Miss Saigon is a musical with music from Claude-Michel Schonberg and lyrics from Alain Boublil and Richard Maltby Jr, about an unlikely romance on the backdrop of the Vietnam war that turns into a tragic tale of separated lovers, holding onto the past and hopes for a happily ever after.
Miss Saigon is a famous musical which for many years had eluded me, but I was finally able to see it at the New Theatre Oxford as part of its current UK Tour.
Having now seen the show, I have mixed feelings on it, as on one hand, I thought the show was really well produced, has a good story for the most part, and a talented cast on this tour.
On the other hand, I thought the show was overly dramatic at every turn, and I hadn’t realised going in that it was an example of a musical that featured almost no spoken dialogue whatsoever. Every moment of the show is a song, and whilst the majority of musicals follow the rhythm of having straight acting scenes that lead into songs, Miss Saigon is a show where even simple moments that bridge gaps in the story to set up the next big number are also somehow a song.
For reference if memory serves me, other examples of musicals written this way are Evita and Les Miserables (this show also being from Schonberg and Boublil), and maybe Into the Woods, although I only saw the movie of that and have tried to banish it form my memories.
As you can probably tell, thus far, musicals which feature next to no spoken dialogue are not my cup of tea generally speaking. I know some of you reading this will love this type of show, but for me, not everything needs to be a song, and by everything being sung, it feels like the things that would stand out as being justified as being a song are somewhat lost in the sea of anything significant or not also being a song.
But despite my feeling on this choice in how the show and shows like this are written, that doesn’t mean I can’t get on board with it and just enjoy the show for what it is and what it aims to be.
Miss Saigon feels the story of Vietnamese woman Kim (played by Julianne Pundan), who within the horrors of the Vietnam war, I believe is orphaned (or at least separated from her family) and forced into prostitution. The opening of the show shows Dreamland, which is the bar/brothel she finds herself at where we see several of the other hookers, their pimp who is simply known as the Engineer (played by Seann Miley Moore), and a bunch of American soldiers who are the clientele who frequent Dreamland.
On her first night as a prostitute Kim is hired by US marine Chris (Jack Kane) who seemingly wants to help her rather than just see her used by the less caring other soldiers. Despite this sense of looking out for her, he still sleeps with her, and the two seemingly form some sort of relationship. My understanding is that Kim then thought them to be married after a ceremony is performers by the other hookers, but at this point her cousin turns up and it turns out they’re supposed to get married…different times I guess.
We then see that Chris tries to buy Kim from the Engineer, but the Engineer wants Chris to help him get to America, which Chris says he can’t do.
There’s a lot of commotion and the American troops leave Vietnam and Chris and Kim are separated.
The story then skips a few years and we see that Chris got Kim pregnant and now she has a kid, and is maybe living with the Engineer…I’ll be honest I didn’t super follow all of the details. The Engineer came across as very gay, so I think they were maybe just friends, but wasn’t clear why she was still hanging around with the guy that was selling her into prostitution.
Throughout all the story the show does everything in song, and for me most of the songs therefore blurred into one another, but what I can say is that they were all really well sung, and mostly fun or emotional to listen to. I do think that the show attempts to make everything feel life or death dramatic though which is where I feel that things felt a little unearned.
Like for example, Chris and Kim having the most impassioned love song a minute after he’s won her in a raffle from a pimp feels a little off for me. Maybe it was just love at first sight, but I kinda couldn’t tell as everything was sung, as I was missing details and didn’t see how they went from zero to ten in the love stakes in five minutes.
Then there is a song where Kim sings to her kid and it’s something about giving her life for him, which I appreciate that any parent would do for their kid, but singing this full out in the face of a three year old felt like it may just be traumatising for the kid. Maybe sing them Hickory Dickory Dock as a change or let them watch Sesame Street as other ways to demonstrate love…just as an option.
The cousin/boyfriend then returns and Kim ends up shooting him when he wants rid of Chris’s and her son. Again, maybe this is a different time and different place, but I don’t think killing your cousin’s illegitimate son in front of her is the best way to ask her out.
Kim and the Engineer then decide to go find Chris in America, and they get as far as Bangkok. Somehow the Engineer’s plan is to pretend to be the kid’s uncle as he think’s that because the kid has an American dad, that somehow he’d also now be welcomed into the land of the free and the home of the brave.
This pretty much wraps up act 1, but it is also worth noting that whilst Kim has been going through all this dramatic stuff, and holding onto the hope that one day Chris will return to rescue her from this life, that isn’t what Chris has been doing. Instead, Chris went back to America after the US pulled out of Vietnam, and he also metaphorically pulled out of Kim…although in reality he failed on this front as he didn’t realise, she was pregnant. But back in the states in the short amount of years that have passed he found a new woman and got married. Now, I won’t go as far as to say that he forgot about Kim, but to me it did make all those deep and meaningful love at first sight lyrics which felt over the top now just feel like a line to get her into bed.
