Addendum

Addendum

         During an early attempt to voice my concerns to the faculty, I was told that the show could never be changed because “everything is already printed.” I would just like to make it perfectly clear that this is not an excuse. Saying that we should continue to go down a path that is racist simply because it’s more convenient is wrong on every level. It is offensive and it is lazy. The values that I’m crusading for aren’t matters of convenience; they are rights that I and every other student in this program are owed. The ability to be perform free of any concerns over the integrity and ethics of our work is worth a few sheets of paper.

         I’d also like to address another point here that this incident brought up. This is not an issue that is going to be debated over. While I am trying to facilitate a discussion on race and diversity in show business, I am not trying to start a debate over whether or not we should cancel the show. The answer to that debate is very clear: the ethical thing to do would be to cancel Miss Saigon because doing a show that requires a predominately Asian cast at a predominately white school is racist. Either we’re racist and do the show, or we do the right thing and cancel it. These are really the only two outcomes to the situation.

         It is my sincerest hope that those involved in the production will recognize the error of their ways. I see that their intention is not to be racist, but they’ve crossed into a sensitive area and have created a situation where by going forward they will be being racist. The only happy ending of this story is the one that doesn’t involve Miss Saigon.

A Personal Statement from Anh Tai Bercher

            Let me be perfectly clear that I have no problem with APA as a program. APA is my home, almost literally because I spend most of my time at it, and the people in it are my family. I’m not blaming the white girls of APA for theoretically being cast in Miss Saigon. My problem isn’t even with the show Miss Saigon. I love Miss Saigon. It’s one of my favorite shows, and I can guarantee you I know more about the show than anyone else in the program. It’s because these two things that I hold so dear are intersecting that I feel the need to get involved and stop it from happening. I just think that we’re making a mistake by doing Miss Saigon if we aren’t prepared to do Miss Saigon right. I had initially been excited about the idea of doing the show, but over the summer and at the beginning of the year it struck me how APA was a predominately white program, and would be unable to accurately portray the story of a Vietnamese prostitute. I brought up the issue with an APA faculty member (who shall remain nameless) who said to me something along the lines of “it’s easier to make someone Asian than it is to make them look black. All you need is a black wig, and some makeup, (at this point they gestured to their eyes and made a motion indicating they were smearing makeup diagonally) and nobody in the audience will be able to tell the difference.” And this really resonated with me, because it showed to me something that I think I hadn’t considered before: I was the only one who recognized the problem here. I was the only one who saw how offensive it would be to put a white girl up onstage and have her portray the story of a Vietnamese prostitute torn apart by a real war that effected real people. The faculty wasn’t seeing what I was seeing. These people are just seeing a show, a great show with a big starring role for a girl. Well if that’s what they want, they can get that without doing Miss Saigon.

            I looked through all of the musicals put on Broadway in the last hundred years, and by my estimates maybe 16 of them specifically required Asian actors. Of the 16, Asian characters were only principle roles in 11. And of all 16 shows, only 10 are available to be licensed, only 5 which feature an Asian character in a principle role. Coincidentally, APA has done 5 of these shows. As there was no authentically Indian Fakir in either production of The Secret Garden, neither Chin Ho nor Bun Foo in Thoroughly Modern Millie were Asian, and the leads in Miss Saigon were white when APA did it in 2007, this means that APA has done 2 productions where actors of Asian descent were actually cast in roles intended as such. When we did A Chorus Line last year, Vicky Vo played Connie Wong, a real life Asian-American actress who complained about the lack of diversity she was could find in her work, and Avenue Q this year featured Anna Nguyen as the Japanese immigrant Christmas Eve (though it bears mentioning that her solo number had a chorus of mostly white girls in kimonos bowing added to it). So APA used yellowface casting for 3 of 5 shows.

            What does this all mean? Well, we have to think about the implications of the decision to cast roles intended for actors of Asian descent with white actors. In 2012, NPR found that Asian-American actors only filled up 2.3% of roles on Broadway, including ensemble roles, despite Asian-Americans accounting for 12.9% of the population of NYC. It’s a very real problem that Asians are underrepresented in the media. Awards are a good gauge of how well respected certain groups are in an industry, and the results there are depressing. The number of Asian Tony award winning performers can be counted on one hand. What this all boils down to is representation. It’s a scientific fact that representation for minority groups in the media is important. It gives developing individuals (even developed individuals) role models that they can look up to and reinforces positive messages. The fact that Asian Americans are all but absent from the history of the theatre is disheartening to aspiring actors, as well as sending out negative messages to Asian-Americans in general by indicating that they themselves won’t be successful if they don’t try to fit into a very specific mold of what’s expected of someone of their race. Many Asian parents will discourage their children from becoming actors because they feel from experience that there's no place for them. I know firsthand how awful this can be.

