It’s back and just as heart-wrenching, spectacular and exciting as ever this time cast with respect for its pivotal Asian character—The Engineer—played by a terrifically talented Philippine, Jon Jon Briones. Playing the title character is the absolutely radiant Eva Noblezada. But first: About a century ago writer John Luther Long wrote a short story that playwright David Belasco turned into a play that composer Puccini turned into an opera that has been going on ever since. Although a flop when it first appeared in opera form in1904 (Cameron Mackintosh where were you then?) Madama Butterfly has proven, over the long haul, to be one of the most enduring and best-loved operas. Its story of a Japanese geisha who falls in love with an American lieutenant has his child and commits suicide when he returns years later with his American bride is a sure-fire tear-jerker. Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schoenberg (the composers of Les Miserables) revived the tragic story and called it “Miss Saigon.” Yes, this is a revival of the mainly sung-through production that caused such a brouhaha at its American premiere in 1991. This, when American Actor’s Equity and an Asian-American Actors’ Alliance feuded and fussed over the casting of a Britisher, Jonathan Pryce, as an Asian. Bravo to the creative and artistic team for stepping up and supporting the inherent racial integrity of this pop-opera and for bringing to our shores the recent London-originated revival. With its lush and melodic score, Miss Saigon remains an ambitious and stunningly effective musical even as it also borders on the overwhelming. It has been seamlessly and extravagantly directed for all its sentimental worth by Laurence Connor. And that helicopter has landed once again in the Broadway Theater where it may very well be grounded for at least ten years, as was the original production. As you may already know, the updated plot takes place during events surrounding the fall of Saigon in1975. The story involves us in the ill-fated love affair between a young Vietnamese girl and an American soldier who are caught up in the corrupted society of a city torn apart by war. As with Les Miz, Miss Saigon is sung with the prescribed resonance and power by its stars and a large company. And in keeping with operatic tradition, there is plenty of pompously circumstantial parading by hordes of marching soldiers and acrobatic dancers called upon to celebrate the third anniversary of the re-unification of the renamed Ho chi Minh City. Credit this to the stirring staging and athletic choreography by Bob Avian. If Miss Saigon seems musically more mature, its lyrics as translated by Richard Maltby Jr. and by Michael Mahler from the French, are simply okay and happily not given to destroying the rarely compromised dramatic structure. They certainly support the principals in their ongoing angst. Briones, as the Engineer, the entrepreneurial Saigon to Bangkok pimp, is brilliantly sleazy, slippery and oozing with decadently cultivated panache. We almost root for him to get that American visa he dreams of. Through the artistry of production designers Totie Driver and Matt Kinley and lighting designer Bruno Poet, the Engineer’s extravagant dreams become chilling and thrilling fantasies as do the more intimate and real war-torn settings created for the lovers. It can’t be overstated how beautifully the petite Noblezada, as the doomed Kim, touches us with her sensitive performance and her clearly spun, octave-vaulting soprano voice. Although the good-looking Alistair Brammer has light tenor voice, he gives a heavy-weight performance as her soldier lover Chris. In support, Nicholas Christopher, as his unsentimental army buddy, Katie Rose Clarke, as the American wife, and Devin Haw as Kim’s rejected Vietnamese suitor are each terrific as they become poignantly caught up in the emotional and political turbulence that comprises this admirable and affecting musical.
