What's So Great About Eponine?

[GlindatheGood22]

Why is Eponine the role actresses kill for? She's barely in it and just seems so one-sided to me. I'd rather play Madame Thenardier any day. :)

[dramamama611]

Well, she's more fun that Cosette.

She's teenage angst personified. Nearly everyone believes they know what unrequited love feels like: putting everything on the line for a revolution? Not so much.

[Visceral_Fella]

I'd rather play her than Fantine actually.

[backwoodsbarbie]

I'm partial to Gavroche.

[broadwaydevil]

^I'm an Enjorlas fan.

It's quite obvious why women are so anxious to play Eponine. If you're of that age, the role is far more exciting and intricate than Cosette's, and she gets one of the most famous solos in the musical, "On My Own." "A Little Fall of Rain" isn't half bad either.

[Wynbish]

Madame Thenardier is barely in it. All the vadge are barely in it. And the actress who plays Eponine can be a Lovely Lady and such, too.

[Visceral_Fella]

I actually like Cosette quite a bit too. I feel like more could be done with that role if that actress is clever enough.

While Fantine is quite interesting she'd be the least exciting for me personally to play. I know that many won't agree with this opinion though.

[Jon]

back in the prehistoric days of the internet - the mid-1990's - I used to visit AOL's Playbill Online Chat Room. I swear there must have been at least two dozen teenaged girls with "Eponine", followed by a number or something, as their screenname. They all identified with her unrequited love for some cute boy (who, in their cases, being into high school drama, usually turned out to be gay). Ten years later, their Broadway character role model was (and perha[ps still is) Elphaba.

[FindingNamo]

She's a whore, darlin'.

[Auggie27]

She's a doormat who basically screams, "wipe whatever you picked up on the street all over me," and then gets to wait for Randy Jackson to say "Dawg, I wasn't feelin' it." The role requires wet eyes, a big ol' voice, and an affinity for despair: i.e. an adolescent sensibility with talent. I get it. I do. I also hope to never hear That Song again.

[FindingNamo]

She's too Broadway.

[Gothampc]

She's the only character in the show that gets a nickname.

"But you will live 'ponine, Dear God above".

You don't see Fantine being called "teenee" or Jean Valjean being called "Valjee" or Cosette being called "sette"

PLUS

She gets to wear a cool raincoat and hat and lurk in the shadows

PLUS

She gets to die beautifully. Unlike Fantine who dies a toothless, hairless, consumptive whore's death.

PLUS

She gets to come back in the end (except in the movie) and harmonize with Fantine.

[scripps]

When I was a small girl and would lock the door and lip-synch to the cast album alone in my room, I would always perform as Enjolras. Forget 'Ponine, Enjolras is where it's at.

[Vespertine1228]

I don't think any of the roles for women in Les Miserables are particularly interesting. A great single song does not a great part make.

[dreaming]

Cosette already is a nickname/pet name that her mother gave her. In the book, Cosette's real name is Euphrasie, but her mother calls her Cosette.

As for the question posed here, I think most of the female characters in this show get a torch song, save Cosette, who gets a bunch of group numbers.

[finebydesign]

Her whole part could be cut from the show and nothing (story-wise, plot-wise) would change, except timing. She's a very odd remnant from the book. I thought the would take some liberty and give her back some of the character from the book. Instead we get an extra singing a really BIG song about BIG emotions nobody cares about.

I would have probably given that song to Jean val-jean and created some unrequited love for him.

[Gothampc]

"In the book, Cosette's real name is Euphrasie, but her mother calls her Cosette."

No wonder Cosette doesn't have any songs. How can you put "Euphrasie" into a song?

[Wynbish]

Oh, to hear Redmayne sing, "Euphrasie! Euphrasie!"

[Roscoe]

All through the film I was waiting for Sacha Baron Cohen to finally go ahead and call her "Corvette."

[Jon]

I always thought "Cosette" sounded like a feminine hygeine product: "Honey, could you run down to the drug store and pick up a box of Cosettes for me?"

"Eponine" = a medication; "Nurse - 20 cc's of Eponine - stat!"

"Thernardier" = an appliance: "The damn Thernarider is on the fritz again!"

"Enjolras" = a green vegetable: "Our salad tonight is Enjolras, roasted beets and walnuts in a raspberry vinaigrette."

[ComingUpRoses2]

It's the angst and "On My Own". I swear that and "Defying Gravity" are the two go-to songs for tween girl auditions. It doesn't help that they're usually sung in a horrible, nasally whine, too. I'd rather never hear those songs again unless someone can bring something interesting to them (which most of these girls can't).

Really, none of the female parts in the show are anything spectacular. Say what you want about her, but it took Anne Hathaway's performance for me to finally appreciate "I Dreamed A Dream" as something more than a belty power ballad. I gotta give her props for that. She turned it into a heartbreaking tour de force.

[dreamcoat12]

All the teens I know just want to play her because of "On My Own."

[Colle]

I think the main women's roles in Les Miserables can be great and speical if done well, even Cosette.

[broadway guy]

If i was a girl i Would want to Play Fantine over eponine.But i undersand the eponine fetish. When My HS did Les Mis 90% of the girls sang "on my own" for auditions...

[darquegk]

If nothing else, Eponine is the largest female role, though the least important save perhaps Madame Thenardier.

[Mister Matt]

If the title of the show and the title of the novel are "Les Miserables", how is Eponine the "least important"? Valjean may be the axis, but the story itself is supposed to represent a cross-section of a post-Revolution French society. Very much in the same way Ragtime uses Coalhouse Walker.