and comedy of life at its darkest and its brightest, of humanity at its best and its worst.”
The students of La Cañada High School presented the story to the audience so beautifully that they assured its transformation. I was duly impressed, particularly by Lisa Son, who played my favorite character, Éponine. Their excellent work compelled me to attend a second evening. It was that good.
JOE PUGLIA is a practicing counselor, a retired professor of education and a former officer in the Marines. Reach him at doctorjoe@ymail.com. Visit his website at doctorjoe.us.