                        One of the symptoms of the stigma against Asians in the acting industry is what I call “orientalism.” This is when all Asian people are considered the same race because they’re Asian. Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Laotian, white people look at them and say that they’re Asian. This “one size fits all” practice of casting Asian actors helps perpetrate the idea that all Asians look the same. The stereotypical pale skin, slanted eyes, and dark black hair that most people associate with “Asian” is incorrect. Asia is a whole continent that spans from the top of the map to the equator, and there are all people of all shapes, sizes, and colors. The idea that a black wig and some makeup can make a Caucasian girl appear to be authentically Vietnamese is offensive and brings us back to the “all Asian people look the same” logic. And that’s ignoring the already racist practice of depicting a white actress in yellow-face. 

                        The act of presenting oneself as another race is inherently racist because it is an attempt to make an entire ethnicity redundant. Casting a white actor as an Asian character is essentially saying that Asian actors are dispensable and everything that makes them Asian is purely cosmetic. Yet the knife never seems to cut both ways. Because white actors are in a position of privilege, their situation is never displaced by actors of color. Unless you're seeing Hair, Abraham Lincoln is always going to be played by a white guy. The issue with representation is that the situation that currently exists is unfairly tipped towards white actors. Another student brought up the fact that they were in The Secret Garden and they weren't white, so it would be racist for them to play a British person. And it wouldn't. That argument is illogical. First off, mostly because of the whitewashing the media has done of history, we assume that everybody everywhere was white always. There were a lot of non-white individuals all of the world at all points in history. But more than that, there's something called "suspension of disbelief" where the audience willingly puts aside reality to pretend that the play is real. The audience is aware that everyone in the show is a high school student, and that none of them are British, so it's not too far of a stretch for them to accept that there's an Asian person or a Hispanic person or a Middle Eastern person. This is okay for a variety of reasons. By playing a British ghost, the show is making no claims to the character of the actor. The characters being white or British is in no way is impacted by the actor. With a character like Kim in Miss Saigon, the fact that she's a young Vietnamese woman is constantly brought up and of the upmost important to the show. The other reason is that there's already a bunch of white people in the theatre. If there had been a historic problem with white parts being played by not white people, there'd be and issue, but in fact the opposite is true. There's historically been an issue with white people playing every color under the sun. In general, and at APA.

            There is also the inherent problem of Miss Saigon being a story about Vietnamese people, who are a minority in APA. Kim at one point in the show sings:

“Do you want one more tale of a Vietnam girl?

Want to know how I was bound to a man I don’t love?

Want to hear how my village was burned?

Want to hear how my family was blasted away?

How I ran from the rice fields and saw them in flames?

How my parents were bodies whose faces were gone?”

Now, Kim may be a fictional person, but the destruction that the Vietnam War caused to Vietnam was real. The story Kim sings about is the story of thousands, if not millions of people. Millions of people were forced to flee their homes, and even their home country, to flee one of the longest, most brutal wars in American history. And it’s not just this one verse, the whole story is filled with uniquely Vietnamese events. Forlorn Vietnamese prostitutes singing of how they want a better life in a seedy bar. A parade orchestrated by the communists after the fall of Saigon. Desperate Vietnamese people screaming and clawing at the gates of the American Embassy as they watch the last of the American troops abandon them to the Viet Cong. The exodus of millions of Vietnamese people into neighboring countries to flee the communists. All of these events are depicted in Miss Saigon. Telling such a powerfully emotional and historically relevant story about Vietnamese people with white actors would be inconceivable. Except for three leads and a handful of scenes with small ensembles, every scene takes place in Vietnam and all of the characters in the show are Vietnamese. Doing this production at the predominately white APA would be racist. The entire cast would have to be in yellow face, and that’s in no way okay.

