Theatrefolk Podcast: Les Miserables Fireside Chat

Episode 22: Les Miserables YouTube Fireside Chat

The movie for Les Miz is coming out in a couple of days. In this last episode of the year, Lindsay and Craig talk about the musical, their favourite songs and the emotional impact of them when sung in another language.

I Dreamed a Dream – Lea Salonga

I Dreamed a Dream – Ruthie Henshall

I Dreamed a Dream – Anne Hathaway

Patti Lupone I Dreamed a Dream

Un Dia Mas

Sal el Sol

Alfie Boe – Prologue

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Episode Transcript

Lindsay: Welcome to TFP, The Theatrefolk Podcast. I’m Lindsay Price, resident playwright for Theatrefolk. Hello. I hope you’re well. Thanks for listening.

Today, it’s a YouTube Fireside Chat with myself and Craig Mason, and we’re talking Les Miz. But first, some Theatrefolk news.

Okay, we’re still on December, so there’s not a lot of news except there is something very, very exciting that’s coming up at the end of the month. Just because it’s December, that should not mean that we stop Free Play Sunday. So even though it is before Christmas, we’re going to give you a little present after Christmas. Last Sunday in December, tune in to our Facebook page and our Twitter page, and we will be giving away PDFs of some of our plays. We don’t know what they are yet, but they’re going to be, of course, exciting, wonderful, a good read.

And lastly, where, oh where can you find this podcast? We post new episodes every Wednesday on our blog, Theatrefolk.com. You can also find us through the Stitcher app on our Facebook page, and you can subscribe to TFP on iTunes. All you have to do is search on the word “Theatrefolk.”

Okay, so it is just before Christmas and there is something very, very exciting for some people that is coming out just before Christmas, and that is the movie version of Les Miz. Craig, can you feel the excitement in the air?

Craig: I can hear the people sing.

Lindsay: Can you…? [Laughs] Are they singing the songs of angry men?

Craig: They might be.

Lindsay: [Laughs] And so we thought a perfect way to end our podcasts for the year before we take a little break would be to do a YouTube Fireside Chat on Les Miz, because there are a million squillion jillion different versions out there and concerts. There was lots to find on YouTube, wasn’t there?

Craig: It’s all on YouTube. You can find just about anything on there. You could just sit there all day watching different Les Miz clips. So we kind of had to organize this a little bit.

Lindsay: Yes. So what we thought would be a really good thing to do, to take a look at one song and look at different versions of it. And I think there are…you know, I say this is the most iconic song that I… No, I think there are a couple of… Oh, you know, there’s a lot of… It’s a very iconic large Greek theatre kind of musical anyway, so it’s really hard to pinpoint one iconic song. But I really like this one, and that’s I Dreamed a Dream. And of course, it is sung by Fantine right after she gets kicked out of her job. And I like this song because I’ve read the book, and it’s literally like 10 chapters like [makes slurping sound] all into one song, and I just think that’s good writing. And it’s got a nice beat, you can dance to it.

Craig: Well, it is a fantastic song. I mean, it’s a great song for a singer. It follows this Sondheim thing about every song should be a one-act play. And I mean, this is actually a five-act play, this song…

Lindsay: Yeah.

Craig: …which covers the whole journey of her life and everything that like led to the lowness that it has become.

Lindsay: And where she was in her happy days, and then what went horribly, horribly wrong, which leads to… I think one of my favorite lyrics, I think, of all time, in that, the tigers – “and then the tigers come at night.” And it’s like that just says too much because, you know, the tigers aren’t going to come at night to snuggle you, they’re going to do something very, very wrong. [Laughs]

Craig: Well, and I love the line right after that, “with their voices soft as thunder…”

Lindsay: Yes.

Craig: …which is kind of a really neat image because there’s nothing soft about thunder, right?

Lindsay: So the first one that we looked at was… Please pronounce her name for me.

Craig: Lea Salonga?

Lindsay: Salonga. I was looking at it and I’m going, “I’m going to say her last name wrong.” And this is from the 25th anniversary concert, which we’ve both seen. Jean Valjean was Alfie Boe, who we really enjoyed.

Craig: Yeah.

Lindsay: And Joe Jonas, no, Nick Jonas…

Craig: Nick Jonas.

Lindsay: …was Marius, who looked the part, but somewhat thin in the voice. And Lea played Fantine.

