I agree that this production does not transmit any sense of what Vietnam or Vietnamese culture is like. I think Ilaw may be trying to say the truism that no villain thinks he's a villain. Thuy thinks he's doing the right thing. If Ilaw plays the character as a villain, he's playing it wrong.
I saw an interview with Boublil and Schonberg where they said that the "Vietnamese" during the marriage scene doesn't make any sense, but no one told them that for 25 years until this revival was rehearsing in London. They corrected it for this production. It says something about the bubble that we can sometimes live in. |
