Posted on Thursday, July 23, 2009
Music Theatre's presentation is big in scale and leaves an indelible impression.
BY BOB CURTRIGHT
Wichita Eagle correspondent
For those of a certain age and generation, "Miss Saigon" is an emotionally difficult musical to sit through - no matter how beautifully it is sung or staged.
It's a tragic love story at its core, but you can't get away from the politics of the Vietnam War and the trauma of America realizing for the first time in its history that maybe it didn't do the right thing by intervening.
Music Theatre of Wichita's version, which opened Wednesday, will probably be the most memorable show of the season - certainly it will be the most powerful, disturbing and haunting. It's big in scale - brash, sprawling, loud and colorful - with a versatile set (by Dustin J. Cardwell) composed of floor-to-ceiling Roman shades that individually skitter silently up and down to allow set pieces and actors to enter and exit.
But thanks to sensitive direction and storytelling choreography by the team of Darren Lee and Melanie Tojio Lockyer, both veteran performers from the original Broadway cast, the tale's intimacy and humanity are never overwhelmed.
With songs by the Boublil-Schoenberg team behind "Les Miserables," the show is ambitious in its range from lyrical to brassy, from satirical to stirring. It has the gravitas of an opera but the approachability of a musical.
But it is also distinctively adult in topic, sensuality, rough language and violence. It's not for everyone, but it is an indelible experience.
Inspired by Puccini's "Madama Butterfly," this modern retelling is about a disillusioned American GI named Chris and a naïve Vietnamese bar girl named Kim who comfort each other against the war's excesses, fall in love and then are torn apart by the fall of Saigon.
Three years later, Chris - now back in America and married - discovers he has a young son in Vietnam he didn't know about. Can he abandon the boy and his mother? How can he possibly find a place for them in his new life?
Chris Peluso, who has become a local favorite from past shows "Les Miserables" and "All Shook Up," is dynamic and engaging as the love-torn Chris. MTW newcomer Shannon Tyo is fresh and heartbreaking as Kim. Both are in thrilling voice, particularly in the close-harmony love songs "Sun and Moon" and "The Last Night of the World."
Melissa Steadman, stepping up from the MTW chorus, carves out a small but memorable niche as the soldier's American wife, whose long-distance duet with her rival, "I Still Believe," is beautiful, as is her poignant solo "Now That I've Seen Her."
Josh Tower is powerful as Chris' fellow soldier and best friend, getting an almost gospel showcase with the Act II opener about Amerasian children fathered and abandoned by soldiers. And Doan Mackenzie as Kim's one-time arranged-marriage fiance and now Viet Cong leader is heartbreakingly understandable rather just being a cardboard villain.
But Kevin Gray stops the show as the Engineer, an outcast from the previous French/Vietnam war who has cynically manipulated his way into power on the black market. He is the flashy, amoral conscience of the show who, in snarky asides to the audience, tells it brutally like it is. His strutting, preening version of "The American Dream" is both hilarious and horrifying - and jaw-droppingly unforgettable.
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