Miss Saigon
A masterful, and emotionally charged, experience.
It is almost 37 years since Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg's 'Miss Saigon' first premiered at London's Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, back in 1989. More importantly, perhaps, is the fact that it is now more than 50 years since the fall of Saigon, the former capital of South Vietnam, an event that triggered a full-scale evacuation of US military, as well as a wave of refugees desperate to leave the country.
Inspired and largely based on Puccini's 'Madam Butterfly', Boublil and Schönberg created a show that has, itself, travelled the world, and has now been estimated to have been seen by over 38 million people.
The show last visited Norwich Theatre Royal in 2018, when it ran for four weeks. This new production, which comes with the tagline 'The Legend Reborn', arrives as part of a tour that began in Newcastle last October, and concludes in Manchester in August.
The story centres on an powerful and emotional love triangle which evolves between former American Marine sergeant Chris (Jack Kane), Saigon brothel bargirl Kim (Julianne Pundan), who he met and fell in love with in Vietnam, and Ellen (Emily Langham), who Chris meets and marries after returning to America. When his former Army friend, John (Dominic Hartley-Harris), who is working for an aid organization that aims to connect Vietnamese children born during the war with their American fathers, tracks down Kim and her son. Chris and Ellen travel to Bangkok, where a dramatic reunion and finale takes place.
With no less than 28 musical numbers, a twelve piece orchestra under the direction of Ben Mark Turner, dramatic lighting that plays some clever tricks with both the fixed and the rotating elements of the set design, and a couple of jaw-dropping special effects, this is a show that is designed to impress. And impress it does.
Jack Kane is every bit as impressive as one would expect from such an experienced actor and musician, but it is Julianne Pundan, making her professional debut as Kim, who for me steals the show, and it is her rendition of 'I'd Give My Life For You' that remains the emotional highlight of the evening, closely followed by the heartbreak and passion in her duet with Kane during 'The Last Night Of The World'. But it is Seann Miley Moore as The Engineer whose charisma and flamboyance provides some counter-balanced brightness and levity in songs like 'What A Waste', and during the razzamatazz big-show number, 'The American Dream'.
For a taste of Broadway and the West End delivered right here in Norwich, this touring version of Cameron Mackintosh's iconic musical remains a masterful, and emotionally charged, experience. The story of a mother, prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice for her child, cannot fail to move the most hardened of souls. There are those who claim that the show continues to hypersexualize Asian stereotypes, although the same criticism can be levelled at ‘Madam Butterfly’, which is generally considered to be one of the finest operas in the world.