[Song excerpt plays]

And I have to say of the—we’re going to talk about four—this was really my favorite of the four, and it was my favorite of the four because she sang the song with her face, meaning you could have turned off the sound and you could have known where she was in the song. She was storytelling. It wasn’t just notes coming out from inside of her and reaching towards the audience. She was acting the song, which, oh, of all the high school productions I see where there’s such a contrast, you know, something’s coming out and their faces are just a mask of concentration as they’re trying to do the right thing as an actor, and not as a character.

Craig: What I love about her performance is how in the moment she is. When she’s singing about the wonderfulness of the past…

Lindsay: Mm-hmm.

Craig: …it looks like she’s experiencing something wonderful. And as the story slowly moves along and it gets worse and worse for her, things get worse and worse for her in her face. It’s a really wonderful example of being in the moment of the song, of not telegraphing the end of the story. It’s a great example to look even for monologue work, because she takes you on a journey from the beginning to the end.

And one really nice touch I noticed this last time that we watched it, that first little bit of recitative, that the first line in the show, “There was a time when men were kind,” she shows the entirety of the song in that first little moment, and then goes back to the beginning, and then relays the story in more detail. And she puts on a clinic of being in the moment.

Lindsay: Yeah. I loved how she sang with a smile in that first bit.

Craig: Mm-hmm.

Lindsay: I just felt the warmth of it.

[Song excerpt plays]

Because then she has a journey to go on…

Craig: Mm-hmm.

Lindsay: And then, I have a journey to go on, like I was on the journey of this song.

Craig: Mm-hmm.

Lindsay: And that I think is the Mark of a great performance.

Craig: And it doesn’t hurt that she’s a fantastic singer.

Lindsay: And that doesn’t hurt.

Craig: Yeah.

Lindsay: Okay, so the next one was…oh, please do this one too.

Craig: Ruthie Henshall?

Lindsay: Ruthie Henshall. And this was the 10th anniversary of Les Miz concert.

Craig: Mm-hmm.

Lindsay: And what did you think of her performance?

Craig: Well, we talked a little bit before we started recording. I think…

Lindsay: Yeah, I know. That’s why I made you go first.

Craig: Yeah. I think I enjoyed it quite a bit more than you did.

Lindsay: Yes.

Craig: Very different from Lea Salonga’s performance, but pretty valid just the same. She certainly has more… I have no idea what the actors’ ages are, but she as a character certainly seems a lot older than Lea Salonga.

Lindsay: I had a problem with this.

Craig: Oh, see.

Lindsay: [Laughs]

Craig: Well, I felt that her performance was a result… It had much more emotional depth than Lea Salonga’s performance had. It had a much more world-weary beaten-up sense. Like I felt that we were seeing the result of this journey and then going back and reliving it, and it’s even worse as she’s reliving it, rather than… It was more of a feeling performance than a storytelling performance. Lea Salonga’s was more of a storytelling, and Ruthie Henshall’s was more of a feeling. I felt more that that was the character’s expression of what was happening rather than a storytelling thing. I think they were both valid interpretations though.

Lindsay: Oh, a hundred percent.

Craig: Mm-hmm.

Lindsay: Like it’s very clear that Ruthie is a classically trained singer.

[Song excerpt plays]

But that’s what I felt. I felt I was being sung at by a classically trained singer as opposed to a character, and I felt it sounded older, like 40. This character is not 40. And I found it really tight in the teeth, and I just didn’t get into it. And the only place where there was just sort of some opening up to it was when she said, “He was gone,” and that was like [deep breath].

Craig: Mm-hmm.

Lindsay: That was just a great line.

Craig: Well, she’s very scarred. It’s a very scarred performance.

Lindsay: Yeah.

Craig: She gets ugly a little bit.

Lindsay: Yeah, once. It just didn’t reach me. It didn’t reach me at all. Now, we’re looking at this really out of context.

Craig: Yeah.

Lindsay: We’re not looking at a full performance. We’re just looking at a song. But I just felt there was a connection with one and a nonconnection with the other.

Craig: Interesting.

Lindsay: Interesting.

Craig: Mm-hmm.

Lindsay: Okay…

Craig: I think I prefer Lea Salonga’s, but I like this one too.

Lindsay: You like this one?

Craig: Yeah.

Lindsay: Okay, so now we have to talk because their movie is coming out, and one of the trailers has Anne Hathaway singing a little bit of I Dreamed a Dream. First of all, there is the whole notion of, why do this musical in the first place if you’re not going to get good singers? If you’re not going to get people who can sing, then it comes across as thin. And understandably, you know, the only way movies get made is if they had names to back them up, but I just found her…first of all, it just drove me bananas that she was singing with a British accent, and I just thought it was just thin singing.

