Ten years ago when I saw Les Misérables in London, I jokingly vowed that it would be for the last time. No offense meant to the cast, but I had already seen the adaptation of Victor Hugo’s classic novel in two national tours and through countless screenings of the 10^th anniversary “dream cast” and recent 25^th anniversary “all-star” concerts. My rear end, numbed by the show’s three-hour running time, just couldn’t take it anymore, mainly because I felt that Les Miz had plateaued. Its rote staging and attitude couldn’t be resuscitated, no matter how many Jonas Brothers you stuck in the cast. To sit through it again, I decided, Les Miz would have to show me something new.

While the 25^th anniversary national tour isn’t a complete reimagining of the material, there are enough subtle alterations to make the show seem fresh, urgent, and exciting again. New directors Laurence Connor and James Powell were brave enough to take an original approach to Jean Valjean’s storied saga of crime, mercy, and redemption, set against the backdrop of the 1832 Paris Uprising. They break the shackles of the rigid representation that had previously been mandated by the show’s fierce fans.

Most notable is the absence of the set’s iconic turntable, replaced instead with video game-like projected renderings of Hugo’s own moody sketches (especially effective when the action moves underground to the city’s spooky sewers). While this switch lessens one of the show’s most impactful “reveal” moments—the death of the street urchin, Gavroche—and sometimes causes the chorus to putter around aimlessly just for the sake of producing onstage movement, it overall brings a deeper intimacy to the characters and their complicated relationships. They, and the music, are the stars and not the massive set piece.

Packing Hugo’s 1,400-page novel into a sung-through musical was a challenge for Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil in 1985 and remains so today. The breakneck pace still startles, with some scenes flying by so fast that if you’re not previously acquainted with the story, it’s advisable to skim the synopsis handily provided in the program.

Les Misérables’ success depends on the strength and miraculous high tenor of its reformed criminal, Jean Valjean. Here, J. Mark McVey tears into his showy moments with vigor and produces shiver-inducing renditions of the showstoppers “Bring Him Home” and “Who Am I?” Andrew Varela is his powerful vocal match as the obsessive policeman Javert, and I thank him for doing justice to my personal favorite song, “Stars.” Betsy Morgan (Fantine), Max Quinlan (Marius), and Joseph Spieldenner (the student Grantaire) also deliver fine performances.

Unfortunately, the cast is not uniformly up to the task. The comic relief couple, depraved innkeepers the Thénardiers, fall flat at the hands of Richard Vida and Shawna M. Hamic, while Jenny Latimer’s reedy soprano doesn’t quite reach pretty Cosette’s operatic top notes. Chasten Harmon gives her all to Eponine’s “On My Own,” but her other solos possess a contemporary, American Idol-ish air that is noticeably discordant.

Fewer than 24 hours after leaving the Winspear, I received an email alerting me to the “arena spectacular” Les Misérables concert at theAmericanAirlinesCenter coming in March. Featuring Broadway favorites Brian Stokes Mitchell and Lea Salonga (who has famously played both Eponine and Fantine), the event is making its American debut inDallas before presumably touring the country. Will I attend? Perhaps, but my rear end hasn’t quite decided yet.

Production Photo: Catherine Ashmore