WHY THE THENARDIERS THOUGH? HUGO HAS VILLAINS PLAYED FOR COMEDY. HE HAS GILLENORMAND AND HE HAS MONTPARNASSE. WHY DOES THE MUSICAL INSIST ON DOING IT TO THE THENARDIERS INSTEAD?
I KNOW, the Thenardiers are just so awful and they never STOP being awful, they’re NEVER “Loveable Rogues”, even in the play Mme T’s first appearance is in seriously THREATENING TO BEAT A CHILD?!? Anyone who thinks that’s Wacky Fun kind of worries me.
I think maybe it’s because they’re THERE from an early point? But like there’s no comedy relief in the first bit of Les Mis, there just really isn’t The hijinks are with THE GUYS WHO ALL DIE There are REASONS for that but (while I totally get that the play is what it is now and directors just have to work with that) I think, like, if they HAD to have some wackiness in the first chunk Fauchelevent would have made a lot more sense?? He’s kind of an antagonist at first, even!
i can think of no other reason than “this musical is too damn somber we need comic relief.” you see, the musical could have introduced the thenardiers with a dark and dreary song, but at that point in the musical, the audience would have seen 1) a convict wrongly punished, 2) a woman hitting rock bottom and dying, 3) said convict having to run for his life again. they need a rest. hence, master of the house. true, i never really got to enjoy MoTH because of the undertones, but melody-wise, it’s a savior.
as for fauchelevent, that would entail using an actor for one short scene and having him join the ensemble afterward. it’s a waste of an actor, and is probably the reason gillenormand was scrapped from the original french concept. the thenardiers play largely in the story and can’t be scrapped like fauchelevent and gillenormand (and even montparnasse), so since they have to be there in the first place, might as well use them for comedy.
note though, i don’t endorse them as comic relief either, but i can only explain how it probably went on in the creative process for the adaptation.
Yeah, my husband and I argue about this all the time. “How can you make the Thenardiers funny!” I say. “They’re horrible people!” “You need some levity or the musical will be too overwhelming and no one will watch it!” he says. “The Thenardiers make more sense than anyone else!” “You don’t need levity in a musical!” I say. “Look at Sweeney Todd!” “Sweeney Todd is funny ALL THE TIME,” he says. “There’s a funny song about cannibalism, FFS! That is a horrible example!” Etc.
I haaaaaaaaate what they did with the Thenardiers because it lessens their menace, especially their abuse, and because it means that most of the social commentary Hugo was using the Thenardiers to make has been lost (there is a little bit of it in Dog Eat Dog, but oh so little). That carries over into Eponine, as well — I think it would have been easier to get her actual story across, rather than shunting her into the ‘unrequited love’ role, if her family had been portrayed as something other than comic relief. Eponine is supposed to be a lecture on agency and poverty, but it’s hard to communicate that if you aren’t explicit about what her family life was like, and associated with that, what her future would have been.
But the worst thing is, while I’m right, my husband is as well. The musical does need some levity, and it needs levity, as Hana points out, exactly when the Thenardiers show up, timing-wise. I bitch about how the musical compresses things and glosses over things and cuts things and then dwells on the wrong things ALL THE TIME because that means so much of the story and its attendant messages are lost, but honestly, as a musical, it’s actually paced really well. (It wouldn’t be such a success if it wasn’t.) The Thenardiers might be misused, but the musical wouldn’t work nearly as well if they weren’t.
Beggars at the Feast should still be excised from all existence, though.
You know, I actually don’t mind comic Thénardiers… when they’re funny in the same way Sweeney Todd is funny. When they are so awful the awfulness comes right out the other end into helpless laughter, and it makes you feel almost guilty for laughing so fucking hard, then comic Thénardiers is a thing that works. Thénardier has a slightly easier job in this department than Mme T–before the whole accursed jolly-hockey-sticks panto-slapstick trend got started, I saw a number of excellent Thénardiers, but the only Mme T’s I saw who managed to wring that kind of involuntary horrified laughter out of the audience were Jennifer Butt and Jenny Galloway, both of whom are pretty much the best of the best.
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