I have a question for anyone who's ever played Valjean or Marius in either a local production or a school production. I know Valjean's supposed to be really strong, but how did the carrying through the sewer scene work without the guy playing Valjean pulling a muscle in the process?

I saw a performance of the school edition last weekend, and I asked the guy playing Valjean that, and he told me he'd done it very carefully, but there was a bottle of Ibuprofen waiting backstage for him.

In general, the actor playing Marius is going to be fairly slight, and I'm sure most Valjean's will wear a support belt of some sort underneath their costume. As someone who does a lot of heavy lifting at his job, "very carefully" would probably be a good summation in general. My understanding is that Colm Wilkinson would hurt his back fairly often doing the sewer scenes, though.

I saw a performance once after John Owen Jones had hurt his back. Marius was unconscious, but still retained the ability to walk, as long as his arm was around Valjean's neck.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure this is the "fallback" blocking for a Marius on the bigger side, or if the actor playing Valjean is on the smaller side or injured.

Man those scenes make me laugh sometimes. I'm sorry, I just think about how awkward and weird it would be to be a grown man carried by another man, baby style. Just weird. At least the actor playing Marius can try to zone out and not think about it.