            During the initial run of Miss Saigon, the very white Jonathan Pryce was cast to play the lead in the show, a half-Vietnamese, half-French pimp called The Engineer. This caused some outrage among the Asian community, as well as protests from Actor’s Equity when the show transferred to America. Due to intense pressure, Actor’s Equity was forced to back down, and Jonathan Pryce would win a Tony for his role, but the fact still stands that he was in yellow face. As a half-Vietnamese and half-White individual myself, what this says to me is that I am disposable. It says to me that I’m too Asian to play the leading man in most shows, but even when the role specifically calls for someone like me, the rules can be bent to allow in someone else. This is what’s so problematic about APA continually producing shows that require Asian Actors, it discredits Asian-American as an identity. The nonchalant attitude the faculty has been displaying towards this show is one that I expect we wouldn’t see in regards to any other show. APA hasn’t performed Dreamgirls, a musical about African-Americans in the music industry. APA has yet to perform In the Heights, a musical about the lives of Latino-Americans in Brooklyn Heights. I wouldn’t hear a teacher tell me that a black wig and some makeup would allow the audience to sincerely believe white actors in those shows. Asian-Americans have it hard enough in the entertainment industry and it’s shows like Miss Saigon that force the community to recognize and give opportunity to actors of Asian descent. It would be extremely disrespectful to take a groundbreaking role like Kim (which elevated the Filipino Lea Salonga to international stardom) and give it to a Caucasian actress. And I think it’s a problem when, out of every musical ever written that has been cast and performed with white people thousands of times, APA has to select one that has such significance to the Asian community. It says to me that out of every musical ever where race doesn’t matter in the casting of the lead, we have to do the one show that a white girl can’t be cast in and we have to pretend to be okay with it. You seem to look at this show and see a show with great music, a large ensemble, and some great leads. I look at this show and see the hours I’ve lain awake at night debating whether I was more white, or more Asian. I look at this show and see myself Googling “roles for Asians in musicals.” I look at this show and see myself wondering what the musical theatre degree I’m going to college to get is going to amount to. I look at this show and I see people who would shy away from the idea of putting black makeup on a girl’s face, but are suddenly okay with it if the makeup is bronze. I look at this show and I see a bunch of people who mean well, but just can’t see the error of their ways. I realize that I just got super preachy there, but it's how I feel, and I think that I deserve as much of a safe environment as every other student at the school, regardless of their race.

            I’ve voiced this sentiment to many other students, and I’m not the only one who has a problem. Other Asian students have complained about the racist micro-aggressions they face daily being in and around APA shows. White students have agreed with me that it is extremely racist for us to be telling a story about Asian people in a program where most of the students are white. It seems that everyone was just too shy to say anything because they were scared it would influence their chances of getting a part or because they would somehow be punished for speaking up for what’s right. We're all terrified, and I don't think we should have to be concerned about voicing these types of concerns. Several people have suggested that I appeal to the parents or the district with my concerns, but I don’t want to make it some attack on APA. But a mistake is being made, and it would be in everyone’s best interest to correct it as soon as possible. The main reason I’m taking such a broad approach to the issue is because while the issue is a personal one to me, it also affects the other APA students, and they deserve better. It’s not APA’s fault that there aren’t an abundance of Asian-American actors in their program. It is their fault, however, that they continue to do shows that specifically call for Asian-American actors if they aren’t prepared to cast Asian-Americans. It’s very much a moral issue, one that will continue to tax on all of us for the rest of the year if some action isn’t taken. We shouldn’t have to choose between doing a musical or standing by our morals. We shouldn’t have to choose between what we love and what’s right. It’s not fair to me, and it’s not fair to anyone else in this program.

            That’s why we would like to respectfully request that Miss Saigon be removed from the upcoming season at APA and replaced with a less controversial show. I am aware that there are lots of concerns like money, or finding the rights to another show, but with the show months in the future I’m confident some kind of solution can be reached. My call may come too little too late, but I couldn't in all good conscience continue to be a part of APA without at least voicing my concerns. 

             I encourage all other APA students to read what I say and take the issue into consideration. If you agree with me, perhaps you'd like to stand with me. If you disagree, I'd love to hear what you have to say. As much as this issue is personal to me, it's one that effects all of us, and it's one that we should all be talking about.

The Source:

     Miss Saigon is a musical by Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil, with lyrics by Boublil and Richard Maltby Jr. It debuted in 1989 in London, and transferred to Broadway in 1991. It's based off of Madame Butterfly, a three act opera by Giacomo Puccini* written in 1904. In the opera, an American naval officer marries a 15 year old Japanese girl named Butterfly for kicks, intending to divorce her when he finds an American wife. He leaves her immediately after their wedding night, and she spends the next three years remaining faithful to him. When he comes back, she excitedly reveals that she has had a child by him. He arrives with an American wife who has agreed to take care of the child, but he's unable to face Butterfly. Butterfly agrees to give up her son if she can see Pinkerton one last time, and as he does, she commits suicide. It's considered a classic opera, and inspired numerous other works, the most notable besides Miss Saigon being M. Butterfly by David Henry Hwang.** However, the musical also drew inspiration from another source.

     This photo was seen by composer Alain Boublil in a magazine. It's a photo of a girl departing from Ho Chi Minh Airport to go to the United States to live with her father, an American GI she'd never met. The image struck the writers as particularly powerful because her mother can be seen standing on in silence as her daughter cries, consumed by her grief, but wanting her daughter to have a better life. The photo was taken several weeks before the city of Saigon fell to the Viet Kong, ensuring that the girl would most likely never see her mother again. The image brought to mind "The Ultimate Sacrifice," where a mother gives up her life with a child to ensure that the child has a life. The composers drew this parallel to Madame Butterfly, and in the wake of the recent Vietnam war, saw an opportunity for a fresh, new story to be told.

