Citizens Bank Opera House, Boston, MA. Mezzanine (Seat MEZZRC J-120, $75).
Story. American
soldier Chris visits a bar in Saigon and falls in love with the bargirl
Kim. They get married in a Vietnamese
ceremony. During the last days before
the Fall of Saigon, Chris and Kim try without success to look for one
another. Chris is forced to leave Saigon
in a helicopter; Kim, after murdering a communist commissar who wanted to kill
her young son, flees Saigon with the bar owner The Engineer to Bangkok. Chris is helped in his resettlement in the
United States by Ellen, and marries her.
Meanwhile, Chris’s fellow soldier John now works for an organization
helping to locate children in Vietnam born of American fathers, and locates Kim
and her son. Chris and Ellen go with
John to Bangkok, their intention is to provide Kim with money so she can raise
her son. Kim meets Ellen by accident,
and realizes the only way she can help her son is to commit suicide.
Director – Laurence Connor; The Engineer – Red
Concepcion, Kim – Emily Bautista, Chris – Anthony Festa, John – J. Daughtry;
Ellen – Stacie Bono.
Joe Jr bought the tickets for us, so we borrowed his cell phone. I didn't want to install the Ticketmaster App on my iPhone which would allow the tickets be transferred to my account.
We saw this show when it first came out, on Broadway,
about 30 years ago (it opened at the Broadway Theater in 1991). The story line follows pretty much that of
Madama Butterfly, although there were some major differences, such as there is
no equivalent of Suzuki in Miss Saigon.
I am quite sure the opening scene 30 years ago was not as
risqué as what we saw today, with simulated sex acts (fully clothed, more or
less) and cuss words flying all over the place.
Just this side of an R, if I were to give it a rating; the show is
recommended for audience aged 12 and over.
30 years ago Les Miz with its sh*t was probably the worst offender, and
I don’t recall the Miss Saigon then as being any more gritty than Les Miz.
Renee Fleming, who does Broadway every now and then, says
the mic is the singer’s best friend.
That’s certainly the case here.
One aspect of Broadway I always admired – and enjoyed – was how easy it
was to get the words. That alas wasn’t
the case tonight. Was it the acoustics
of the hall, or were the performers not quite up to the task? In the singers defense, I complained about
the acoustics of the hall when I saw The Nutcracker at the same location many
years ago.
If one sits through the entire Madama Butterfly to hear
“One Fine Day,” one might also sit through Miss Saigon for the helicopter scene
– and it was worth the wait. Both the
prop and the sound were impressive, and better than how I remembered it. The way they flip the fence to do the chaotic
scenes inside and outside the US Embassy was also quite ingenious.
Having been on the periphery of a musical before, I know
there is tweaking as the production ages.
I wonder if what we saw today was much different from what we saw 30
years ago. Regardless, I can say the
show portray realistically what could have happened (I am sure many aspects indeed happened)
during the Vietnam war and its aftermath, that many people’s lives were
destroyed. I wonder for the younger
generation (e.g., our children) how the show would come across.
Despite all the misgivings, I thought it was a good
experience. For a couple of years Anne
and I went to quite a few musicals, but we have lost interest in the
genre. This has not revived it, but I
won’t mind going to another one if opportunity arises.
Curtain Call. From left: The Commissar, Ellen, Chris, The Engineer, Kim's son, Kim, John, and Gigi.
The Boston Opera House was built in 1928, about the same
time as St. George Theater in Staten Island, which we visited recently. It was ornately decorated, and more tastefully
– in my judgment – than the St. George.
It hosts no (or close to it) operas, and the opera scene is Boston has
quite a bit to be designed, with the “flagship” Boston Lyric Opera putting out
four productions a year.
The Opera House sits about 2600 people. Many seats in the Mezzanine section were
empty, we in fact moved up a few rows after the intermission. The hallways were crowded enough at the end
of the show, so there was at least a respectable number of people.
We took the T from Assembly to the Chinatown stop, and
had something to eat before the show.
Joe Jr picked us up after the show concluded at around 11 pm.
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