Tuesday night, Camp Jabberwocky gave a standing-room-only audience the singing, dancing Les Misérables of a lifetime, complete with battles — a tongue-twister showdown was the pivotal scene — magic, mimes and a rabbinical blessing.
Retitled Less Misérable Than Usual, the camp production also retooled the famous illustration from Victor Hugo’s 1862 novel that became the hallmark of the Broadway hit. On the cover of the program for Jabberwocky’s show, Cosette is smiling.
August-session campers and counselors had just a week to put their play together, creating props, sets and the costumes for some 60 people. The show boasted full-sized color backdrops and some impressive props, including a gigantic hammer and a speedy yellow taxi.
As always, live music accompanied the show and entertained the audience during the frequent scene changes, with many people clapping along to the beat. A smattering of well-chosen sound cues — notably, squealing tires for the cardboard taxicab — added extra humor to Jabberwocky’s light-hearted take on a tragic masterpiece.
Opening with a chorus line of campers and counselors in prison stripes singing the Sam Cooke hit Chain Gang, the play moved swiftly through Jabberwocky’s revamped plot.
As explained in the program, “Super loosely based on the novel by Victor Hugo, Less Misérable Than Usual is centered around the prisoners Jean and Valjean. After the two are finally freed, they are given the opportunity to rise above their life of crime and become owners of the famous Chilmark Chocolate factory, but the evil mayor has other plans in mind.”
The evil Mayor of France’s counterpart is the good Rabbi Long, who blesses Jean and Valjean in Hebrew and, when they’re caught stealing his silver menorahs, lies to the gendarmes that the candle holders were his gift to the freed pair.
The booty funds their purchase of Chilmark Chocolates and dominion over the staff of local peasants, who — in one of the evening’s funniest scenes — go haywire on the assembly line, a tribute to the immortal candy-wrapping scene from the 1952 I Love Lucy episode Job Switching.
When the Lucy and Ethel of the chocolate makers lose their jobs, a fairy godmother transforms them into mimes, a development that added both complexity and hilarity to the dialogue on stage Tuesday.
Because he’s evil, the mayor wants to shut down the chocolate factory. But Jean and Valjean have a champion: Marius, a young revolutionary, agrees to a tongue-twister battle against the despotic politician. The winner gets Chilmark Chocolates; the loser, a pie in the face.
This is Camp Jabberwocky, so the forces of good always prevail — even in Les Misérables. Marius triumphed, the mayor got a face full of whipped cream and the entire cast crowded on stage to sing the Beatles’ Revolution and Queen’s Don’t Stop Me Now.
Campers Gage Johnson and Zach Mroczek played Jean and Valjean, trading off lines like “So long, fellow prisoners, we are out of here,” and “Wow, there are really good mimes here.” Rabbi Long was played by Jeremy Long.
Chris Michaud was an impressive Tongue Twister Master, bribed by Jean and Valjean to teach Marius his secrets in time for the battle. Athena Savides was the Fairy Godmother and James Brown portrayed the hero Marius, who was accompanied in his scenes by energetic dancers Stephanie Wright and Claire Kirschner.
Robbie Devlin was the evil Mayor of France and Chris Bryant played Javert. Counselors Brie Goldberg and Zach Sorensen wrote the script and directed the play with counselor Mike Leòn.
The next public event on the Jabberwocky calendar is the 5K Run for Jabberwocky, a benefit fun run August 17 at the Farm Institute in Edgartown. On August 29, the camp holds its Thank You Barbecue at 7 p.m. for volunteers, businesses, organizations and other Islanders who have helped the camp this year.
For more information, visit campjabberwocky.org.
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