[Song excerpt plays]

Craig: Yeah. The trailer that you see online doesn’t show any context. I don’t even think it shows her singing at all. But nontheless…

Lindsay: A little bit.

Craig: A little bit. It just doesn’t have any depth to it. The voice is very thin. I have to say, the trailers, the things I’ve seen from the movie, come across to me very much like Sweeney Todd came across to me – really under-talented singers, like not to take anything away from the talents of any of those people that are in it. Like Russell Crowe is not a singer. He has no rhythm in those clips online.

Lindsay: Oh my heavens. So then we watched…there’s a little bit at the beginning of him, between him and Jean Valjean, when Jean Valjean gets his parole and Javert is singing at him, and I had to stop watching it, because he had… Yeah, he has no rhythm, and [sings] he’s singing…he’s kind of, “[Sings] Oh God,” and just kind of… And I don’t know why he’s singing like Kermit the Frog, I know that’s not… Javert is this man, like he’s not in an upper register, and I have no idea where this voice is coming from, and there’s no way I would watch him sing Stars, and there’s no way I think I could watch him sing his suicide now.

Craig: The one thing though, the one thing that I think is really cool about the movie, is that they record it, all of the singing, live on set. So take after take they were singing…like they were singing live to take. Normally, when they make a movie musical, they record the soundtrack first, and then they lip synch to the playback when they’re recording the video. But with here, they had an accompanist playing in everyone’s ear—everyone had earpieces—and so that from take to take they could try different tacks, different intentions, do different acting beats, rather than having everything set in stone before shooting started. I thought that was really cool, and I hope that future movie musicals do this.

Lindsay: Mm-hmm.

Craig: But I also hope that future movie musicals just hire good singers.

Lindsay: Well, and because then we watched, because Eponine is not a name that we know and we looked her up, and lo and behold, she’s an actual singer, and we can’t figure out how she got the job but, you know, so thankful she did because they did a little bit of On My Own. And it was literally five seconds of, ah, someone with phrasing, and someone who can hold a pause, and like someone who can sing. And I’m always going to be more engaged in a musical by someone who can sell me a song. I don’t care about their credits.

Craig: I think this movie will be huge.

Lindsay: Yeah, I know. I think so, too. I think it’s going to basically run like a tidal wave. One thing I do like, too, like I like seeing…really only in a movie can you get the realism of the whole situation.

Craig: Yeah, those shots of the barricades.

Lindsay: Like the shots in the barricade, and I quite like this whole notion of Jean Valjean like hoisting a thing into water, like…

Craig: Yeah.

Lindsay: Like just a horrible, disgusting… And the makeup on him just made him look like he had spent 20 years in a…

Craig: Hair all shaved because of lice…

Lindsay: In a penal prison, like…

Craig: Yeah. Yeah.

Lindsay: Like absolutely, the look is just going to be fantastic.

Craig: That was really the one thing that I liked about the Sweeney Todd movie, was the look, and that sent that kind of Victorian filth of London and the working class and just the dirt and the bugs and the rats everywhere. I mean, that was really successful about the movie.

Lindsay: I think so too. Okay. So, and then the last one…

Craig: [Laughs]

Lindsay: The last I Dreamed a Dream…

Craig: [Laughs] Just for fun.

Lindsay: …is a little bit of a treat, and that is… This is Patti LuPone singing it. Now, I’m not taking anything away from her. She did do the role on Broadway. Like it’s not like she just picked up the music and decided to…

Craig: Mm-hmm.

Lindsay: …to sing the song, but it’s in a concert and, well, it’s very Patti LuPone.

Craig: [Laughs] It is so Patti LuPone. I like Patti. I’ve seen her and loved her.

Lindsay: She is an engaging performer. And actually, to be quite honest, we saw her in Sweeney Todd, and I would say she was not Patti LuPone in Sweeney Todd.

Craig: No, it was the least Patti I’ve ever seen.

Lindsay: It’s the least Patti that I’ve ever seen, and I think one of our biggest regrets is that the last time we went to… two times ago we went to New York, we were going to see her and Mandy Patinkin, and oh, for some…Patti’s not singing.

Craig: Yeah, she was out for back pain or something.

Lindsay: And I think that would have been something. It would have been…

Craig: It was a choice afternoon.

