Once More With Feeling, But No Distracting Chopper Landing

Sydney Morning Herald

Saturday March 31, 2007

Reviewed by Bryce Hallett

*THEATRE

MISS SAIGON

Her Majesty's Theatre,

Melbourne, March 29

WHEN the musical Miss Saigon was first produced, it emerged in an era of excess when stirring melodies and lush duets were couched in the kind of scenic wonders that only big money could buy.

Almost inevitably, the helicopter that descends in the tumult of Saigon's fall became the blockbuster's selling point and partly its curse.

Cameron Mackintosh's revised, trimmer version, directed by Laurence Connor and designed by Adrian Vaux (sets) and Andreane Neofitou (costumes), remains as potent and moving as the original, possibly more so. (The helicopter makes its landing courtesy of the big screen, an effect that works well.)

Claude-Michel Schonberg's pulsating and tender score achieves considerable vibrancy in the quick-changing, dark and striking aesthetic. The production anchors sentimentality in a tawdry, politically attuned realism.

Miss Saigon, of course, owes a debt to Madama Butterfly but is more than a reworking of Puccini's tragic tale in the sardonic way it tells its story of exploitation, doomed love, sacrifice and the effects of the Vietnam War on the American psyche. Given what's happening in the world, the musical seems more potent than ever.

The cast is exemplary. Laurie Cadevida delivers a beautifully sung, secure and heartbreaking performance as Kim while David Harris excels as the American soldier Chris. Their passion and rapport afford great truthfulness and intensity. They persuade the audience to care about the couple's fleeting union and plight.

As the Engineer, Leo Tavarro Valdez is suitably sleazy and cowardly. His big vaudeville rag turn The American Dream is smug, deludedly romantic, camp and fun; in other words, a show stopper.

Miss Saigon pulses along and finds reverie in its ballads and love duets, notably Sun and Moon, and Harris's spirited and thrilling interpretation of Why, God, Why? The orchestra, led by Guy Simpson, is first-rate.

At the centre of the brutal clashes and bustling street scenes is the strident song Bui Doi, about the shunned Vietnamese children of GI fathers. It is sung with poise and conviction by Juan Jackson and sets the mood for the tough, tender and operatic second half.

Though smaller in scale, the show is big on clarity, drama and heart.