Ja­nine Charles-Far­ray

The prepa­ra­tion for the Mar­i­onettes Chorale's stag­ing of Les Mis�rables has been a long time in com­ing. It was a per­son­al mis­sion for dra­mat­ic di­rec­tor and as­sis­tant artis­tic di­rec­tor Car­o­line Tay­lor, who will be work­ing along with the chorale's artis­tic and mu­si­cal di­rec­tor Gret­ta Tay­lor, her moth­er."We'd done ex­cerpts a few times over the years, and I per­son­al­ly spent much of the last decade try­ing to get the rights to do the full pro­duc­tion here," the younger Tay­lor said. "So when the full per­for­mance rights be­came avail­able at the end of 2012, and de­spite the vast mu­si­cal and tech­ni­cal chal­lenges, it was all sys­tems go. Once it fi­nal­ly hap­pened, I was si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly ex­cit­ed and ter­ri­fied!"

Les Mis has run con­tin­u­ous­ly since Oc­to­ber 1985 and is now the longest run­ning mu­si­cal in the world. The Mar­i­onettes' stag­ing will be the Caribbean pre­miere of the pop­u­lar mu­si­cal. The Mar­i­onettes Chorale is al­so con­tin­u­ing cel­e­bra­tions of its gold­en an­niver­sary of 50 years as a choir, be­gun last year.A mem­ber of the Mar­i­onettes since 1995 (by way of the Youth Chorale), Tay­lor works close­ly with her moth­er on var­i­ous as­pects of the Mar­i­onettes' artis­tic and pro­duc­tion work, as­sist­ing on every­thing from stage di­rec­tion to grant writ­ing and mar­ket­ing.

Ex­tend­ed fam­i­ly

"Mar­i­onettes has al­ways been like an ex­tend­ed fam­i­ly for me," Tay­lor said. "But be­yond that, even though I was in and out of the coun­try for a while and some­times tak­ing time out to work on oth­er cre­ative projects, I think the lev­el of my in­volve­ment now on the cre­ative and ad­min­is­tra­tive side is in large part be­cause of the kind of re­la­tion­ship I have with my moth­er."It's not their first time work­ing to­geth­er."Back in 2008, my aunt, Mum's on­ly sis­ter, passed sud­den­ly weeks be­fore our Trib­utes con­cert. It was heart­break­ing to see the toll it took on Mum, and I felt very much com­pelled to take up more of the cre­ative man­tle to sup­port both her and the work."Sad­ly, this pro­duc­tion is a bit of a par­al­lel, as her on­ly broth­er passed last week, once again just weeks be­fore con­cert time. So at the end of the day, while we face the same chal­lenges any two fam­i­ly mem­bers or mem­bers of a cre­ative team do, we're both dri­ven to man­i­fest some­thing beau­ti­ful on that stage, and to sup­port each oth­er in the process."

Tay­lor will al­so play the role of Mme Th�nardier. The com­po­si­tion of the or­ches­tra for the pro­duc­tion will re­main a mys­tery to be un­veiled on the open­ing night of Les Mis. Gret­ta Tay­lor de­scribed the pro­duc­tion as "per­haps the most chal­leng­ing pro­duc­tion the Mar­i­onettes have ever un­der­tak­en–Car­men in­clud­ed."The Mar­i­onettes pro­duc­tion crew for the show in­cludes chore­o­g­ra­phers No­ble Dou­glas and Dave Williams; stage de­sign­er Ran­dall Halfhide; light­ing de­sign­er Celia Wells; sound de­sign­er Frank Agar­rat; cos­tume de­sign­er Mar­garet Shep­pard; stage man­ag­er Arielle Ros­tant; and as­sis­tant mu­si­cal di­rec­tor and con­duc­tor Roger Hen­ry.

Mem­o­rable mu­sic

Tay­lor re­marked that the mu­sic in Les Mis is "spe­cial: tune­ful, mem­o­rable, any­thing but sug­ary and su­per­fi­cial and not pre­dictable."There are some very chal­leng­ing recita­tives and mo­tifs. I think it should be com­pared to an opera/op­eretta, as there's no speak­ing, on­ly singing."Les Mis will open on Ju­ly 13 at 5 pm and will con­tin­ue Ju­ly 17 at 7.30 pm (spe­cial dis­counts avail­able), Ju­ly 18-19 at 7.30 pm, and Ju­ly 20 at 5 pm. Tick­ets are $200 and $250.

THE CAST

The cast fea­tures a com­bi­na­tion of ex­pe­ri­enced and first-time the­atri­cal per­form­ers and Tay­lor has been guid­ing them us­ing broad-based char­ac­ter­i­sa­tion and stage craft tech­niques. Tay­lor said, "They say half of di­rect­ing is cast­ing, and we have very strong leads, un­der­stud­ies and sup­port­ing cast."Les Mis stars Mar­lon De Bique and Nigel Floyd (Val­jean); Mar­vin Smith (Javert); Raguel Gabriel (Mar­ius); David Stephens (Th�nardier); Danielle Williams (Cosette); Er­rol James (En­jol­ras); Au­ro­ra Tardieu (Epo­nine); and four mem­bers of the Mar­i­onettes Chil­dren's Choir (An­nalise Em­manuel, Jay­na Akal, Elise Blanc and Amelia Em­manuel) cast as Young Cosette and Gavroche.

Male vo­cal leads De Bique and Floyd shared their re­ac­tions in three words or less to be­ing cast in the icon­ic role of Val­jean. "Time­ly, re­lieved, blessed" said De Bique, who iden­ti­fied the dra­mat­ic so­lo What Have I Done as one he is most look­ing for­ward to per­form­ing."Mu­si­cal­ly it sits well in my vo­cal (range) and dra­mat­ic gifts and it is ex­treme­ly chal­leng­ing yet ful­fill­ing for the vo­cal am­mu­ni­tion I may pos­sess. Dra­mat­i­cal­ly it's re­al­ly a very spir­i­tu­al num­ber, filled with angst and pas­sion but it is al­so per­son­al and re­veal­ing."For Floyd, it's "en­thralled, and in­tim­i­dat­ed....I love singing Who Am I? be­cause it speaks to the es­sen­tial con­flict of Val­jean, a cen­tral char­ac­ter, and is a re­cur­ring mo­tif run­ning right through the mu­si­cal."

Williams, who plays the role of Val­jean's adopt­ed daugh­ter Cosette, se­lect­ed the words "ho­n­oured, chal­lenged, ex­cit­ed" and iden­ti­fied Heart Full of Love as her favourite piece to sing in the role."It bril­liant­ly cap­tures that mo­ment when your heart and soul have awak­ened to love for the first time in a way that is si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly reck­less, free, pas­sion­ate, pure, in­no­cent; and sud­den­ly every­thing in your world make sense."The mu­sic is breath­tak­ing and the com­pos­er very clev­er­ly weaves to­geth­er the sto­ries of three char­ac­ters in­to this one beau­ti­ful piece."