Playful Theatre Productions stages 'Les Miserables' at Kelsey Theatre

on March 28, 2014 at 6:05 AM, updated March 28, 2014 at 6:40 AM
lesmiz.jpgJames Petro, as Marius, is flanked by the women who love him, Cosette (Caitlyn Tierney, at left), and Eponine (Samantha Sharpe) in the Playful Theatre production of "Les Miserables" at Mercer County Community College's Kelsey Theatre. 

In the 1862 preface to his gigantic historical masterpiece “Les Miserables,” novelist Victor Hugo wrote, “As long as ignorance and misery remain on earth, books like this cannot remain useless.”

However, his philosophical digressions on the nature of justice versus mercy and living a life with purpose were often overlooked by readers in favor of his enthralling story of 17 years in the eventful life of Jean Valjean.

The sung-through musical version of “Les Miserables,” a multiple Oscar-winning film just last year, has been seen by millions of theatergoers around the world since its 1980 stage premiere in Paris. Now, thanks to Playful Theatre Productions, the musical can be seen locally at West Windsor’s Kelsey Theatre. It opens tonight for a three-weekend run through April 13. The necessarily large cast is directed by Frank Ferrara.

Jean Valjean, played by Michael Scibilia, is pursued across France by a relentless policeman named Javert, played by Elio E. Lleo. Neither character in the musical has the fully developed background story found in the novel.

Valjean had been sentenced to five years in prison for stealing bread to feed his starving family, but more years were added to that sentence for escape attempts and for fighting back during capture. Prison was where he encountered Javert, who, though he had been born in prison, the son of a convict and fortune teller, resolved to live a strict life steeped in the letter of the law.

When Valjean breaks his parole, Javert makes it his life’s work to bring Valjean to justice. Along the way, they meet dozens of fascinating people, many of whom attempt to find love and fulfillment in a country plagued by social and political unrest. The Parisian June Rebellion of 1832 serves as the background for much of the musical’s second half.

“When we first meet Valjean,” Scibilia says, “he is at a very low ebb, lost and bitter about what’s happened to him, but when he is shown kindness and mercy by Bishop Myriel, he resolves to change and give purpose to his life.

“He becomes a respected citizen and a successful businessman under a new name, but he is seen by Javert and is forced to leave his productive life in Montreuil-sur-Mer, but he also now has a new responsibility. He promised the dying Fantine to care for her daughter, Cosette, who is being cared for poorly by innkeepers, the Thenardiers, in Montfermeil,” Scibilia says.

“Valjean saves Javert’s life at the revolutionary barricade, which surprises and confuses Javert. Valjean does that, I think, because he wants to show Javert that he isn’t the bad man Javert has always seen him as, that what Javert thinks of him is so inaccurate and that everyone deserves a second chance,” Scibilia adds.

His wife, Tressa McCallister Scibilia, is also in the cast, as Fantine.

Javert is often seen as the show’s villain because he opposes the sympathetic characters, but Lleo thinks that he understands Javert’s driven, compulsive nature.

“He is a real antagonist, but he does what he believes is right,” Lleo says. “He has a sense of conviction about right and wrong, good and evil, that rules his every action. When someone holds his convictions that tightly, he often can’t see the larger picture. He’s blind to the world around him. It’s impossible to shake his beliefs, but, if someone tries to and then demonstrates support for opposing beliefs, it causes him total confusion.”

Lleo, who holds a bachelor’s degree from Kean University, has used Javert’s thrilling song “Stars” in his musical training at Kean and privately at Westminster College.

He sees Javert’s dramatic self-destruction as his favorite moment in the show.
“Javert’s suicide, throwing himself off a bridge into the Seine, is how he resolves his inner conflict, Lleo says. “All Javert ever saw in Valjean was the criminal, the man who is angry and unrepentant at his just punishment and wants to escape from it, but Valjean gave him his life at the barricade after Javert had hunted Valjean down relentlessly and then even refuses Valjean just a few hours to see Cosette to safety.

“Valjean showed him a sense of forgiveness and the mercy that Javert would have never have ever considered,” Lleo adds. “Javert simply cannot reconcile his long-held negative evaluations with what has been Valjean’s obvious redemption, and his own death is all that he can do to cope with that.”

There is hope for a brighter tomorrow and a happier world for some of the show’s younger characters, including a young man named Marius Pontmercy, played by James Petro, who has performed often at Kelsey Theatre.

“Marius is a little naïve, new to the world and its complications, shocked by the finality of the momentous events that all happen so suddenly,” Petro says.

“My favorite moment is when he has to decide whether to stay with Enjolras and his friends at the barricade, to be loyal and patriotic like them even when they realize that their cause is not being supported by others, or to follow Cosette, the woman he has just fallen in love with.

“Fortunately, Valjean is there for him in very dramatic scenes as a kind of guardian angel,” Petro says, “watching out for him just as Valjean had done for Cosette since childhood.

“‘To love another person is to see the face of God,’ Valjean sings, and his actions are out of love.”

“Les Miserables”
When: 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays, through April 13
Admission: $20, (609) 570-3333 or