Review: Miss Saigon at Newcastle Theatre Royal
Visually explosive yet heartbreakingly intimate, this reimagined Miss Saigon delivers both the spectacle and the soul of a timeless tragedy. Susan Wear reports back.
Newcastle-born producer Michael Harrison, in association with Cameron Mackintosh, has opened his new version of the legendary musical Miss Saigon in Newcastle to audiences who cheered not just at the end but all the way through.
Which may seem surprising for a show that is unflinching in a visually explosive portrayal of the horror and futility of war and its devastating impact on ordinary lives.
This version, reinvented for a modern audience that is accustomed to spectacle and brilliance, (especially at the Theatre Royal) far exceeds expectation, with world class design, sets, projection, lighting and sound creating the authentically chaotic world of a war-torn city where poverty, cruelty and misery are the only certainties - unless you can get out.
But that doesn’t mean there isn’t also joy, love and passion exuding from every performer.
The 35-year-old sung-through musical, based on Giacomo Puccini’s 1904 opera Madama Butterfly, tells the story of a similar tragically ill-fated romance, but is relocated to Saigon in the 1970s, during the Vietnam War.
Told now, over a century on, Miss Saigon has terrifying contemporary resonance for a globally aware audience. Despite the showmanship, incredible voices and the phenomenally entertaining performance of Seann Miley Moore as the outrageously amoral brothel owner (The Engineer) – you cannot look away from the deep underlying themes of what is left behind after war.
The legacy of trauma, grief, prejudice, misogyny, injustice, displacement and loss of human dignity remains the most powerful message - whether you apply it to any of the current conflicts on the world stage is left up to you.
The tale is familiar – a romance between Chris, an American Marine (Jack Kane) and Kim (Julianne Pundan) a 17-year-old South Vietnamese girl, orphaned and coerced into working in a brothel after her parents were killed.
They fall in love, but as the city teeters on collapse he is forced to abandon her in the military evacuation. He returns to America, marries Ellen (Emily Langham) but can’t forget Kim.
Fast forward three years. Chris’s former comrade, John (Dom Hartley-Harris), through his work with veterans, tells Chris that Kim survived, and they have a three-year-old son Tam. The child faces an uncertain future, stigmatised as a product of an unpopular war.
Meanwhile, Kim’s cousin Thuy (Mikko Huan) has become a high-ranking communist officer is determined to have Kim despite her resistance. She fires the gun Chris gave her and accidently kills him, ending up on the run. The Engineer, seizing his main chance, escapes with Kim and Tam to Bangkok, determined to use the boy as his passport to America, where he believes there will be unlimited riches and shady deals to be had.
In Bangkok, Kim meets Ellen who tells her Chris is married to her, but they agree to look after the boy. Kim hands him over, fulfilling her promise to her son.
Julianne Pundan making her professional debut plays Kim with a fragility that belies her resilience and her powerful voice; there were very memorable duets with Jack Kane, not least Sun and Moon and especially the iconic The Last Night of the World.
There are unforgettable images throughout - mesmerising scenes of panic and chaos where the worlds of civilians, refugees, and soldiers collide and it’s hard to keep your eye on everything going on everywhere on stage.
The pace is relentless, from the touching scene where Kim and Chris realise they love each other, to a particularly stunning extravaganza of Hollywood proportions in The American Dream number.
Miley Moore has made the role of The Engineer their own. He is a gleeful villain out for no-one but themself, but also sadly deluded by the mythical American Dream. Another theme that has topical resonance. The number ends abruptly with a swift gear change into the poignancy and emotion of the final tragic scene where Kim makes the ultimate sacrifice for her child.
Last time I saw the show was in 2005, just after the reopening of the extended Sunderland Empire and all the talk was of a helicopter landing on the stage.
I won’t spoil the surprise for anyone who gets to see the new show on its UK tour, but while it’s the same score written by Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil, with lyrics by Richard Maltby Jr, decades ago, it’s a very different production that bears seeing at least twice.
It is spectacular, powerfully moving and impactful, brilliantly staged and choreographed, and full of surprises, proving how to make an old story into a timeless tale.
Miss Saigon is at Newcastle Theatre Royal until October 25 (Saturday). For tickets, visit the website.