Monday, February 28, 2005
Final scene leaves
a bitter taste
Review by John Berger
An expendable Asian woman's timely suicide gets an American Vietnam vet and his wife out of an awkward situation -- that is the apparently intended, albeit unconventional, subtext of Army Community Theatre's otherwise enjoyable "Miss Saigon."
Joey Caldarone, Shawna Masuda and Samuel Hesch are strong leads, and sound designer Sean Rowbottom provides the cleanest sound mix of any ACT production in memory, but the implication of a boy going to America over his mother's dead body tinges this story of star-crossed lovers with subtle hints of ethnocentrism.
Kim shoots herself after learning that Chris, the father of her child, has married someone else. She dies in Chris' arms. Ellen, Chris' American wife, leads Chris' son by the hand. Chris stands, takes the boy's other hand, and the newly created American nuclear family walks away with nary a look back at the woman lying dead in the dirt.
Surely something is wrong with this picture! Can this be the story that Alain Boubil, Richard Maltby Jr. and Claude-Michel Schunberg intended to tell?
Other than that final scene, ACT's long-anticipated production of the Broadway tear-jerker proves worth the wait.
Shawna Masuda (Kim) makes a stellar debut as a leading lady with her captivating portrayal of the heroine. She brings the emotion in the lyrics to life and makes each scene believable theater.
Joey Caldarone (Engineer) is an instant hit as the cynical opportunist born of a wartime interlude between a soldier and a prostitute during the French occupation. Caldarone sells "The American Dream" as a glorious paean to American materialism on the strength of talent and charisma, without the help of props or set pieces.
Caldarone's acting is also dead-on, whether the Engineer is slapping a hapless bar girl, cowering before communist big shots or scheming to pass himself off as Kim's brother to get an American visa.
Keoki Kerr (John) is solid in a key supporting role. He gets Act 2 rolling with his passionate performance of "Bui Doi, the Dust of Life," introducing the issue of American responsibility for children sired and abandoned by U.S. military personnel. He does a good job carrying the dramatic load thereafter, and his duet with Masuda is another high point.
Fran Gendrano is a woman to watch even before her poignant rendition of "The Movie in My Mind." Gendrano displays star power as leader of the parade of Marilyn Monroe clones who march through the Engineer's fantasies of America.
Jay Flores (Thuy) is strong as one of the designated villains, his final scene in Act 1 proving his range as actor, and vocalist Renee Garcia Hartenstein (Ellen) does a fine job infusing "Now That I've Seen Her" with rich shadings of emotion. Unfortunately, neither the script nor director Vanita Rae Smith's best efforts at changing the balance of the story make Ellen more than an unwelcome impediment to the resolution of the love story.
Samuel Hesch (Chris) steps smoothly into the role of the Marine and makes Chris' sudden emotional commitment to a woman he barely knows seem believable, as well as romantic. "Why God Why?" shows Hesch has the voice for the role. "Last Night of the World" caps his performance with Masuda in fine style.
Would that there were any indication of the same type of romantic connection between Chris and Ellen! Chris seems more wishy-washy than conflicted once he learns that Kim is alive and raising their son. Neither the script nor the actors' performances suggest that Chris' commitment to Ellen is strong enough to make his rejection of Kim final. It's more like he loves the one he's with -- for as long as he's with her.
The early bar scenes lack sizzle, and the helicopter evacuation seems thin and anticlimactic by the time we relive the fall of Saigon in the middle of Act 2, but these are minor issues compared with the final scene. As Chris walks away without a backward look at the body of the woman he once promised to marry, and the boy leaves his mother with no sign of grief, it seems that the death of an Asian woman doesn't matter, as if her existence is an inconvenience for an American couple.
And if that's where the story is coming from, Kim would have done better to have shot Ellen, reclaimed Chris for her own, and had the Engineer arrange a cover-up in exchange for getting him his ticket to the American dream.
STAGE REVIEW
Strong 'Saigon' lapses into melodrama
Saturday, February 26, 2005
By Joseph T. Rozmiarek
Advertiser Drama Critic
Occupying armies leave babies behind among the female population. Those children result from liaisons between soldiers seeking sex and women hoping for security.
The situation becomes romantic in Puccini's "Madame Butterfly" because it happens long ago and far away, is wrapped in lush melodies of pain and yearning, and prettified with Japanese gardens, cherry blossoms, and flowing kimonos.
To an entire generation of theatergoers, America's war in Vietnam is as ancient as any other history, but in "Miss Saigon" the setting is garish, much of the music is driving and harsh, and the things that flow are booze, bar-girls and fear.
Still, both treatments initially work as romance — at least for their heroines. Both Butterfly and Kim go against social convention, hoping their men will be true, but loving the man's image more than his reality. Both Pinkerton and Chris fall short by abandoning their women, then returning to reclaim only their children.
When they realize they have become extraneous, both women commit suicide. But the common plot creates a greater problem in "Miss Saigon" by draining focus from the heroine in a politically correct exercise of collective guilt, and by unacceptably sloppy melodrama.
Act One is the much stronger half of "Miss Saigon." The characters are clear, strong and purposeful. Chris and Kim fall in love just as the city collapses and the Americans pull out. Kim and the Engineer do what they must to survive and escape.
Act Two opens in a swamp of delayed guilt as former servicemen agonize over abandoning mixed race children. John, the soldier who initially bought Kim as a gift for his friend Chris, now runs an orphanage and placement service. In a daze of good intentions that are intolerably self-absorbed — even for musical theater with operatic emotions — the men return for the child, neglecting to tell Kim that Chris has remarried.
While some in the audience may grow increasingly impatient with such ham-handed plot-wallowing, Kim is left with little to do but oblige the script by killing herself.
As a character, she is much too strong for that. And when credibility is strained too far, the drama suffers.
Director Vanita Rae Smith has assembled an excellent cast, with remarkably talented high school senior Shawna Masuda carrying the weight of the title role. She has an amazingly large voice and competent stage presence, able to project both the character's innocence and her toughness.
Samuel Hesch as Chris is clear and articulate in his lyrics and brings such tenderness to his Act One solo and duet with Kim that we can almost overlook the indecisive turn his character takes in the second act.
The role of the Engineer is refreshingly consistent throughout the show, and Joey Caldarone makes him attractive and playful despite his sleazy and self-serving actions.
Audiences appreciate survivors — especially when they are as charming as Caldarone makes this one.
Keoki Kerr plays John much more successfully in Act One, but loses him in Act Two when the role takes a character swing that undercuts all his earlier motives and makes him incredibly stupid.
Jay Flores is intense and vital as Thuy, and Renee Hartenstein has one good solo in the thankless role of Chris' American wife.
And the helicopter? Designer Tom Giza works enough magic with sound effects, lights, and smoke that we really believe we see one. Musical director Melina Lillios gets excellent sound from the singers and orchestra.
In a capstone to the florid incongruities in Act Two, Smith sends a curious message in the final tableau — where even Kim's son turns his back on her corpse while taking the hands of his new parents and tugging them toward America.