Great Weekend: Miss Saigon

Last weekend was one of the best weekends I had! I went to watch a famous musical theatre and the 10th longest-running Broadway musical in musical theatre history, Miss Saigon. It was an AWESOME experience. Ok, let me tell you this. I never watched any live Broadway before in my life. So all comments written in this post are based on my first experience — or, what the marketers say first-time user . I can’t make ‘valid’ comments, because of my limited knowledge of broadway theatre. And I can’t make comparisons either. I can’t tell if this musical has some weak points or whatever! Coz everything to me seemed WOOOOOOW!

Anyway… (back to the main topic) I always wanted to watch performances: musicals, orchestra, or ballet, but the time was never right. Money was basically the main issue. It’s definitely not cheap to watch these performances. Their price is usually two times more expensive than the price of typical music concerts . The reason why I decided to go was because… apparently my NZ trip was under budget. It’s weird coz I thought I spent quite a bit for the trip, but I didn’t — which was good. My housemate Jenny was the person who told me about Miss Saigon. Honestly I never heard of it! I never even heard of the word Saigon. Call me stupid or norak; but I seriously had no clue. I came to know later on that Saigon was the name for the city in Vietnam — now known as Ho Chi Minh City. So yeah, basically Jenny wanted to watch the show and asked me to come with her (and we later asked our friend, Will to join us). We never watch any musicals before. We both previously promised that someday we had to watch a broadway or music performance before I graduated. I’m glad that it finally happened. We planned to watch it at the end of August. But the seats filled up very fast. We could still get them booked, but they were all located quite far from the stage. Since all seats had the same price, I would rather wait for one more week to get the best seats! Thank God, for the performance on 2 September, we got good seats which were located on the THIRD row from the stage. Great!

The show was held at QPAC, South Bank. Jenny and I arrived there at about 2.15 pm. We watched a jazz performance at a cafe at QPAC while waiting for Will. We also took quite many pictures hehehe. Some stupid one too . It was fun. Anyway, it turned out that we couldn’t bring anything inside the theatre other than our handbag. So we had to checked it into a cloakroom. We entered the Lyric Theatre at around 2.35 pm (the show started at 3 pm) — sadly I couldn’t take any pictures pass this point. My first reaction of the theatre was “wooooow…!” Hehehe. I was indeed quite amazed by its size — but of course the theatres in the States or UK are much bigger than this one. Our seats were located on the middle of third row. While we’re waiting for the show to start, a music was played — which turned out to be live! I didn’t realise that a small orchestra was actually playing those music underneath the stage (I could see them playing from my seat). Throughout the show, a conductor stood and was positioned partly underneath the stage so that he could see the play and at the same time lead his orchestra.

The setting of Miss Saigon is in 1975 during the last days of the Vietnam War where the American emergency evacuation by helicopter takes place. Miss Saigon is a love story between an American GI, Chris, who is an embassy guard in Saigon and a young Vietnamese woman, Kim, who is forced to work in a Saigon night club by a Vietnamese pimp, Engineer. Chris and Kim love each other and he himself promises her to bring her to the States when the evacuation happens. But unfortunately they are separated by the chaos of the American evacuation. Chris is forced to return to the States, leaving Kim in Vietnam. During the next three years, the two struggle to deal with the emotional aftermath of their affair. It is later revealed that Kim has a child with Chris named Tam. With the help of Engineer who views Tam as his passport to his dream land — the United States, they move to Bangkok where they are forced into their former pimp/prostitute roles to survive. Towards the end of the plot, Chris and his new wife Ellen visit Bangkok to see Kim and her son. Kim is devastated when she later learns that Chris has a wife. She is even more devastated when Ellen refuses to take Tam to the States for better life. As Chris unites with his son for the first time, Kim shoots herself and dies in Chris’s arms. At the end, Kim’s dreams for Tam’s new life in America come true when Ellen opens her arms to Tam.

The good thing about having to sit near the theatre stage was seeing the actors’ and actress’ clear facial expressions; though I had to turn my head up a bit to see a bigger picture. I also realised how handsome David Harris (Chris) was. Hahaha.. seriously. He’s very handsome. Although in the picture, he doesn’t look THAT handsome. I found that John (Chris’s friend) looked like Denzel Washington!!! I was so excited about it hehe. But he looks very different in his picture in this website. Kim was quite pretty and petite. She had an AMAZING voice. Engineer was everyone’s favourites — he’s so funny! All artists of Miss Saigon were Australians, except Kim (Laurie Cadevida) and Engineer (Leo Tavarro Valdez). It’s worth noting that the “current” Miss Saigon is the new production of Boublil and Schönberg’s original Miss Saigon. One of the major differences (and troubles as well) between the new and original version is the helicopter scene when the evacuation of the Americans happens. The “real” (full-sized) helicopter is used in the original version instead of digital animation (but the sound effects were amazing!) The new Miss Saigon can also fit into smaller venues as opposed to the original one.

In the first act, I was honestly surprised by the nightclub scene, where all prostitutes try to impress the Marines. The guys held some womens’ private parts! It was just shocking to me… they have to do it everytime they perform! Can you imagine that?? Even my friend Will who’s much more liberal than me said that he wouldn’t do such a thing to women even though it’s a play. Anyway, the evacuation scene was one of my favourites. Apart from the sound effects, the moving barbed-wire fences (of the U.S. embassy) allow the actors to change the perspective of the scene for the audience (i.e. inside the embassy where the Americans are guarding the fences and outside the embassy where Vietnamese people are trying to go inside the embassy, so that they can fly to America). Many of the scenes in the second act of Miss Saigon made me cry! Especially when Kim says farewell to Tam (right before she commits suicide), telling Tam not to forget her and that she will be watching over him. It was soooo emotional. The suicide part was unexpected for me and it wasn’t my favourite at all. Oh, and the songs were just amazing! I love them! My favourites are: “Sun and Moon” when Chris and Kim tell their love for each other, “Last Night of the World” when they remember the night they met, and “I Still Believe” when Kim remembers Chris again and believes that he’ll come back to Vietnam to take her to America. In this song, Kim sings with Ellen who’s located in other part of the world promising their devotion to Chris.

The show ran for about 3 hours. Overall, I was satisfied and didn’t feel paying that much of money was a waste. After the show, Jenny, Will, and I had dinner near our campus and enjoyed the rest of the night together . I’ll definitely watch another musicals in the future… if I have money, of course hehehe.

Read more:

• The Cast of Miss Saigon Australia
• Wikipedia: Miss Saigon
• Miss Saigon Australia