Les Misewhat?

May 10, 2014.

I guess I was in high school when my Aunt Jane took me to see Les Mis on Broadway.  It was my very first Broadway show, and I was very excited to see it.  We had great seats near the front too, as I recall.

Then the show began, and continued, and went on some more, and lots of people sang, and yelled, and cried.  And the show went on for a lot longer after that.  Then it kept going.  And then, when I thought it was over, it really wasn't.  There was like a whole 'nother part they decided to throw in there.  And I was confused, and tired, and bored.  Then the show went on a bit more, and continued, and went on some more, and lots of people sang again, and yelled, and cried.  A few days later, it finally ended.

Of course I thanked my aunt afterward, but the show just didn't register with me the way it seemed to register with everyone else around me.  I figured I must have just had a bad night or something, or maybe musical comedy was more my style.

Years went by, and I never had much to offer when the discussion of Les Mis ever came up, except to say it didn't appeal to me.  "What???!!!" they'd ask, "How could you not like it???!!!"  People would gasp, and act shocked and outraged, maybe even pretend to slap me, as if I'd just brought blasphemy on theatre geeks and Frenchmen everywhere.  "Sorry," I'd say, "I guess I just didn't like it very much."

Then the movie came out a couple of years ago. 

As I started watching it, I was immediately transfixed.  What was playing out before me was unlike anything I'd ever experienced before.  The film had not just captured the story perfectly, it was more.  This was the first time I was really, really seeing Les Mis.  I couldn't stop the emotion from overwhelming me throughout the film, and when it finally ended and my friends asked me what I thought, I couldn't speak.  I was in tears, and I was just completely blown away, completely changed, completely transformed.

Seeing Les Mis as a teenager and seeing it in my 30s was like night and day.  It was as if the story was never meant to be understood by a mere child, but only by an adult who had truly experienced life.  It was as if each of my many life experiences between high school and now had unlocked a new appreciation for life, and for Les Mis, so that when I saw it again, my eyes were opened.

I can't explain it, but something about the show is just other-worldly, and cannot be understood or truly appreciated without first living your life for a certain number of years, experiencing love and loss, life and death.  Once you have done that, you can go back to the musical, or the movie, and you can see the story with new eyes.  You can see how beautiful and awful, how gut-wrenching and wonderful, how sweet, how important, and how dear every moment in life truly is.

Les Mis is for people who have truly experienced life, and life is truer and richer for those who have truly experienced Les Mis.