Emens Auditorium presented a Big League Theatricals productionof "Miss Saigon," the acclaimed musical from the writers of "LesMis�rables," Alain Boublil and Claude-MichelSch�nberg at 7:30 p.m. Monday and Tuesday.
The show featured performances one might expect to see at atheater in Chicago or New York, yet just down the street inMuncie.
The traveling cast includes Johann Michael Camat, who plays theEngineer, a Saigon brothel owner. Corbonnell Award-winning actressJennifer Paz plays Kim (also known as Miss Saigon, the titlecharacter) with incredible vocal force that fills theauditorium.
The role of Chris, the main male protagonist, is played by AlanGillepie, whose attitude makes one question the plausibility of heand Kim's relationship.
These three roles, along with a brilliant ensemble of sexuallyexplicit chorus singers and dancers, have a strong stage presence.Also worthy of recognition is Thuy, played by an actor by the nameof Tadeo, who is determined to wed Kim. His character meets atragic end that proves the great lengths that Kim will go in orderto protect her son.
The production itself is a spectacular event. It booms andcrashes with displays of eye-filling scenery and lighting. Twolarge-scale props are used that make the scenes extraordinary.
In the first act, after Saigon is transformed into Ho Chi MinhCity, a company of soldiers hoist a gigantic paper dragon and tigeras they act out a battle between the two creatures.
Another spectacle is the well-known helicopter scene. Broadwayproductions make use of an actual helicopter, while Big LeagueTheatricals employs For the Sushi Bar, an animation company runLeon Grodski, who has created a 3-dimensional animation of ahelicopter projected onto a screen, which is believable to thepoint you can almost feel the wind from the blades blowing yourhair back.
The story of Miss Saigon is a tragic love tail. Spotlight. Ayoung girl in white cloth stands center on a plane of pitch black.The lights fade in. We catch the first glimpse of Saigon, a city inVietnam under the occupation of American troops.
Dreamland, a brothel run by a character known as merely as "theEngineer," is where our Kim sells her body to American soldiers.One evening, when the soldiers are in the club celebrating, Kimmeets a fellow named Chris who steals her heart.
Chris first takes Kim as a whore, but fate conspires to makethem fall in love. When Chris ships out he vows to take Kim toAmerica. However, Chris loses her in a crowd of Vietnamese who areall fighting to be taken to America by the soldiers. He believesher to be dead for three years until he hears word of herwhereabouts and that she has mothered his child. Chris has now leftSaigon in his memory and married an American girl. The two of themare happy together despite random outbursts and nightmaresinvolving Kim's death.
Greed is an undercurrent in the play that consumes the Engineeras he dreams about life in America. His foreign perspective of whatthe States have to offer is exactly what the media portrays. Whilehe sings the show stopping number "The American Dream," slides areprojected behind his head of Fred Astaire, Marilyn Monroe, andflowing mounds of cash.
Politics are apparent in the opening of the second act when wesee Chris and company singing about how they never mentally leftVietnam and how they weren't there for a purpose. The feelingportrayed by this scene is basically a big middle finger to theWhite House and the Vietnam War in general.
Correlations between the past and present is something thatdefines good theater. What was written decades ago takes on avariety of meanings at different stages of the present tense. MissSaigon continues its tour in Ft. Wayne starting today, and WestLafayette on Friday.
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