Sleaze and sentiment share stage in ‘Miss Saigon’
‘Miss Saigon’ lands at San Francisco’s Orpheum, complete with its baggage
There’s something grotesque about “Miss Saigon,” the blockbuster musical now playing at San Francisco’s SHN Orpheum Theatre.
Transplanting the plot of Giacomo Puccini’s opera “Madama Butterfly” to war-torn Vietnam, the musical veers back and forth between over-the-top melodramatic tragedy and gleefully excessive comedic sleaze.
Created by the “Les Misérables” team of composer Claude-Michel Schönberg and lyricist and librettist Alain Boublil (with an English-language lyrical assist from Broadway veteran Richard Maltby Jr.), the 1989 musical first came to town at the Orpheum in 1998. SHN has brought the latest tour to San Francisco as part of a series of producer Cameron Mackintosh’s most grandiose hits at the SHN Orpheum, after “Les Misérables” and “The Phantom of the Opera.”
“Miss Saigon” comes with a lot of baggage. The original West End and Broadway productions sparked controversy over casting some white actors in prominent Asian roles, and the whole story plays into an insidiously stereotypical narrative, imagining backward Asian people helplessly waiting for white saviors.
It starts in the lurid setting of a Saigon brothel (which somehow seems almost demure compared to the even more raunchy
Bangkok red-light-district scene later on), where American soldier Chris has a paid romp in the sack with helpless and desperate virgin Kim, who obsessively waits for him to come take her away with him like he said he’d do, while he gets shipped back home to the U.S. and moves on with his life. All this is after Kim’s whole village gets slaughtered, mind you.
Solidly played by the orchestra conducted by Will Curry and consistently well sung by the cast, the music is a curious hodgepodge, from forcefully keening laments to catchy if derivative ’70s-style pop, such as the opening number “The Heat Is On in Saigon” (conspicuously reminiscent of Randy Newman’s “Mama Told Me Not to Come”) and syrupy love ballads like “Last Night of the World.” The real showstopper is “The American Dream,” a big old-time Broadway production number delivered by the roguishly sleazy pimp the Engineer, played with devilishly sardonic charm by Red Concepcíon.
Emily Bautista throws herself into the role of the unfortunate Kim with passionate wails, making her sympathetic even if you don’t entirely buy into the story. Anthony Festa’s sullen Chris comes off as more annoyed than amorous despite his earnest lyrics. Stacie Bono is kindly and concerned as Chris’ wife Ellen, and Jinwoo Jung is oddly bland as Kim’s volatile ex-fiance. J. Daughtry’s prickly and callous John, Chris’ Marine buddy, transforms into a compassionate aid worker in the second act. Four-year-old Fin Moulding is adorably impassive as Kim’s child Tam, alternating in the role with four other kids.
What really sells the musical is all the razzle-dazzle of the production helmed by Laurence Connor, who also directed or co-directed the recent touring productions of “Phantom,” “Les Misérables” and “School of Rock” at the Orpheum. The ever-shifting sets are impressive in the production design by Totie Driver and Matt Kinley, from a design concept by the late Adrian Vaux. Andreane Neofitou’s costumes are amusingly flashy in the several brothel scenes.
Because the Engineer’s scenes are so seductively entertaining despite (or partly because of) what a creep he is, ultimately the production is more successful in its moments of lurid excess than in the emotional impact of the melodrama, which makes it feel more like his show than Kim’s. It’s just another way in which the abandoned woman gets a raw deal.