Allons, Amants

1789, les Amants de la Bastille -> Costumes

Have you seen his alternate curtain call costume?

By the way, I did think a lot about their relationship, especially Artois' relationship with Lazare, which was constantly shifting, depending on Lazare's position. Lazare's status really bothers me. In the official introduction, he seems to be just an ordinary superior aristocratic officer, but in the musical, he somehow seems to be the symbol of power and the manager of military power...

Damn bird.

One character description says that he “represents the order and rigidity of the ancien régime”, which definitely seems to corroborate the idea of him as a general representation of the military. He seems to take over the Prince de Lambesc’s role in trying to put down the uprising, along with, possibly, De Launay (if you think that he was at the Bastille when it fell-- this is canon to the Takarazuka and Toho productions, but it’s slightly more debatable in the French even though, imo, I think it always had to be the two of them in the end.) (It’s also interesting that Lambesc was, historically, a foreign prince, since there was a real concern that a French regiment would fire on the people, while Lazare is...very clearly French.) It’s very clear that he’s someone who is able to report directly to Louis, someone who Louis knows by name, and someone who he takes seriously. I have seen at least one reference to Lazare being his Minister of War, which...isn’t in the musical itself, but I could see. 

Politically, I think Lazare would most likely belong to the Artois faction -- he’s too conservative for almost anything else (and the historical Prince de Lambesc was a member of it, anyway.)  Some productions have made it explicit that Lazare worked with Artois to unseat Necker, the French seems more incidental, with Artois using Peyrol’s report as a way of unseating Necker. The way I write Lazare, which is absolutely not canon, is that he is a sort of favorite of Artois’ -- Artois’ favor is the reason why Lazare went from being a relatively minor noble to being in the best possible position for a man of his age and rank after his service in the American Revolution, and so, if Lazare does get into a relationship with Ronan, he has to walk a very fine line between keeping his patron happy while also having this relationship. (Lazare and Artois’ relationship, again, in my headcanons alone, not in canon, is like this darker reflection of Antoinette and Olympe’s relationship. The power dynamics are roughly the same, but, while Antoinette arguably endangers Olympe at times, there’s nothing particularly malicious about it.) 

But, yeah, I think that, making sense of these conflicting roles for Lazare, he’s just...this ultimate symbol of the military and military power, in the same way as Ronan is all the common people who contributed to the Revolution but who never showed up in the history books, working alongside the big names of the Revolution. Like, it’s a relatively common complaint that Ronan, especially in the Takarazuka production, is everywhere all the time, he’s doing too many things, he knows too many people, and, on one hand, I do get that complaint, especially since the musical doesn’t always do as much with this as it could (and sometimes, like having him just HAPPEN to stumble upon Antoinette and Fersen, they do too much, there’s too much coincidence), but on the other hand, there *were* Ronans, historically, who were doing that. (Also leading to one of my other big Things: Ronan should not be a native French speaker. Like, obviously, for the purposes of the musical, he should be speaking French, but in terms of his background? No, that wasn’t what the majority of the population spoke at the time; he very likely would be speaking one of the provincial languages; as a Celticist with a few ties to Brittany and Brezhoneg I’m always championing Breton Ronan, but it could be Occitan, it could be Basque, it could be one of the languages or dialects that died out, but I don’t think that Ronan’s background and characterization is in line with him being a native French speaker.)

*Something* about Ronan gets really, deeply under Lazare’s skin, and my suspicion is that it’s simply because Lazare’s never had someone stand up to him like that. What’s interesting, imo, is that in both the Takarazuka and French, Lazare behaves differently around Ronan than in his usual appearances.  

When we first see him in the Takarazuka, it’s very much business as usual for him. Go to the village, arrest the peasants, rinse and repeat. There’s no emotion. He’s facing away from the action, not really involved in it. He’s probably done this dozens of times at this point over the years, it’s routine. 

When Ronan comes in though? He turns to him, even stepping on Papa Mazurier in order to shut him up when he tells him that Ronan isn’t the one he’s interested in. He breaks Lazare out of his apathy, and Lazare, in turn, alternates between being a little mocking towards Ronan, being furious, and also....oddly vulnerable, like, somewhere deep inside, he might actually be slightly shaken. We can also see it in the French as well. 

Lazare is facing towards the audience, not paying attention to anything. There could be three men there, there could be a hundred. It wouldn’t matter. 

Ronan gets into his face, and he forces Lazare to meet him one on one, face to face, looking him in the eye. We actually see Lazare losing a little bit of ground in this as well -- he doesn’t outwardly step back, but he also loses a little bit of ground to Ronan in their battle of wills there. One thing that the French did that no other production has followed up on since, which I really liked, is having the two of them getting into a physical fight -- It’s Lazare going from very detached to very physical, having total control in this situation to being one more guy, trying to punch another guy in this very chaotic situation. (And then, because he’s Lazare, he tries to regain control with his gun.) 

