On 30 April 1975, American soldiers fled the Vietnamese capital of Saigon, leaving the city to be reclaimed by opposing native forces. This dramatic day marked the culmination of a long and brutal conflict, passionately fought on both sides to defend not simply territory, but fundamentally opposing ideologies. But while thousands of Vietnamese celebrated the end of US occupation and the reunification of their country under communist leadership, city dwellers who had lived among the Westerners were devastated by their abandonment, left behind to face the harsh consequences of having been on the wrong side of the war.
It’s against this fraught and politically complex backdrop that Les Miserables creators Alain Boublil and Claude Schönberg set their second most famous musical, Miss Saigon. Inspired by the plot of Puccini’s classic opera, Madame Butterfly, it tells the tale of a doomed romance between American GI Chris and Vietnamese barmaid Kim, divided by the enforced evacuation.
Following critically acclaimed runs in London, New York and Tokyo, the show now embarks on its first UK tour in more than a decade, with a spectacular new production heading for the Birmingham Hippodrome this month.
“It’s geared to an age where we’re seeing a lot of cinema and glossy HBO-type shows, so it’s very cinematic and epic in scale,” explains Associate Director Jean-Pierre Van Der Spuy. “The previous production was very operatic, whereas this really celebrates the intimacy of the story. It’s quite brutal and gritty in places, and it feels very real.”
Though it’s been a while since regional theatres have hosted an official touring production, those who’ve seen the show during its recent London run will have a good idea of what to expect, with much of the staging and design adopted from 2014’s Prince Edward Theatre version. But with a new cast comes a fresh interpretation of the characters and the relationships between them.
“I think what’s brilliant about something as well-written and well-constructed as Saigon is that there’s always scope to find nuance and detail and colour that’s never been seen before,” says Van Der Spuy. “There are lots of things about this and the Prince Edward production that are very similar, but I think people will find there’s a slightly different focus in terms of the storytelling.
“The cast we’ve assembled is incredibly exciting. It’s quite young and edgy with a lot of energy. There’s maybe 30% of them who’ve done the show before, but on the first day of rehearsals, I said that they needed to empty their minds of what the show had been before, so that everyone could start again together on page one.”
Back in the ’90s, early productions attracted criticism for their unenlightened casting choices, sparking protests against what’s now colloquially known as ‘whitewashing’. Today, however, properly reflecting the diversity of the characters themselves is top of the agenda, resulting in a vibrant multiculturalism amongst the company which Van Der Spuy highlights as one of the joys of working on the show.
“Miss Saigon is kind of unique for a director because you get to work with a whole range of different people from all over the world. That coming together of people from completely different cultural backgrounds is very exciting. And challenging, too - you’re having to deal with a lot of difficult topics. But it’s thrilling when people start to really take ownership and invest in stories like this.”
Creating something that resonates truthfully and sensitively with the very real horrors of the Vietnam War and its aftermath was also massively important to the team behind the show, and both the cast and the creatives have taken time to fully immerse themselves in the world that the production seeks to represent.
“I’m a bit of a history geek, so I love tethering everything we do in it to truth, to the root of where these stories come from. We don’t start with the script: we go back further than that first, and if you go into our rehearsal room you’ll see the research material stuck all over the walls.
“Everyone has a job to find their own characters, so every single GI and Vietnamese civilian writes a character breakdown. We’re actually really lucky with Saigon because it’s so easy to access resources. We watch loads of documentaries. We have Tuesday film nights. I’ve even got a load of Life magazines which are from the period, and what’s interesting is not only the articles, but also things like the adverts for the cigarettes they would have smoked or the washing machines they might have had. It’s those tiny details that help people to really understand the world.”
It’s partly the proximity of these events to our own lives and our general familiarity with the broad brushstrokes of the story that help to make this show so readily accessible. Admitting it’s a slightly controversial claim, Van Der Spuy makes a strong case for Miss Saigon being an even more accessible work than its more famous cousin, Les Misérables.
“It’s very relatable, and much closer in terms of our history. So many people think Les Mis is about the French Revolution, and it’s not at all - it’s actually about the later student uprisings, so in a way it provokes a lot of questions. But with this, people know what the context is - they get who the characters are and why they’re there without it needing to be explained.
“I also think that even though it’s a period piece it has a lot to say about where we are in our world today. Sometimes looking at something through a slightly different prism is good for people, and that’s why we need to be telling these stories now. I think Saigon has a real pertinence - and for me, that relevance is one of the reasons I love working on it and why I’ve continued to work on it.”
Yet as serious and often tragic as both the real and fictional elements of this story are, there’s also plenty in it offering straightforward entertainment and enjoyment, from the sharp sense of humour and wide-ranging musical styles, to the breathtaking design which has been lauded by critics and theatre-goers alike.
“If you look at something like Les Mis, from the first note to the last note it has a score that feels like it’s in a single style, whereas in Saigon, there’s a lot more variety within the writing. You’ve got musical theatre comedy in the shape of things like Bangkok and American Dream, and you’ve also got those big, impassioned duets like Last Night Of The World and Sun And Moon, which are typical of Schönberg and Boublil. So whoever comes, there’s something in it that will appeal to them. It’s also really exciting. Things like the helicopter are just thrilling for any audience, regardless of whether you’re into musical theatre or not.”
Miss Saigon shows at Birmingham Hippodrome from Wednesday 26 July to Saturday 23 September.
