Latest 'Les Miz' tour gives beloved musical a technological update

MAYBE YOU CAN'T teach an old dog new tricks, but it seems you can give an old musical a new look. That's what uberproducer Sir Cameron Mackintosh and his creative team have done with the latest incarnation of "Les Miserables," the global blockbuster that tonight kicks off a 12-day run at the Academy of Music.

Until now, virtually all productions of the "sung-through" musical - based on Victor Hugo's sweeping, 19th-century novel about the trials and tribulations of a French ex-convict named Jean Valjean and the various people who cross his path - have used an onstage turntable that provided seamless, almost cinematic scene changes.

But for the show's current tour, which celebrates the 25th anniversary of its English-language London premiere (the show dates to a 1980 Paris production), the turntable has been left behind.

"It wasn't that big of a decision," London-based director Laurence Connor said during a recent transatlantic phone chat. "The original production was a very different style of storytelling. Like [any theatrical undertaking], you approach a piece not from knowledge [of the past] but from the book and music, and you work out how you want to do it."

How Mackintosh, Connor and company have decided to do it sounds as revolutionary as the turntable was in 1985. Rather than use "flying" sets and painted flats, the creative team went the rear-projection route, using video to put the cast and audience in specific places.

For instance, the show's opening number, "Prologue: A Work," though traditionally performed on a bare stage, is set in a quarry, and will now be performed in front of a video projection of a quarry. This shot of technology, Connor said, "gave us the opportunity to add location and color."

Connor credits Mackintosh - who also produced "Cats," "Phantom of the Opera," "Mary Poppins" and "Miss Saigon" (written by the "Les Miz" composing team of Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg) - with giving him free reign in reimagining the production.

"He's open to . . . suggestion," said Connor. "We had to find our own way to do it. To encourage that is a really good thing."

According to Connor, the projected backdrops are based on Hugo's own paintings, which might surprise some. "A lot of people don't realize he was a painter," Connor said.

Lovers of the traditional "Les Miz" may be relieved to know that only the turntable was excised for this production. The red flag waved by the student rebels in "One Day More" - the breathtaking Act I finale - remains, as does the barricade at which the revolutionaries make their heroic, ill-fated stand against federal troops.

What veteran devotees may notice are the absence of slow-motion movements by the actors in some scenes (most notably the one that depicts a runaway horse cart) and some of the interstitial music used in previous versions.

The latter, explained Connor, is a function of the loss of the turntable to effect scene changes. These cuts, coupled with earlier editing, mean that the play's running time is significantly less than the 2 hours and 45 minutes it took to get through the original London/Broadway production.

Incidentally, while new to the touring realm, the concept of a turntableless "Les Miz" made its debut in 2008 at the Walnut Street Theatre. With Mackintosh's blessing, the Walnut staged the musical in a more traditional way. That superb production drew attention away from the production elements to focus on the emotional heft of the characters and their (usually dire) situations.

Connor professed no knowledge of the Walnut's groundbreaking strategy.

Critics who saw the latest turntableless "Les Miz" at North Jersey's Paper Mill Playhouse, where a shakedown cruise was staged (Philadelphia is the jumping-off point for the tour), have been generally positive. Among the ravers was the New York Times, which called the new version "an unquestionably spectacular production from start to finish."

After 25 years as a show-business phenomenon, "Les Miserables" doesn't appear to have lost any of its appeal. It's a good bet that many who see it at the Academy won't be first-timers. Just what is it about the show that keeps putting fannies in theater seats?

"It's a combination," said Connor. "It's definitely the score. And [Boublil and Schonberg's] incredible understanding of the [novel]. And it's a testimony to the composition of mankind. We all like to see the underdog make his way.

"It tugs at our emotional heartstrings a little bit."

"Les Miserables," Academy of Music, Broad and Locust streets, tonight through Jan. 15. Showtimes: 7:30 tonight, tomorrow, Thursday and Jan. 11-12; 8 p.m. Friday and Jan. 14; 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday and Jan. 15; 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sunday; 2 and 7:30 p.m. Jan. 13; $190-$20, 215-731-3333, www.kimmelcenter.org.