A Masterpiece in Two Songs
By: Ryan Theodosia
Tags: Revolution, Les Misérables, History, Les Miserables, Musicals

A Masterpiece in Two Songs

Reflections on Les Misérables’ “Turning” and “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables”

An illustration of the 1832 June Rebellion, drawn in 1870

A little over six years ago, I saw the Les Misérables movie. It sparked my first special interest in a musical, though I didn’t know I was Autistic at the time. I saw a stage production a few months later, and it blew me away. I was 15 at the time, and the events seemed removed from anything that could happen in modern times. And after a while, my intense interest in the musical faded, replaced over the years by special interests in Spring Awakening, Next to Normal, Fun Home, Hamilton, and Hedwig and the Angry Inch, among others.

So, when my mom asked me a few months ago if I wanted to see a local high school production starring a few family friends, I tentatively agreed. She put it on my calendar, and I worked it into my schedule for the week, so the change in my routine wouldn’t throw me off as much. I was excited to see how differently I would feel about it now that I’m 21, diagnosed Autistic and with other chronic illnesses, and openly queer and nonbinary. My time at Berkeley also shifted my view on the sorts of injustices that still exist. Beyond that, I have studied both history and sociology in some depth recently.

I had no idea what I was in for.

The stagecraft itself was stunning, especially by high school standards, but the content hit me in unexpected ways. I was right to assume that I would feel differently about it now than I did six years ago. I did not expect to cry in the first two scenes, especially now that I’m on testosterone and often don’t cry as much. A few scenes here and there brought me to tears, while others gave me aesthetic chills. Two back-to-back scenes near the end of the show — “Turning” and “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables” wrecked me. When I started crying before the end of “Turning”, I had almost forgotten that “Empty Chairs” was next, and I found myself with an even deeper respect for the team that adapted Les Mis from the Victor Hugo novel to the stage.

“Turning” features around a dozen working-class Parisian women cleaning the streets the day after a battle between the French army and national guard on one side and rebel students and workers on the other (in history, they were joined by Polish, Italian, and German refugees). It brings into sharp focus the small impact of the rebellion Hugo based Les Mis on — the Paris Uprising of 1832, also known as the June Rebellion. It lasted only two days, killing 93 insurgents and wounding 291 more. This was the end of uprisings against the disappointing outcome of the 1830 July Revolution. The women featured in the scene lament how nothing seems to change and question the purpose of the fighting when the world just stays the same. They are weary after decades of rebellions, after all of France’s attempts to overthrow their monarchy brought them almost nowhere. Given the time, few women could be on the frontlines of such battles, and they instead had to watch their loved ones die again and again.

Even exclusively in the context of 1832 France, “Turning” is chilling. With knowledge of the 187 years since then, in France and elsewhere, it is downright haunting. In the last moments of this song, I began to cry in earnest. As much as I believe that a better world is possible, I also know how many have died fighting for that belief. My brain brought me slowly backwards in time, first to the Stonewall uprising and the fact that its legacy 50 years later is the heavily policed and commercialized Pride movement while key figures like Marsha P. Johnson died in near-obscurity, then to the African-Americans who joined the United States Army in war after war, hoping that they would be able to earn white Americans’ respect, back to the slave uprisings that ended in nearly every person involved being executed or re-enslaved. The broader tragedy, the loss of revolutionary spirit and ideas, hit me harder than any individual death ever has.

Then the scene turned to “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables.”

In this song, Marius, a surviving rebel student, mourns his friends who were killed in battle. The creative decision to put this song right after “Turning” was a stroke of genius. For rebel-minded folks like myself, the pair is gut-wrenching. While “Turning” reminds us of how rebellions and revolutions echo and repeat throughout history with little success, “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables” speaks to the individual cost of each rebellion. Here, Hugo’s focus on the June Rebellion shows that, even when such events do not make it into history books, even when they’re mere blips on the timeline, they have intense and life-changing consequences for those involved. Whether this was an artistic choice by Hugo or mere chance, given that he was nearby during the real-life events of the rebellion, Marius’s unspeakable grief is felt by every survivor of such events regardless of time or location.

In the stage production of Les Mis, those who died in the battle usually come back onstage as ghosts (in this case, expressionless and holding candles). By the time Marius, played by one of my friends, sang the last stanza while surrounded by the ghosts of his classmates, my face and neck were both tear-stained, yet I felt a twinge of hope. I recalled the last words one of the insurgent leaders sang before he was killed in the final battle, in which he called on others to take his place in the fight for freedom.

Yes, Les Mis is a downer. Yes, many insurgencies fail, often with much bloodshed. But some succeed, and even those that don’t — like the July Revolution and the June Rebellion — can have lasting effects. The world does change. It just may not happen in any individual’s lifetime, and that’s exactly why art like Les Misérables is so important. It serves a purpose…beyond bringing just about anyone who sees the stage adaptation to tears.