And we see it in Maniaque as well. 

In the Takarazuka, we have Lazare alternating between being frustrated, sadistic, and, at times, looking at Ronan with a sort of lovestruck look, especially when he’s asking him to abandon the Revolution. 

But even when he’s pushing him away, calling him an idiot, saying that the Revolution will never succeed, there are these traces of....something resembling vulnerability. 

And in the French, we see that the blocking for Maniaque makes it so that the two of them start out very distant, Lazare, again, having that clear upper hand. 

But then, as it goes on, we see this...almost childlike, petty side of Lazare come out. He stops using the “voux” with Ronan, he starts to tutoyer him, he flips his scarf. In some bootlegs, I’ve even seen him sarcastically wave goodbye to Ronan before the guards lock him up. We never see him like this in any other context -- with the Estates General, he’s frustrated at Mirabeau, undoubtedly angry, but still collected, he never loses control of his sense of formality even as he’s ordering him to get out. With Louis, Artois, and Necker, he’s, again, incredibly collected and formal. Even in Nous ne Sommes, which is arguably him at his most unhinged, he’s detached slightly from the whole thing, even in the second season where he was significantly more insane. 

And what’s also interesting is that, in both, you have him *very clearly remembering Ronan.* It’s been over six months at this point. Ronan was a random peasant who gave him a headache one day. But in both productions, you have him very clearly taunting him with his father’s death. (And in the Takarazuka, he even calls Ronan by name.) He’s been thinking about him. 

Who is Lazare looking at in La Rue Nous Appartient? Ronan. 

And in the Act 1 finale to the Zuka....

What’s interesting to me in the Zuka in particular is that, at this point...Ronan seemingly doesn’t prioritize his vengeance against Lazare like he used to (in the French, he’s still focused on revenge, but I would say that he’s starting to take a view of taking down the entire system as opposed to just his own personal revenge, he’s starting to think on a broader scale -- he’s definitely not looking at Lazare in that scene.) But Lazare, meanwhile, is clearly still fixated on him. 

And, I know I just posted this, but I do love how, even in the finale, Lazare is *still looking at him.* It seems like, at this point, they’re in some sort of afterlife, able to look back on the Revolution with some amount of hindsight, and he’s still looking at Ronan. 

But when Ronan approaches him? He turns away. Why? Is it some lingering guilt over ordering him to be shot? (Which is interesting in itself in the Zuka because Lazare explicitly orders a retreat after that -- there was no reason to, he could have continued the fight on, the revolutionaries were in shock over Ronan’s death, why call it off then?) Is it stubbornness, still refusing to accept the Revolution, even after all this time? I don’t know -- both could be in-character. But it’s one of the most interesting decisions that was made here (and I’ll be fascinated to see whether it pops up in the upcoming production.) 

My tl;dr: 

I think that, while Lazare has the upper hand in a lot of ways, physically, societally, etc., just about every single time he and Ronan go toe to toe, Lazare loses ground. He’s at his most inhuman with Ronan, but he’s also at his most human with him. We see all these little nuances and vulnerabilities that we don’t see in any of his other appearances, even as he’s also more likely to lash out (possibly because *he doesn’t like having all these feelings*) I think that Ronan very much does get under his skin in a way that no one else before him managed to do. I think that, in their own ways, they’re both obsessed with one another, but I think that Lazare, in some ways, is much more compromised than Ronan, and that there’s this sort of...cyclical nature to things -- Ronan stands up to Lazare, Lazare gets a little compromised, then gets frustrated that he’s compromised and takes it out on him, causing Ronan to stand up to him some more. And, obviously, I’m not making any claims about it being a healthy kind of obsession or a healthy kind of humanity that Lazare shows (is it better to have someone be coolly homicidal or angrily homicidal?), but I do think that, in both productions, Lazare loves Ronan as much as it is possible for him to love something, and that Ronan very likely doesn’t realize exactly how much he gets under his skin. (Especially because he never SEES Lazare in his own element, when he’s not around.) There is a reason why, usually, when I write them in a relationship, I work with the idea that, while Ronan might think that he loves Lazare more, because he’s more outwardly expressive, Lazare actually might love Ronan more, because him getting to the point of showing *any* outward expression is a big step while it comes much more naturally to Ronan. And again...is it healthy? Who knows! But he does love Ronan as much as it’s possible for him to, in the only way that he knows how to love, whatever that way is.