| Miss Saigon (spoilers) | |
| Posted by: mikem 10:13 am EST 01/13/18 | |
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| I finally got around to seeing the revival of Miss Saigon, with all of the principals in. I have seen several other productions, but not in many years. Perhaps my view of the show was colored by seeing it in the time of #metoo, but it really seemed the story of a woman who gets treated terribly by all the men in her life. Thuy, The Engineer, and even Chris all think only about how Kim can make life better for them; none of them seem to think at all about HER or what she thinks or feels. Part of this may be colored by the current casting. This is the first production of Miss Saigon I’ve seen where Kim looks so young. Eva Noblezada is the real deal. She has grit and passion and a beautiful voice. Alistair Brammer, however, is not. His voice has a tone that I found off-putting, and his acting is wooden. He is not at the same level as Noblezada, and I don’t think they have much chemistry. He also seems much older than Noblezada. So their love comes off as first love by a young, naïve girl for a good-looking older guy with no substance. I did not believe that he had any real interest in Kim as a person during their scenes in the first act. And his second act is all about how Kim being trapped in a brutal post-war dictatorship was so bad for HIM. The topper was the scene in the second act where he and Ellen are holding hands singing about how great they are while John is angrily telling them that their plan isn’t right and isn’t fair to Kim… well, it made me hate the guy. All the tiny lyric changes seemed unnecessary, although I think Ellen’s new song is better. And I didn’t think this version was that much “grittier” than others I’ve seen. There’s a bunch of lewd gesturing, but that was about it as far as “gritty” went. I’m curious how I would have felt about the show with a different Chris, although prior reports are that the understudy is even worse. I’m not sure what’s going on; Chris seems like a part that would be pretty easy to cast and the production should have had a lot of great options. |
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