On 30 April 1975, American soldiers fled the Vietnamese capital of Saigon, leaving the city to be reclaimed by opposing native forces. This dramatic day marked the culmination of a long and brutal conflict, passionately fought on both sides to defend not simply territory, but fundamentally opposing ideologies. But while thousands of Vietnamese celebrated the end of US occupation and the reunification of their country under communist leadership, city dwellers who had lived among the Westerners were devastated by their abandonment, left behind to face the harsh consequences of having been on the wrong side of the war.
It’s against this fraught and politically complex backdrop that Les Miserables creators Alain Boublil and Claude Schönberg set their second most famous musical, Miss Saigon. Inspired by the plot of Puccini’s classic opera, Madame Butterfly, it tells the tale of a doomed romance between American GI Chris and Vietnamese barmaid Kim, divided by the enforced evacuation.
Following critically acclaimed runs in London, New York and Tokyo, the show now embarks on its first UK tour in more than a decade, with a spectacular new production heading for the Birmingham Hippodrome this month.
“It’s geared to an age where we’re seeing a lot of cinema and glossy HBO-type shows, so it’s very cinematic and epic in scale,” explains Associate Director Jean-Pierre Van Der Spuy. “The previous production was very operatic, whereas this really celebrates the intimacy of the story. It’s quite brutal and gritty in places, and it feels very real.”
Though it’s been a while since regional theatres have hosted an official touring production, those who’ve seen the show during its recent London run will have a good idea of what to expect, with much of the staging and design adopted from 2014’s Prince Edward Theatre version. But with a new cast comes a fresh interpretation of the characters and the relationships between them.
“I think what’s brilliant about something as well-written and well-constructed as Saigon is that there’s always scope to find nuance and detail and colour that’s never been seen before,” says Van Der Spuy. “There are lots of things about this and the Prince Edward production that are very similar, but I think people will find there’s a slightly different focus in terms of the storytelling.
“The cast we’ve assembled is incredibly exciting. It’s quite young and edgy with a lot of energy. There’s maybe 30% of them who’ve done the show before, but on the first day of rehearsals, I said that they needed to empty their minds of what the show had been before, so that everyone could start again together on page one.”
Back in the ’90s, early productions attracted criticism for their unenlightened casting choices, sparking protests against what’s now colloquially known as ‘whitewashing’. Today, however, properly reflecting the diversity of the characters themselves is top of the agenda, resulting in a vibrant multiculturalism amongst the company which Van Der Spuy highlights as one of the joys of working on the show.
“Miss Saigon is kind of unique for a director because you get to work with a whole range of different people from all over the world. That coming together of people from completely different cultural backgrounds is very exciting. And challenging, too - you’re having to deal with a lot of difficult topics. But it’s thrilling when people start to really take ownership and invest in stories like this.”
Creating something that resonates truthfully and sensitively with the very real horrors of the Vietnam War and its aftermath was also massively important to the team behind the show, and both the cast and the creatives have taken time to fully immerse themselves in the world that the production seeks to represent.
“I’m a bit of a history geek, so I love tethering everything we do in it to truth, to the root of where these stories come from. We don’t start with the script: we go back further than that first, and if you go into our rehearsal room you’ll see the research material stuck all over the walls.
“Everyone has a job to find their own characters, so every single GI and Vietnamese civilian writes a character breakdown. We’re actually really lucky with Saigon because it’s so easy to access resources. We watch loads of documentaries. We have Tuesday film nights. I’ve even got a load of Life magazines which are from the period, and what’s interesting is not only the articles, but also things like the adverts for the cigarettes they would have smoked or the washing machines they might have had. It’s those tiny details that help people to really understand the world.”
It’s partly the proximity of these events to our own lives and our general familiarity with the broad brushstrokes of the story that help to make this show so readily accessible. Admitting it’s a slightly controversial claim, Van Der Spuy makes a strong case for Miss Saigon being an even more accessible work than its more famous cousin, Les Misérables.
“It’s very relatable, and much closer in terms of our history. So many people think Les Mis is about the French Revolution, and it’s not at all - it’s actually about the later student uprisings, so in a way it provokes a lot of questions. But with this, people know what the context is - they get who the characters are and why they’re there without it needing to be explained.
“I also think that even though it’s a period piece it has a lot to say about where we are in our world today. Sometimes looking at something through a slightly different prism is good for people, and that’s why we need to be telling these stories now. I think Saigon has a real pertinence - and for me, that relevance is one of the reasons I love working on it and why I’ve continued to work on it.”
Yet as serious and often tragic as both the real and fictional elements of this story are, there’s also plenty in it offering straightforward entertainment and enjoyment, from the sharp sense of humour and wide-ranging musical styles, to the breathtaking design which has been lauded by critics and theatre-goers alike.
“If you look at something like Les Mis, from the first note to the last note it has a score that feels like it’s in a single style, whereas in Saigon, there’s a lot more variety within the writing. You’ve got musical theatre comedy in the shape of things like Bangkok and American Dream, and you’ve also got those big, impassioned duets like Last Night Of The World and Sun And Moon, which are typical of Schönberg and Boublil. So whoever comes, there’s something in it that will appeal to them. It’s also really exciting. Things like the helicopter are just thrilling for any audience, regardless of whether you’re into musical theatre or not.”
Miss Saigon shows at Birmingham Hippodrome from Wednesday 26 July to Saturday 23 September.
By Heather Kincaid