As part of “Les Misérables” national tour, its U.S. cast brought the spirit of love, revenge and revolution to the Hollywood Pantages Theatre from Oct. 14–19.
On the penultimate day of the musicals’ stint in Hollywood, the matinee show was at 2 p.m. A buzz of anticipation circulated in the air as people settled into their seats, ready to be swept away into 19th-century France. A set painting of a multicolored, misty sky over a city sweltered with shadow displayed on the stage.
Based on the 1862 novel by Victor Hugo, the musical follows the life of a character named Jean Valjean. Nick Cartell, who has played Valjean over 1,500 times, reprised his role.
The musical begins with a dramatic sequence of imprisoned men working to the iconic, thunderous opening song “Look Down.” Soon after, Valjean is released on parole after an inordinate 19 years of labor for the crime of stealing bread. After a bishop touches his life through an act of goodness and forgiveness, Valjean breaks parole and creates a new life for himself defined by high moral character. However, Javert (Nick Rehberger), the guard who released him, makes it his personal quest to recapture Valjean and balance the scales of justice.
“Les Misérables” weaves together a tapestry of narratives that span across different characters and time periods. As the story progresses through acts one and two, everything seems to fall into place, and all of the characters are interconnected through the past and through their relationships.
Valjean takes Cosette (Alexa Lopez), the child of Fantine (Lindsay Heather Pearce), under his care. Fantine was a woman who died after doing everything in her power to support her child. The story follows them as Cosette grows up and falls in love with a student revolutionary named Marius (Peter Neureuther). At the same time, Javert is still on the prowl for Valjean, the elusive Prisoner 24601. The student revolutionaries plot an uprising and Éponine (Jaedynn Latter), the friend of Marius, pines for him.
One of the most profound aspects of the story is Valjean’s extraordinary moral character. The radical quality of his forgiveness and selflessness is that of a saint. In contrast, Javert, the supposed upholder of law and order, misconstrues his desire for justice with a more personal vengeance towards Valjean. He cannot come to terms with the possibility that Valjean can be anything but a lowlife criminal. Through Valjean and Javier’s dynamic, Hugo makes a poignant statement that those in power are not always the authoritative voice over what constitutes true justice.
“Yet by creating in Valjean a protagonist who is an escaped convict –– one who, in fact, can only continue to do good by remaining outside the law — Hugo challenges the notion that legal justice is just at all,” says the musical’s official website. “Of course, this notion is complicated, given that the novel doesn’t portray those seeking legal justice as entirely evil or malicious. Instead, people like Javert are imperfect, perhaps overly zealous followers of the law who fail to understand that this authority can, in some cases, be unjust.”
Viewing Les Misérables in theater has an effect that cannot be replicated through film or video. It is spectacular to experience, with each performance complementing the masterfully grandiose narrative.
At the conclusion of the afternoon show, nearly three hours after being careened through an epic tale of love, redemption and the human spirit, the audience rose in standing ovation as the actors took their final bow.
The U.S. show will be touring across the nation well into 2026. For Californians who missed the Los Angeles shows, Les Misérables will visit the San Jose Center for the Performing Arts from April 29, 2026 to May 3, 2026.
Tessa Kang is an Arts & Entertainment Staff Writer. She can be reached at tokang@uci.edu.
Edited by June Min and Joshua Gonzales.