#revolve 30

I mentioned elsewhere that Bradley Jaden was put on this earth to play Enjolras, and even given a short passage of time now to think about it, my opinion holds. Holy holy holy, he is so good, the best I have seen since—deep breath—THAXTON. [...] So. Breaking Down Bwadjolras:

• Obviously, he has perfect physical presence; you are very, very drawn to him as Enjolras, as a passionate leader and an attractive one, and he scrambles the barricade like he has been doing it his entire life. I mean, it’s no secret that Bradley is FIT. AS. but let’s be honest, that physicality and strength allows an Enjolras to do a lot at the barricade, to be everywhere and everything he must be. But going beyond general fitness (or FIT.NESS.), Jaden draws you in with his eyes and gestures; there is just such a visible physical and emotional investment on show in his performance, and it so works.

• HE HIT EVERYTHING. Before the barricades arise was perfection, They will come when we call was rich and on. point. (all of Lamarque Is Dead was stunning, frankly), and Until the earth is free was an incredible roar, all his own, no terrible rock star shriek-squeak or flattened bark. I might have gasped with relief and joy. Repeatedly.

• His is an intelligent Enjolras, thoughtful around the soaring moments, very centered in himself and aware of what he’s doing and why. There was excellent rapport with everyone around him in Paris/Look Down—there may have been more business there than I’ve ever seen for Enjolras, actually—and he was superb during Red and Black, not so much bringing the room down irritably as just—again, I’m using the word—drawing the rest of the students back to him quietly and effectively. He is gorgeous to watch as a leader and as a human, and as a Human Leader, if that makes sense.

• His rapport with Jo Parsons’ Grantaire is very good; it’s not overwhelming during ABC Cafe through DYHtPS—perhaps because Parsons’ Grantaire is a bit too much of a cheerfully bitter asshole for that [...]—but it is appropriate and strong, and in Act 2, well. It is excellent. The aftermath of Drink with Me hit the right balance of in-character-context (for values of musical! Enjolras) and emotional devastation, and it’s clear Jaden has learned from and picked up the right parts of previous takes on the role and added his own, beautiful sense of emotional urgency to the interaction with Grantaire—[...] but there’s a quietly fierce tenderness to how he speaks to and touches/handles/holds/reacts to Grantaire, and it goes on for longer than I’d expected (longer even than the Colbourne/Edwards Show last year, if you can imagine). Their interaction after Marius is injured was perfection.

Maintaining some dignity is Ryan O’Gorman’s Babet, the absurdist voice of reason among musical!Patron-Minette; the costume really works on a tall man, and the transformation between O’Gorman’s earlier Bishop and his Babet is startlingly good and kind of delicious.

[O'Gorman's] take on [Grantaire] is a bit of a sad one; you can see the results of some prior devastation well before Lamarque is Dead, when it visibly hits him what is going to happen, and even his happy emoting during Red and Black, leaping onto Enjolras’ table and actually singing his parts instead of sort of sing-spitting them as several Grantaires do, is tinged with that sadness. With the exception of the table-leaping and the half-hearted physical nonsense with Marius and play-swordfight with Joly, Ryan’s Grantaire is also a quiet one, which works fascinatingly well with his own physicality—very tall, wiry, slow-moving and a little drawn in the face (O’Gorman looks and is the picture of health in real life, but does an exhausted number on himself makeup-and-posture-wise as Grantaire), that rare creature of a physically imposing, potentially but never actually physically intimidating Grantaire. His smiles are beautiful, but vanish so quickly and you’re just devastated by the change in his expression, in everything about him. He very deliberately stands apart from the rest of the Amis so often, but it’s not a bid for audience attention; it’s completely in keeping with his Grantaire, of the Amis but not enough for them, if maybe mostly in his own mind.

O’Gorman’s take on Drink with Me is beautifully moving, and I so wish I’d seen him as Bradley’s foil in the scene […] He’s also very good after the death of Gavroche and the injury to Marius, and I will be honest again and say that seeing him backlit atop the barricade at the very end of the Final Battle was amazing; he drew himself up to full (and I mean full) height before he was shot and it looked magnificent, as if he’d just for that moment truly inherited Enjolras’ position there, and was strong again, alive again just before his death, very much a man who would have sung the old, long-since-cut Drink with Me refrain, if I die, I die with you. I want to see his Grantaire many, many more times before he leaves the show.