Lindsay: That’s an excellent choice of phrasing. It would have been a choice afternoon. So anyway…

Craig: Anyhow, there’s not much to say about it, but we’re going to link to it on the blog. Do watch Patti LuPone’s performance.

[Song excerpt plays]

I mean, she scoops like crazy. She puts little licks in.

Lindsay: She’s got an Evita moment at the end where she does kind of the Evita gesture.

Craig: She does the little hand flip.

Lindsay: [Laughs]

Craig: There’s the big key change that is rewritten a little bit.

Lindsay: Yeah, there’s a… Yeah.

[Song excerpt plays]

Craig: Yeah, I’m not sure what the choice was there.

Lindsay: Just watch and enjoy Les Miz as done by Patti LuPone. Okay, so another thing that we set up is… I’ve been very off and on learning Spanish, and so it was very interesting to sort of think about, “Hey, what do these sound like in another language?”

Craig: Yeah, I think we were sitting around one day and we were wondering what One Day More would sound like in Spanish, and I think we were running around like, “[Sings] Un Dia Mas!” And then we checked it out on YouTube, and sure enough, there’s Un Dia Mas on YouTube.

Lindsay: On YouTube. And what’s very fascinating is that there are actually two different Spanish translations of One Day More. And One Day More—I’m going to go on record because we’re going to talk about what Craig’s favorite moment is– One Day More is my favorite song. When I was 17, I had the tape of Les Miz. That tells you how old I am. I had a cassette tape, and I wore it out, and I particularly wore it out on One Day More.

Craig: [Laughs]

Lindsay: It was my favorite…my favorite, favorite moment. I loved it. It’s the moment I wanted to always be in. I loved the little…when you see it and they do the little march move. I just think that’s the freaking coolest thing.

Craig: And the turntables rolling.

Lindsay: And the turntables rolling and the banner is flying and everybody’s singing about what they’re going to do and, oh, it’s just fantastic. I just think it’s…in terms of that musical moment, I love it.

Craig: Yeah.

Lindsay: Okay.

Craig: What I like about… So there’s the two…

Lindsay: Yeah.

Craig: There’s Un Dia Mas…

[Song excerpt plays]

Lindsay: Right, which is the little translation of One Day More, Un Dia Mas, One Day More.

Craig: Yeah.

Lindsay: But then there is another translation.

Craig: Sale El Sol.

[Song excerpt plays]

Lindsay: Yeah.

Craig: Which I guess is a more poetic translation, less literal.

Lindsay: Yeah, it’s The Sun Rises.

Craig: Oh.

Lindsay: Sale El Sol is The Sun Rises…

Craig: Hmm.

Lindsay: …and I find…

Craig: I wonder why there are two different translations.

Lindsay: Well, I think it’s because Spanish is very poetic. I find when in the off and on times, particularly in the music, they’re very imagistic.

Craig: Hmm.

Lindsay: They’ve very, very big on images in their singing.

Craig: Because I’m guessing the Sale El Sol came later.

Lindsay: Right.

Craig: Like Un Dia Mas seems to me like it was a rushed translation to get a Spanish version, and then they…

Lindsay: Except when I listened to the two of them, I think that [sings] Un Dia Mas has way more resonance and is more interesting to me than [sings] Sale El Sol. But I’m not Spanish, so I mean…

Craig: Mm-hmm.

Lindsay: You know, maybe a Spanish person would tell me I’m off my rocker and that it’s way more interesting to… And I also like the repetition of it…

Craig: Right.

Lindsay: Like One Day More, every beat, every section, starts off with “one day more,” and then it gets bigger and bigger and bigger, and I think part of that is the repetition, which you don’t get in Sale El Sol.

Craig: Sale El Sol.

Lindsay: Because it doesn’t work. “The sun rises” doesn’t always work in the sections, you know.

Craig: Yeah. I think, see, I don’t really speak Spanish, so…

Lindsay: It’s okay. I don’t speak Spanish either. [Laughs]

Craig: I like the first one more, I think, just because it’s so Spanish. It’s got such a telenovela feel to it.

Lindsay: Which is Mexican, not necessarily Spanish.

Craig: Oh really? I would imagine they have telenovelas in Spain. No?

Lindsay: I don’t know, you know.

Craig: Okay.

Lindsay: I think it’s a…

Craig: Anyway, it reminded me…

Lindsay: We’re trying just not to offend everybody because we’re overdoing it.

Craig: [Laughs] It reminded me of the telenovelas I have seen.

Lindsay: Yes.

Craig: Every line has a little flair to it as they sing. And I think it works just great in the context of what they’re doing.

