STORMING THE BARRICADES; POWERFUL 'LES MIZ' RETURNS TO L.A.

Byline: Reed Johnson Theater Critic

``Les Miserables'' may be the perfect holiday show for a secular age, a one-size-fits-all musical that translates easily and transcends religious hair-splitting. Sort of like ``A Christmas Carol,'' only with its own trademark logo.

Like other great spiritual epics, ``Les Miz'' has saints, sinners, martyrdom, sacrifice and redemption, plus comic relief, a love interest or two, and a fistful of lovely melodies that seem to grow richer with repeated listenings. It even has poor, misguided Inspector Javert, hurling himself off a Paris bridge like a cross between Milton's Satan and Jimmy Stewart's George Bailey in ``It's a Wonderful Life.''

That's ``Les Miz'' for you: high-minded ideals commingling with old-fashioned melodrama, populist entertainment without pandering. The thinking-person's tear-jerker.

All those qualities are again present in the stirring and sturdy, if not quite first-rate touring production of the show that stormed into the Ahmanson Theatre Sunday night, where it will remain through mid-February. Although the leads - Ivan Rutherford as crusading Christian humanist Jean Valjean and Stephen Bishop as fanatical lawman Javert - are worthy successors to Colm Wilkinson and Terrence Mann, the company overall at times lacks a certain crispness of execution, a sense of discovery that may be difficult to replicate after more than a dozen years on Broadway and in London. Musical tempos have been slowed down a shade, so that lyrics are clearer, but some transitions among numbers now show their seams more conspicuously than before.

And despite the producers' assurances that this is the first full-scale, hydraulically souped-up version of ``Les Miz'' to hit Los Angeles in several years, those monumental John Caird sets always look pretty much the same to me, rising out of the gloomy Paris slums like a giant assemblage sculpture. As Spiro Agnew might've observed, seen one barricade, you've seen 'em all.

None of this really detracts, however, from the primal storytelling power of this panoramic adaptation of Victor Hugo's elephantine novel, nor from the literateness and melodic catchiness of the Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schonberg score. At three-plus hours long, ``Les Miserables'' remains one of the most satisfyingly complete mass entertainments ever devised. Director Trevor Nunn's turntable staging still sweeps the action along, pulling us through the stodgy early exposition and reaching its stirring culmination with the backlit, slow-mo deaths of the revolutionaries atop the barricades. If you don't get the shivers at this stuff, you may want to check your pulse.

It would be hard to invent a purer portrayal of Gallic saintliness than Rutherford's Valjean, the ex-convict turned people's hero, or to imagine a sweeter tenor than his on numbers like ``Bring Him Home.'' His counterpoint Bishop conveys Javert's transition from self-righteousness to self-doubt with a pro's confident economy.

Of the secondary characters, Tim Howar (Marius) and Sutton Foster (Eponine) make the most of their big numbers, the melancholy ``Empty Chairs at Empty Tables'' and the pop-torch belter ``On My Own,'' respectively. As the predatory Thenardiers, J.P. Dougherty and Aymee Garcia are rouged Daumier caricatures sprung to life.

And while Joan Almedilla's Fantine is perhaps too much the passive victim, Kevin Earley makes for a noble Enjolras, the student leader, Regan Thiel brings a warm vibrato to the bland Cosette role, and local lad Cameron Teitelman is the most refreshingly uncloying Gavroche in memory.

Despite all the years under its belt, ``Les Miz'' somehow always arrives at the same place: an auditorium full of people clearing their throats and wiping their eyes.

By that final celestial chorus of ``Do You Hear the People Sing?'' I lost my own Brechtian battle to hold my mucous membranes at bay. Funny - that always seems to happen whenever ``Les Miz'' comes to town.

The facts

What: ``Les Miserables.''

Where: Ahmanson Theatre, Music Center of Los Angeles County, 135 N. Grand Ave., downtown.

When: Through Feb. 12. Performances at 8 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays, 7:30 p.m. Sundays. Additional performances at 2 p.m. Dec. 23, 30 and Feb. 10; 8 p.m. Dec. 20, 27 and Feb. 7.

Tickets: $15 to $70. Call [phone].

Our rating: Three stars.

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Photo

Photo: Sutton Foster plays Eponine and Tim Howar is Marius in ``Les Miserables,'' at the Ahmanson Theatre.