Word: javert
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...runaway convict and evil by a zealot of a policeman -- has captivated audiences from the moment it was published in 1862. The original Paris press run of 7,000 copies sold out within 24 hours. Since then the combat between the virtuous thief Jean Valjean and the merciless detective Javert has been retold onstage and in at least 14 films. At heart, the novel's conflict is metaphysical: Valjean believes in the forgiving God of the New Testament, Javert in the retributive God of the Old Testament. The story resounds with images of Christian redemption. Yet it is by turns...
...booty was a gift, Valjean undergoes a moral transformation. He also undergoes a legal one: he destroys his papers, takes a new name and eventually becomes a wealthy man. Twice he risks all to save other men; then, having befriended the dying prostitute Fantine, he once more eludes Javert to devote himself, in hiding, to the welfare of Fantine's child Cosette...
...unrequited love for Marius. Many of the other performances rival the West End originals; Randy Graff's splendid Fantine, utterly persuasive when, on her deathbed, she "sees" her absent daughter, is actually an improvement. In three major roles, however, the new ensemble falls far short: Terrence Mann sings Javert impeccably, but in an effort to humanize him, loses his obsessive core; Leo Burmester as the grasping innkeeper Thenardier and Jennifer Butt as his wife are neither scary nor funny, depriving the show of its keenest image of ignobility while also flattening much needed comic romps...
Colm Wilkinson and Roger Allam carry the show as Jean Valjean, the released convict seeking to escape his past, and Javert, the righteous police inspector who hounds him across France for nearly two decades. Patti LuPone, an American who won a 1980 Tony Award for her starring role in Evita, has powerful scenes as an unwed mother who in desperation becomes a prostitute. The real star, however, is Nunn's staging. He sometimes spoils one effect with the hasty arrival of the next, but his conceptions are clear and simple. Almost every manifestation of evil, from Valjean's skulking emergence...
...subject will no doubt supply thesis meat forever. The Ten rival Alger Hiss in library entries, and they too (although to a considerably lesser extent than Hiss) had the pleasure of being hounded by junior Javert Richard Nixon. Now, with the making of a new documentary called Hollywood on Trial, the scab has been torn open again. Expect screams. Old Dalton Trumbo, who talked his head off about the subject, having suffered deeply and survived, died several weeks ago. Someone is sure to stick a microphone through the freshly packed dirt of his grave to catch his last excoriations...