Lindsay: Yes. Yeah. I think, well, it’s very large. The singing is very large. And that’s something else to talk about in terms of the movie. It’s like when we talk about thin singing, is that it’s very inner and it’s very… there’s this whole notion that, “Oh, we can’t go big in movies,” which seems a little weird to me because that’s all they do sometimes, is go big, like just in terms of the…

Craig: Mm-hmm. Car chases, explosions…

Lindsay: Car chases and explosions, and like why is that okay, but someone singing in full voice…? Oh, like the Javert that we saw, Philip Quest?

Craig: Quast, yeah.

Lindsay: Quast. Oh my goodness. So we just watched his death scene, and it’s just a… It’s large and in charge, and it’s just fascinating to watch. And we were watching it on YouTube, so literally it’s on the screen…

Craig: Mm-hmm.

Lindsay: And I don’t find it overdone at all.

Craig: Going back to the movie, I think that’s my fear about the movie, is that the singing will never be that large epic singing. My fear is that we’re not going to get any of those big moments. Certainly, none of the clips that they have put online have had anybody singing at any kind of full voice…

Lindsay: You know…

Craig: And that really terrifies me, because to me, this is a huge show that is kind of a pop-opera cross but I think it leans heavier towards opera, which really makes me flip out when you don’t see any kind of bigness coming from the singing.

Lindsay: Well, and that’s why I think it works really well in concert when you can have a hundred like…

Craig: Mm-hmm.

Lindsay: …chorus members and you can have a hundred orchestra, and there are just these moments, you know, “[Sings] Look down, look down…” [mimics background music]…

Craig: Yes.

Lindsay: …and they’re just… It is the laid waste of humanity through voice.

Craig: Mm-hmm.

Lindsay: And what I suppose the movie’s going to try and do is do the laid waste of humanity through visuals, except it is a musical, so at some point somebody has to take care of the music. Now, of course, we’re sitting here blathering and we’ve only seen clips and we haven’t seen the whole movie, but one would hope that the clips that they would put out would be the ones that they are proud of…

Craig: Mm-hmm.

Lindsay: …and that they want people to draw in. One would hope they’re not just selling pictures of Anne Hathaway because they think people will come and see the movie because of her, but of course, that’s exactly what’s happening.

Craig: I’m looking forward to Sacha Baron Cohen as…

Lindsay: Thenardier?

Craig: ..Thenardier.

Lindsay: So, lastly, we’re going to just… So One Day More is really my favorite song because of its largeness, and it just makes the hairs on my arm stand up. And I also love the storytelling. I love that every single solitary character in that song is about to go on a journey…

Craig: Mm-hmm.

Lindsay: …and that it’s very exciting. It’s a wonderful act ender. I just think it’s…

Craig: Mm-hmm.

Lindsay: I love a good act ender. And what’s your favorite moment?

Craig: Well, I think my favorite song is Stars…

Lindsay: Yes.

Craig: …Javert’s big song when he’s reflecting on his search for his Javert. But I think my favorite moment—this is a really strange one—is the end of the prologue where after the bishop has gotten…Valjean has stolen the silverware from the bishop, he’s apprehended, and the bishop says, “No, I gave that to him,” and, “Oh, you forgot this too.” He gives him more stuff and he forgives him his sins, and Valjean then has his moment where he’s either going to go down the path of the criminal life or if he’s going to give his life to God and become a better man, which also is going to involve breaking the law, but that… Anyway, that’s the choice that he makes, and to me that’s the end of Valjean’s big journey in the show, because the rest of the show is him then trying to keep on that path that he has chosen.

[Song excerpt plays]

So I just think it’s a really seminal moment. I think that says everything about the show right there, and it’s before anything really happens.

Lindsay: And I think it was really interesting too, is that I’m not always keen on the musical repetition in this show. In fact, that was one of the things when I went from having the tape when I was 17 and then seeing it for the first time when it came to Toronto, I’m going to say I was 20, and that’s one of the first things that struck me, was, “Wow, there’s a lot of repeats, a lot of, ‘Oh, this comes back. Oh, this comes back. Oh look, this comes back again.’”

Having said that, I really quite enjoy that the tune that Jean Valjean sings in this seminal moment that Craig is talking about, where he has to make this choice of two roads diverged in a wood is the exact same tune that Javert sings when he’s making the decision, “Am I going to live or I’m going to die?” and he chooses to die. I just find that parallel lovely.

Craig: Mm-hmm.

