The 1985 musical, back in L.A. for the third time, holds up more than well. Combining spectacle with social consciousness and historical relevance, the show manages to remain a crowd-pleaser by dint of its powerful performances, stirring music and savvy staging (annoying turntable and all). Ivan Rutherford as Valjean and Stephen Bishop as Javert make formidable enemies and handle their respective arias with impressive chops. Joan Almedilla (Fantine) and Aymee Garcia & J. P. Dougherty (as the Thenardiers) also provide vocal fireworks over the course of the 3 1/2 hour-long dramatization of the French Revolution (it always tickles me when a bourgeois-to-the-core American audience cheers the waving of the red flag on the Parisian barricades).
The poster boy urchin Eponine (Sutton Foster) and Marius (Tim Howar) are equally effective delivering the sentimental, heart-tugging songs that come as a welcome change of pace from all the marching, fighting and drinking ballads that fill the evening so noisily and rousingly. Kitschy and over-simplified as it is, Les Miserables still has a humanity and heart that time has not withered.
