Les Miserables

"Scenic tweaking aside, and an orchestra shrunk to 20 from 27, this “Les Miz” will offend none of the musical’s fans with any directorial innovations, and will give them a chance to assess how a new generation of performers meets the challenges of the score." Full Review

"Twenty-seven years after its Broadway debut, this epic musical is back and better than ever. Even the most cynical of theatergoers will find it difficult not to be carried away by the grandeur and sweeping emotion of the evening. Les Misérables is high mass for the Broadway faithful." Full Review

"Critics of 'Les Misérables' call it bombastic. So what? It’s the nature of the beast. You have to embrace the grandeur, the melodrama, the insane plot twists, the doomed romances and the “I’ll hunt you down till the end of time” mania. All the emotions are THIS BIG—people don’t just sing, they belt to the heavens. And in this new revival, you mostly soar with them." Full Review

"It may be unfair to compare a stage show to a movie, but after you’ve seen Paris, it’s hard to go back. As someone who didn’t dig Les Miz in its original theatrical form, I cop to shedding plenty of salty drops at the cineplex.This redesigned and youthfully cast reboot, though, left me dry: It’s strictly for existing fans." Full Review

"Audiences go to musical comedies to laugh themselves silly. But when they go to musical plays, they want to be stirred by melody and shaken with emotion. Like it or not (and it’s always been more of an audience show than one for the critics), that’s what “Les Miz” delivers — beautiful melodies and unbridled emotions." Full Review

"There are still too many empty gestures on crowded stages. But there is definitely a change. In past productions, when the pint-sized street urchin is shot multiple times, dying in a heap, I reacted by shaking my head and literally laughing. This time I was moved. Now, there is the sound of a single shot, a bright light, a frozen moment, and then he falls. That’s it. It works." Full Review

"Each of the featured characters In Les Miserables has their moment center stage. The voices are so grand that at times it seemed like a contest with the audience applause meter ready to rock after each number. But the showstopper was a ballad, Bring Him Home, sung with such tenderness that it broke our collective hearts. You could almost hear them shatter." Full Review

"You’ll be fighting off chills and the urge to stand and cheer. Even when the stage is too vacant and the actors too overeager, nothing can hide the fact that this is modern musical theatre at its best. This is the most vibrant and alive the show has been in years, and something our homegrown shows should carefully note and emulate." Full Review

"Les Miserables returns in a sizzling 21st-century upgrade...This isn't your grandfather's Les Miz, as it's more familiarly known. It's the new and enhanced-in-some-ways-diminished-in-others Les Miz, and it very much takes into account the movie and the possible expectations that it's planted in the eyes, ears and minds of ticket buyers." Full Review

"I’m no fan of the show; Les Miz helped normalize the massive doomy stagings, the errant chandeliers and helicopters, the sadistic vocal writing in nearly sung-through scores that have continued to weigh down the form ever since. The new Broadway mounting atones for some of that. The directors do not exactly repudiate the original vision but they do simplify it enormously. Less Les is more." Full Review

"The revival is disheartening for those who were raised on the original show, which had an elegant and extremely effective simplicity. What "Les Miz" really needs is a rest. Too much of even a great musical can be nauseating. This "Les Miz" feels less like a revival than a ritual." Full Review

"This reboot of Les Miserables feels faster, grittier, gloomier and, above all, more emphatic than ever. The large number of young faces in the audience and their roaring approval throughout the performance suggests this is Les Miz for excitable teens and twentysomethings. Nothing sets youthful hearts racing, it seems, like a vigorous jolt of love, death and revolutionary spirit." Full Review

"What’s really outstanding about Broadway’s mixed-bag reboot of Les Miserables comes when the show is at its leanest and most minimal: one man, one voice, one prayer." Full Review

"Now, this ground breaking operatic musical adaptation of Victor Hugo's classic novel is back in town. And it's a humdinger. Even if you saw it before, or caught the 2012 film version, you won't want to miss the exciting new production. The new stage concept--created to celebrate the show's 25th Anniversary--is a stunning, innovative spectacle." Full Review

"For those of us in the minority, "Les Miz" remains Masterpiece Musical at its most earnest, marred by cumulative bellowing and politics so fuzzy-edged that they never get beyond a generic storm-the-barricades fervor. But if we need to have "Les Miz"--and obviously, we do--I pick this one." Full Review

"You can pick holes in it - yes, it's terribly sentimental, and illogical, but its grand conception and parade of timeless songs sweep everything else away. The fine new production doesn't sponge on the show's reputation. At the end, you can hear weeping in the audience as Valjean dies. It's a show that, after thousands and thousands of performances, still has that effect on people." Full Review

"Ramin Karimloo as Jean Valjean is the main reason to reacquaint yourself with this newly reimagined revival. It is a successful love-letter to the original, with some nifty tweaks. Out is the familiar turntable, which once spun an enormous barricade; in is a video backdrop that transitions from a streetscape to the Paris sewers as Valjean rescues Marius. The show just looks dynamite." Full Review

"Unfortunately, Laurence Connor and James Powell’s production can’t hold a candle to the musical’s first Broadway incarnation, both literally (due to Paule Constable’s severely dim lighting and Matt Kinley’s drab, turntable-less scenic design) and figuratively. However, this skillful adaptation of Victor Hugo’s massive novel still stirs the heart and minds of theatergoers and provides nearly three solid hours of entertainment." Full Review

"Les Miserables has rolled into town for its third bite at the Broadway apple, and there’s nothing tiresome about its gloomy, aching heartbeat...The melodies are as grandiose as the story. And here, the voices and look of the show wonderfully match. Bring your flag." Full Review

"Les Miz opened the floodgates for the bloated, self-important musicals that would pop up regularly in the following decade...The faithful will be pleased that the new staging offers as much bombast as ever. There are thundering performances of the syrupy, repetitive score, a vast, creepy set and a company of accomplished troupers who gamely glower and fret under the heavy-handed direction." Full Review

"Whether you’re a Les Miz fanatic or one of the handful that has yet to see this epic tale, this production beautifully retells what has become a classic of the modern musical theater." Full Review

"Forgiveness, redemption, helping your fellow man, living a life for God, they're all in the new, re-staged version of Les Miserables. The Thenardier's Master of the House is a lot of fun. Joshua Colley's Little Gavroche lit up the stage and engaged the audience with every word and gesture. Don't miss it." Full Review

"The score is the best written one of the last 30 years and it is undermined of its grandeur by injecting it with unneeded sound enhancement...This reinvention and unnecessary excessive humor injected in the oddest of scenes is courtesy of the directors Laurence Connor and James Powell. They discarded the magnificently paced original direction by Trevor Nunn and John Caird and replaced it with their own underwhelming vision." Full Review

“Les Misérables does not turn it up to eleven because it is always at eleven. Here, all the pomp seems to outweigh any interest in narrative or character. Ultimately, this show is lacking the passion and sincerity of a musical produced by those who love it; it seems more about the $40 t-shirts than it does about anything else. Though Les Misérables has always been a behemoth, it has perhaps suffered the watering down of becoming an international institution.” Full Review

" It’s been just six years since the last (and limp) revival of Les Misérables left Broadway. Now uber-producer Cameron Macintosh is remounting the blockbuster musical about income inequality in 19th-century France with a first-rate cast and a new production that nods to its recent cinematic incarnation." Full Review