The second act opens on a close-knit group of friends...
Living life is fun and we've just begun
To get our share of this world's delights
High hopes we have for the future
And our goal's in sight
The Amis playfulness gives way to the seriousness of the cause for which they fight: the disposessed who are still suffering due to the unfilled promise of earlier revolutions
I've got my education, I've got determination
I've got imagination, come on give me a break
The assembly of workers and students is scattered by the arrival of the police. The Inspector is also in Paris, but has not forgotten the missing parole-breaker Jean Valjean...
When you least expect
I'm gonna getcha
'Til you surrender
I won't give up
Getcha gonna getcha gonna getcha gonna getcha boy
Once the police have gone, the sinister Patron Minette take the stage, singing about survival. The ringleaders of this underworld crime network have dark plans in mind for Valjean, who has reinvented himself as a philanthropist.
Creeper gonna reaper gonna creep and walk the night
All right, all right, look out, night
Upon his lips the taste of pain
Venom kiss of love insane
Hey, walk the night
Hey, gonna walk the night
Trapped in her life among the Patron Minette, her abusive parents, and a day-to-day struggle against hunger - Eponine falls hard for her handsome and mysterious next-door neighbour
Here I lie
In a lost and lonely part of town
Held in time
In a world of tears I slowly drown
Goin' home
I just can't make it all alone
When the feeling's gone and you can't go on
When the morning cries and you don't know why
When you lose control and you got no soul
At a meeting of the ABC club, Marius tries to impress his new friends - with a passionate defence of Napoleon's authoritarian glamour.
I'll make you all the master race
Just put me in my godly place
We'll march the world down in defeat
Take the fields of oil and the lands of wheat
Power, I need it, more, I got to have it
More, I want it, more
Marius' speech bombs; and the Amis counter with their philosophy.
An army of workers, led by the science of revolution!
And when they said, ‘Party,’
they meant an Anti-Revisionist Revolutionary Communist Party!
Gavroche leads a rousing number, joined by the voices of the workers of Paris - expressing their rumbling discontent and hope
Every healthy smile
Is hunger and strife to another child
But the stars do shine
In promising salvation, is near this time
Can you feel it?
Can you feel it?
Can you feel it?
However, as the stage clears of the students and workers, we learn that Grantaire comes to the disco for a very different reason...
The place was so borin', filled without-of-towners tourin'
I knew that it wasn't my thing
I really wasn't carin' but I felt my eyes starin'
At a guy who stuck out in the crowd
He had the kind of body that would shame Adonis
And a face that would make any man proud
And Marius has also become distracted by a girl he's spotted walking in the park - who immediately becomes distracted by him in turn.
Instant love is happening between us now…
But history is calling, and for the second act finale, the cast come together and sing about their hopes for new day.
Wake up, all the builders
Time to build a new land
I know we can do it
If we all lend a hand