The director of Free Rain's production of Les Miserables, Cate Clelland, said the musical was probably the largest production she had undertaken in her career.
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"It's big - the story is big, it is an epic," she said. But while both the original novel and the Claude-Michel Schönberg-Alain Boublil musical were lengthy and large in scale, she was also referring to the size of the themes treated in the story.
"Head versus heart," she cited as a key one, with characters being driven by one or the other predominantly, often to their detriment, sometimes to their downfall. But the importance of tender feeling is not downplayed.
"It's about the value of compassion in a hard world."
In preparation, she read the Victor Hugo novel in both English and the original French - "I'm studious; research is really important" - and said she wanted her production to strip back the story to its essentials.
"This is a very intimate space here [at the Q] - I wanted to move away from the big set. It's very theatrical. I wanted to make it very theatrical because I wanted the emotion to be true and the stage to be as clear as possible and the story to be as clear as possible."
Peter Cousens, who played the would-be revolutionary student Marius in the West End in his younger days, has aged into the role of Jean Valjean, the convict who breaks parole but is attempting to make something of his life while being hunted by the obsessed policeman Javert (played by Tony Falla). Cousens said preparations for the production - his first experience of pro-am theatre - were going well as opening night loomed.
"It's a very true realisation of the story," he said - and as the father of three daughters himself, its treatment of the parent-child relationship had special meaning for him.
In the show, Jean Valjean's surrogate daughter is Cosette, played as a young woman by Stephanie Maclaine. Cosette is the daughter of a woman whose death Valjean feels responsible for, so he takes on the girl's care even while on the run.
Maclaine, a Year 11 student at Canberra Girls' Grammar School, said Les Miserables was her favourite show since she first saw it as a child and she had long wanted to be a part of it. She would have been happy to be in the ensemble, but to land the role of Cosette was something of a dream come true.
Les Miserables is on at the Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre from April 4 to 22. Bookings: 62856290 or theq,net.au.
