Miss Saigon opens to rave reviews in Melbourne

All the reviews are simply amazing. I cannot be more thankful and blessed.

That’s the Leo Valdez in a letter to Funfare the morning the opening in Melbourne of Cameron Mackintosh’s long-running hit musical Miss Saigon in which Leo reprises his head-turning role as The Engineer.

"We are all over the papers and magazines," Leo continued, "and we even have a ‘Miss Saigon tram’ (small coaches on rail) going around Melbourne, with my picture as The Engineer on the sides, beaming bigger than ever."

Leo said that there are other Filipinos in the cast, including Laurie Cadevida, the only (younger) sister of Kris Lawrence, "who’s doing very well as Kim;" RJ Rosales as Thuy; and Australia-based Jennifer Trijo as Kim alternate.

Together with Leo’s e-mail are clippings of two of the rave reviews. Funfare is reprinting them for everybody back home to read and be proud of.

• From The Age, entitled Sumptuous, spectacular and sizzling, by Cameron Woodhead:

Presented by Cameron Mackintosh in association with Michael Coppel, Louise Withers and Linda Bewick. Music by Claude-Michel Schonberg. Lyrics by Alain Boublil and Richard Maltby Jr. At Her Majesty’s Theatre, March 29. Until July 15. Running time: 165 minutes, one interval

Boublil and Schonberg’s Miss Saigon ran for more than 10 years at Drury Lane and on Broadway. But no Melbourne theatre was large enough to stage the original production, which was staged in Sydney 12 years ago at the Capitol Theatre. It’s here at last — and it’s hard to believe, seeing it, that this is a scaled-back version.

The musical adapts the plot of Puccini’s Madame Butterfly to the Vietnam War. Kim (Laurie Cadevida) is a Vietnamese girl who flees to Saigon after her village is destroyed. On her first night at a brothel run by the ruthless Engineer (Leo Tavarro Valdez), she meets Chris (David Harris), a disillusioned American GI. They fall in love, move in together, are separated by the chaotic evacuation of the city.

Unbeknown to Chris, Kim bears his son. She escapes Communist Vietnam with The Engineer and her child, after killing Thuy (R. J. Rosales) — the man her father had promised her to. Back in America, Chris marries Ellen (Sophie Katinis), and learns of Kim’s fate. Chris and Ellen travel to Bangkok, where Kim now works as a bargirl. Shattered by the revelation of Chris’ new love, Kim’s response bears major consequences for their son.

Miss Saigon combines the best features of opera and big-budget musical. It’s through-composed, like Phantom of the Opera, and it partakes of opera’s sublime emotive concentration. But there’s also plenty of razzle-dazzle, slick choreography and Broadway chorus numbers.

There are some magnificent performances. As the lovers at the heart of the story, Cadevida and Harris really turn up the heat. You believe every moment of their love, snatched from the jaws of a tropical hell, and evoked through a series of fabulously pure yet sensuous duets. The tragic resolution is made more devastating by their compelling chemistry.

Valdez as The Engineer is a slimy, capitalist soul, a villain of Dickensian proportions who makes the stage his own in a number of showstoppers, notably The American Dream, where he leads a chorus of Marilyns and Fred Astaires. Juan Jackson as Chris’ friend John has immense presence and a powerful tenor to match.

Indeed, the entire ensemble is vastly talented, and director Laurence Connor has them running like a well-oiled machine.

In terms of pure spectacle, the production is ravishing. One number takes place under a golden effigy of Ho Chi Minh, with an Asian dragon, Uncle Sam demons, ribbon dancers and acrobats. A helicopter, dashingly achieved through digital animation, descends on the security wire of the American Embassy.

Adrian Vaux’ sets glide in and out like the stuff of dreams. There are lanterns and bamboo decking and the tawdry neon of Bangkok girly bars; sunsets and shanties and the seedy glamour of Saigon. With this show, the various designers (too numerous to name) have reached the pinnacle of technical accomplishment.

Sumptuous, visually spectacular, dramatically and musically assured, Miss Saigon is a knockout. Tickets to this lavish entertainment are the hottest property in town. Don’t miss out.

* * *

• From The Sydney Morning Herald, entitled Once more with feeling, but no distracting chopper landing, by Bryce Hallett:

When the musical Miss Saigon was first produced, it emerged in an era of excess when stirring melodies and lush duets were couched in the kind of scenic wonders that only big money could buy.

Almost inevitably, the helicopter that descends in the tumult of Saigon’s fall became the blockbuster’s selling point and partly its curse.

Cameron Mackintosh’s revised, trimmer version, directed by Laurence Connor and designed by Adrian Vaux (sets) and Andreane Neofitou (costumes), remains as potent and moving as the original, possibly more so. (The helicopter makes its landing courtesy of the big screen, an effect that works well.)

Claude-Michel Schonberg’s pulsating and tender score achieves considerable vibrancy in the quick-changing, dark and striking aesthetic. The production anchors sentimentality in a tawdry, politically attuned realism.

Miss Saigon, of course, owes a debt to Madama Butterfly but is more than a reworking of Puccini’s tragic tale in the sardonic way it tells its story of exploitation, doomed love, sacrifice and the effects of the Vietnam War on the American psyche. Given what’s happening in the world, the musical seems more potent than ever.

The cast is exemplary. Laurie Cadevida delivers a beautifully sung, secure and heartbreaking performance as Kim while David Harris excels as the American soldier Chris. Their passion and rapport afford great truthfulness and intensity. They persuade the audience to care about the couple’s fleeting union and plight.

As The Engineer, Leo Tavarro Valdez is suitably sleazy and cowardly. His big vaudeville rag turn The American Dream is smug, deludedly romantic, camp and fun; in other words, a show stopper.

Miss Saigon pulses along and finds reverie in its ballads and love duets, notably Sun and Moon, and Harris’s spirited and thrilling interpretation of Why, God, Why? The orchestra, led by Guy Simpson, is first-rate.

At the centre of the brutal clashes and bustling street scenes is the strident song Bui Doi, about the shunned Vietnamese children of GI fathers. It is sung with poise and conviction by Juan Jackson and sets the mood for the tough, tender and operatic second half.

Though smaller in scale, the show is big on clarity, drama and heart.

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