I’m sure many will feel I’ve missed some point here, but if I had, I’m not sure what it is.
In act 2, Chris’s soldier friend John, who wanted to hire Kim as a prostitute before Chris called dibs, is now working for an aid organisation and discovers that Kim is still alive, and that Chris has a son.
Chris and his new woman travel out to Bangkok with John to meet her, and before Kim can find Chris, she ends up meeting Chris wife. This section of them meeting was the only moment where about four lines felt like they were delivered as dialogue and not as part of a song. Ellen, Chris’s wife then reveals to Kim that her and Chris are married and Kim is understandably heartbroken.
In the panic of the situation Kim wants Chris and Ellen to take her kid to go and live with them in America. Whilst I can understand from the hardships of what her and Tam (the kid) are going through that she may want her son to have the best life possible, even if that meant she wasn’t part of it, I still had issues with this situation. For me, Kim didn’t even explore the idea of her and Tam both going to America, where he could have a father and a better life, and the same for herself, even if in this moment she was heartbroken by Chris having a wife. Jumping straight to a scenario where she would forever be separated from her son just felt another big leap which was far from the only option.
This was only made worse by the ending, but I’ll get to that in a moment.
Before the show wrapped itself up, the Engineer is given a huge show stopping number where he sung about the American dream and pranced around in a dress made of an American flag. For me this was the most fun song in the show, and overall the Engineer character had done 99% of the heavy lifting in providing all the lighter moments of what was otherwise a really serious show with big stakes.
The ending of the show is a tragic one, which I can appreciate for what the story they were trying to tell was, but also I can’t ignore that it felt totally avoidable. Kim is somewhat is had been from an awful lot. Orphaned (I think) at about age 17, and then forced into prostitution, had a whirlwind romance and then any happiness robbed by being separated by being on two different sides of a war. She then has a hard life with her kid, shoots her cousin who wants to sleep with her, only gets as far as Thailand before discovering that her American hero was now shacked up and married with another woman despite her brothel wedding ceremony performed by ladies of the night.
All of this is too much for Kim, so rather than face Chris for one moment to discuss if he may still love her, or if there would be a way to make things work for her and Tam and the Engineer to go play happy families with Chris and Ellen in Uncle Sam’s US of A, she just shoots herself.
Now, I know my description of the story has been a little light hearted, but certainly this did pack an emotional punch. It was a tragic ending and really well performed by all the cast involved.
However, I still think that like a bunch of things in Miss Saigon, this was a character making the most dramatic choice imaginable when there could have been countless alternative ways forward for her. By shooting herself it pretty much meant that Chris would have to take his son back to America with him, and Kim could die knowing her sacrifice will ensure that son would have the better life…But at the same time, I don’t feel that her choice to rob her son of his mother and doing what she did wouldn’t be infinitely more damaging to that kid.
This is my own personal feelings of course, but I couldn’t feel for Kim as I think the writers would hope an audience member would when she was effectively abandoning her son into the hands of strangers rather than do everything she can with every fibre of her being to protect him. Somehow she though that Chris who from her perspective married her and abandoned her by giving up on her and getting a new wife was who she would leave her son to.
Of course, I have the tendency to think about the plots of things a bit more than some others, and I know that the intention was for this to be a tragic and emotional ending for Kim, who sacrificed herself so her son could have a better life even if that meant she couldn’t be part of it. Therefore she then fulfils the foreshadowing of the song where she expressed that she would give her life for Tam.
To me though, she just didn’t need to, and left him more vulnerable and with a much more traumatic future as a result.
In Conclusion
I can appreciate how well performed the show was and the cast were all great singers, and the songs all sounded good and were moving as I watched. I didn’t enjoy that there were no scenes of just dialogue to help us connect with the characters between songs, but accept that is the style of this musical.
Story wise, I also accept it for what it was, but feel like it’s something I’d appreciate a lot more if it was telling a true story, rather than just inspired by the kinds of things that did happen as a result of the war.
I’ve only done a little research to look up the origin of the show, just to check if it was based on a true story, and according to Wikipedia (that reliable old source) the show was inspired by a single photograph of a Vietnamese woman leaving her son to board a plane at an airport to go have a better life in America as her ultimate sacrifice. Truthfully, that should have been how it ended. The shooting herself bit was more dramatic but felt unearned in the face of alternatives. They could have justified why she could not go to America, but the son could and then left her to make the choice. Forcing the choice the way Kim did in the show felt rushed and didn’t make me feel more for the character, but less.
Still, if you want to see a well performed musical with an enjoyable soundtrack that pulls on emotional strings then I can recommend Miss Saigon. It won’t be a show for everyone, but musical theatre aficionados will eat it up.
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