Les Misérables

[sr71blackbird]

I love this play. Love the songs and all that. But I wonder one thing. Each time I see it, all the actors generally have heavy English accents. Why is that? This play is suupose to be in France!
Do they assume we only associate "foreign" stuff with English accents?
Some of the accents are Cockeny accents!
Is this how the play is voice cast when it is done in France? Just curious.

[Friday]

the original musical version of Les Miserables was done in French.

but the more widely known version (Boublil-Schonberg) was originally done in England, thus the accents. the english cockney was used to separate the lower class characters from the upper. if they had used French accents, it would not have been as clear to audiences.

however, the show has been translated into dozens of different languages and within each production, the cultural line is communicated within the dialects of that particular language.

if you read up on the development and history of the show, it's a damn impressive undertaking. careers were made from this show alone.
it's still one of my favorites. seen it quite a few times. :)

[IamFogHat]

I love it, I've seen it twice and I have it on CD. Most of the songs give me goose bumps every time I hear them.

[MacVittie]

Not gonna lie, I kinda like the music.

"Master of the house, dolin' out the charm, ready with a handshake and an open arm..."

[Rorschach]

faggots

[Devo37]

best Broadway show i've ever seen.

i also have the cd and can sing along with the entire first act.

[sr71blackbird]

Would Americans "get it" if it had French accents?
I have seen a number of films where they use English accents in place of other "foreign" language accents. I did not hear any Greek accents in 300. Just naming examples, I am sure there are thousands of them.

[ChrisTheCop]

Not gonna lie, I kinda like the music.

"Master of the house, dolin' out the charm, ready with a handshake and an open arm..."

Well, it's an open palm actually, meaning he accepts tips. But yeah, great song and character.

The thing that "got" me about this show, is the dreams and aspirations of alotta the characters that you know, if you know even the basic parts of the story, are gonna be dead before it's all through.

Eponine and Javert's departures hit me especially hard.

[WampusCrandle]

eh - not a big fan. i've seen it 3 times and each time it just was more and more dragged out (every time it wasn't my choice). i do like some plays, but this was just not one of them.

of course, it doesn't help that the last one i saw was a high school performance. i will say that it was very good, one of the best for a high school performance, but i just dont like the musical.

[raulfd4]

Would Americans "get it" if it had French accents?
I have seen a number of films where they use English accents in place of other "foreign" language accents. I did not hear any Greek accents in 300. Just naming examples, I am sure there are thousands of them.


i agree. this has bothered me for a long time about movies that take place during ancient times. any movie about ancient rome or egypt requires a british accent. why?

[piedpiper]

one of my favorite romances. though, i discovered later that i read the abridged version. the owner of the local bookstore told me it wasn't worth rereading the whole non-abridged version...said it too much, convoluted politics of the time (stuff i'd probably love).
if i ever have a daughter, if lady agrees, i'll name her Cossette.
On My Own is such a beautiful song.

[WampusCrandle]

i agree. this has bothered me for a long time about movies that take place during ancient times. any movie about ancient rome or egypt requires a british accent. why?

the same thing happens with me. one of the very few things i disliked about HBO's Rome was that everyone was British and had accents - why?

[sr71blackbird]

I realize I am derailing my own thread here, but this got me thinking:
Friday mentioned that they used English accents because of the version of the play in England caught on there, and they used the Cockney accent to depict the uneducated people. I wondwr, if they made a play and used American accents and they wanted to depict uneducated people and the accents they used for that were Southern or NY accents, would people get offended?

[Thebazile78]

the same thing happens with me. one of the very few things i disliked about HBO's Rome was that everyone was British and had accents - why?

Because it was co-produced by the BBC. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0384766/companycredits)

True, they cast minor characters and crowds using local (Italian) people, but being a BBC Films co-production had a lot to do with the casting.

And, if you are old enough to recall I, Claudius, that had an all-British cast, too.

Back to what Tracey (a.k.a. Friday) said earlier - British accents simply lend themselves to class distinctions in English speech more easily than any other set of accents because the class distinctions in one's manner of speech are so clear. You can tell a Cockney accent is lower-class than an aristocratic accent - like the difference between Jade Goody's speech mannerisms and, say, Helen Mirren's.

Lastly, I don't know about you but, to me, there's not much more irritating than a bad accent done badly.

[Thebazile78]

I realize I am derailing my own thread here, but this got me thinking:
Friday mentioned that they used English accents because of the version of the play in England caught on there, and they used the Cockney accent to depict the uneducated people. I wondwr, if they made a play and used American accents and they wanted to depict uneducated people and the accents they used for that were Southern or NY accents, would people get offended?

It depends.

And there are tons of plays out there that use those types of dialect distinctions.

[EliSnow]

Les Miz is my favorite musical and I usually pull out the soundtrack several times a year. Great music.

[ANC]

Not gonna lie, I kinda like the music.

"Master of the house, dolin' out the charm, ready with a handshake and an open arm..."

"Pipe down, chorus boy.."

http://www.findagrave.com/photos250/photos/2009/56/6618714_123565490001.jpg