Lindsay: Bottom line is it’s a show that has really stood the test of time, I think. I don’t find it dated. Do you find it dated? We just saw it like six months ago.

Craig: No. No, but I’m a late bloomer. I saw it on Broadway in 19…

Lindsay: Eighty-nine?

Craig: Eighty-nine…

Lindsay: Ninety?

Craig: And I hated it.

Lindsay: Oh, interesting.

Craig: Yeah.

Lindsay: Oh, why?

Craig: Well, in retrospect, I had no idea what the story was. I did not have a tape that I had worn over and over again.

Lindsay: [Laughs]

Craig: I was in New York and I bought a…there was like a student rush ticket for it was like 10 bucks or some ridiculously low amount of money, and I went and I was at the very back, one of the very big Broadway theatres. I don’t even think that theatre’s there anymore. But it was huge. That had three balconies. And I was at the back of the last balcony. And so I couldn’t really see, I couldn’t really understand what was going on, and I could not for the life of me figure out why this guy would just keep chasing this guy. It was like, after a decade, wouldn’t you just give up and live your life?

Lindsay: Not Javert.

Craig: No, not Javert. No. But now… It was funny, like a year or so ago, they had… The 25th anniversary concert was on TV and we started watching it, and I really got into it and I really started to understand it, and I started listening to it more and more. And then with saw the touring production that came through Buffalo a few months ago, and I’ve really come to appreciate the show. I really hate myself for not having, you know, enjoyed it when I was younger. I wish I could’ve… I don’t really even remember too much of it.

Lindsay: Right.

Craig: I just remember not thinking much of it.

Lindsay: Right.

Craig: I just remember thinking, “Oh, this is just some big over-the-top Broadway show.”

Lindsay: Yeah, but you know, I think that’s so interesting because now the big over-the-topness doesn’t seem to come from the music these days, and it comes from the story and the music.

Craig: Yes. Mm-hmm.

Lindsay: Maybe that’s why it’s got a little staying power. I don’t think it’s going anywhere. I think there will always, always, always be versions of Les Miz out there. And didn’t we not just find out that now they’ve released like the full versions that schools can do it?

Craig: Yes, yes. Anybody can…I think MTI’s now released the full…not the Les Miz junior version but the actual full version, so I think you’re going to see it explode now in the community theatres.

Lindsay: Okay, well, if you’re going to do it…

Craig: [Laughs]

Lindsay: …remember, sing the stories on your face. Don’t be an actor standing there trying to remember your lines. Just sing with your face. I think that’s what we’ll end with.

Craig: Yeah and don’t watch the movie. And I’m serious. I’m not even goofing on the movie, but what’s happening in that movie is things that happen in a movie. Stage your production for something that happens on a stage.

Lindsay: Reach for the back.

Craig: Yeah. Hit the back wall.

Lindsay: Hit the back wall. Sing from your… These are stories. Every song in this musical is a story, and if you’re not working on being a storyteller, if you’re not working on communicating to that back wall, if you’re not thinking about who your character is and why on earth they’re singing in the Paris streets, you know, up to your knees in mud and muck and horribleness… There’s a reason that they open their mouths to sing, and if you can’t find it, then your connection with the audience will be diminished a little bit. And that is really to me what has, again, about the staying power, is it’s connection, to me.

Craig: Mm-hmm. It’s a universal story.

Lindsay: Yeah.

Craig: I mean, it’s not a history, is it? It’s not telling a… I don’t think…

Lindsay: It’s a very minor…like it’s a little teeny-tiny part. It’s not even really the French Revolution. It’s like these students… I think it happened, but like, really? Is it really the story? It’s not really historical.

Craig: Yeah. No, I’m saying like Hugo wasn’t really writing a history of that event. He was writing like, well, sort of an allegory of…

Lindsay: Right and wrong?

Craig: Right and wrong, and yeah…

Lindsay: And characters who believe right and wrong, and characters who do things for love, and characters who do things for money, which we do today.

Craig: Mm-hmm. Yeah, it’s a story.

Lindsay: Yeah. Love it.

Craig: Mm-hmm.

Lindsay: Okay. Now I think we’re done.

Craig: Okay.

Lindsay: Alright. Un dia mas.

Craig: [Laughs] Sale el sol.

Lindsay: Sale el sol. Alright, that’s where we’ll end. That’s it, that’s all. Take care, my friends. Take care.

Music credit: “Ave” by Alex (feat. Morusque) is licensed under a Creative Commons license.