Miss Saigon – Broadway in Chicago

**WARNING: SPOILER ALERT**

I saw the original U.S. Tour of Miss Saigon back in the 90’s and it is still my favorite Broadway Musical.  The opening for the Chicago show was scheduled for our anniversary on November 13, so we got tickets to go see the opening show.  For reasons unknown they cancelled the opening and I re-booked our tickets for the 15^th.  Luckily, I was able to get seats in the same section that I previously had.

This is the new production of the musical, so there were some design changes and re-writes on some of the lyrics, and changes to some songs.  Overall, I thought it was a good production with the new ideas and changes.

I vaguely remembered how the opening scene was back in 90’s, but this one had action behind the scrim where you see people going on their business in Saigon, and then you see Kim in her white dress.  Once the music got bolder it represented the bombing and you can see the chaos in the streets and you see the Engineer recruit Kim and then brings her backstage.  I don’t remember if this was the same as the original, but I thought it was a nice way to introduce the musical.

I have the original recordings and pretty much know all the lyrics to the songs, so I knew when they changed the lyrics, and the majority of them I could tell was changed to help develop the story.  They emphasized Gigi’s role to show the audience the desperation of the women to leave Saigon and how badly they were treated at Dreamland.  In her song “The Movie in My Mind” some of the lyrics changed to give her more depth, she now sings that he will take her to a place where she does not have to dance.  One noticeable deletion of a line was when the Engineer sings ‘Call him Chris, he’ll like that’ Kim used to respond ‘That Marine, wants his beer’  The deletion of that line helped show how timid Kim was, which  added to the storyline that she grew stronger throughout the trials though her life.

They changed the song “Please” to “Too Much for One Heart” in the scene in the dressing room in Hong Kong.  Also they changed the song “Now that I’ve Seen Her” to “Maybe”.  Too Much for One Heart isn’t a big change that was noticeable.  Maybe is a totally different song, which for me, was not that great, I liked Now that I’ve Seen Her better.

I remembered back in the 90’s that this was a raunchy show, but in this new production it got a little bit raunchier, or maybe it’s because I am older?  In the Dreamland scene there is a lot more sexual innuendos and in the scene in the street of Hong Kong it is quite eye opening, and even a little cameo of a character in the Book of Mormon.  If you see it take note of the dancer in the left of the stage with the very bad dancing…that was a surprise.

Emily Bautista and Anthony Festa did a great job in their portrayal as Kim and Chris.  Red Conception is a believable neurotic Engineer that kept the show going.  I remember that this had a huge cast, but this production it had less, but it did not seem like so.  There is a lot more acrobatics in “The Morning of the Dragon” scene.  The staging, lighting and sets were truly amazing and is part of why I like this show a lot, and the re-imagined helicopter scene was just superb.

If you have seen the original tour you would still like this production, but if you haven’t seen it you would be pleasantly surprised.  This musical is timeless and a reminder of how pointless and the repercussions of the Vietnam was.