Thus Miss Saigon was born.

*While you've probably heard his name, he was a big deal in the opera world. For me, at least, the thing keeping him on the radar of musical theatre fans is a lyric in Ah, But Underneath! a song written by Stephen Sondheim to take the spot of Uptown, Downtown/The Story of Lucy and Jessie. "She was smart, tart, dry as a martini, ah but underneath, She was all heart, something by Puccini."

**David Henry Hwang is (I believe) the only Asian American to ever have a play put on Brodway, and M. Butterfly was a smash hit, winning all sorts of awards including the Tony Award for Best New Play.

A History Lesson

The Vietnam War:

      Before we go any further, it's important to discuss the setting of Miss Saigon. It takes place during what is called the Vietnam War. This is a period that historians place as lasting from 1956 to 1975. It was a period where the US was occupying Vietnam in an effort to fight Communism. Ultimately, we lose the war.

The Beginning:

      Back in the day, many Western Powers practiced what was known as imperialism. This was when a more developed country went into a less developed country and took it over, controlling it from a distance to extort goods. These repressive regimes had slowly faded away by the late 20th century, but as of '50s France was still in control of an area called French Indochina, which included Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. During World War Two, the area was taken by the Japanese, but was later reclaimed by France.

     A Vietnamese leader named Ho Chi Minh had already appealed to Western Powers at the end of World War One hoping to convince them to give Vietnam self-determination (as they were doing with numerous Eastern-European nations) to allow them to create a democracy. His appeals were ignored, and he turned to Communist powers, who were more sympathetic to his plight. He organized what was called the Vietminh, to fight the French. They were very successful in doing so, despite the US funneling funds to the French out of fear of Communism.

     Dien Bien Phu was a town held by the French. The Vietnamese were able to capture it, frightening the French into surrendering. They signed the Geneva Accords, which stipulated that the French would leave Vietnam, provided that it be divided along the 17th parallel.

     

     Thus Vietnam was divided in two, with the Northern half being communist led by Ho Chi Minh, the Southern half being more Western led by Ngo Dinh Diem (who was a corrupt dictator). During the Eisenhower administration, something called the Domino Theory was the prevailing view. The idea was that if Vietnam fell to Communism, then surrounding areas in South East Asia would follow in suit. As such, American involvement in the area slowly increased over the years after the French pull out.

The Viet Kong:

     Diem was an extremely unpopular dictator in both the North and the South. The Viet Cong (VC) were south Vietnamese guerrillas who sought to overthrow him and any other Western appointed leaders. Despite being from the south, they were supported by the North. HO Chi Minh showed his support by creating what were known as the Ho Chi Minh Trail, a system of hidden paths through the jungles of Vietnam that supplied the Viet Cong.

     

     Around this time, Diem began persecuting Buddhists, and several monks protested by lighting themselves on fire. This understandably angered the international community, and the US decided to discontinue support to Diem. We still needed a foot in Vietnam though, so the CIA executes Diem and has him replaced with another dictator. 

The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution:

     In 1964, under president Lyndon P. Johnson, the US had a Navy presence in Vietnam. The US troops and Vietnamese troops were uneasy with each other, and on 2-August-1964 a North Vietnamese patrol boat fired a torpedo at a US destroyer (missing the ship), prompting the destroyer to fire back (not missing). Two days later, the North Vietnamese fire on a US destroyer once again, and missed again.* Lyndon B. Johnson starts a bombing raid of North Vietnam. He asks Congress for support, and Congress gives him the go-ahead to use "any means necessary" to repel attacks on American troops. This is known as The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, and launched the US into an unofficial war against Vietnam that would span decades. Operation Rolling Thunder was the first sustained bombing raid of Vietnam. It also sent in 180,000 troops, led by William Westmoreland. It essentially signaled that the US was going to take over where the French had left off.

The War Itself:

     The war was a war of attrition. This means that it would be won by wearing down the opponent with continuous losses instead of an outright conquest. In this case, we were the opponent being worn down. While the Vietnamese had fewer resources, they were determined to win the war by any means necessary. They used guerrilla warfare very effectively, striking from the jungles at unprepared American troops, and disappearing before the US could bomb them. It was estimated that the average attack by the Viet Cong lasted two minutes. They had the added benefit of being adept at fighting in the dense jungles of Vietnam, and booby traps littered the jungles. Another major factor is that the US forces were very unpopular in both the North and the South. The US wanted to "win the hearts and minds of the native people," but if the Viet Cong were suspected to be utilizing an area the US troops were instructed to torch any property and kill any livestock. As such, the Viet Cong had a good amount of support from the average Vietnamese. This was probably the most important factor that the Viet Cong had going for them: they were just ordinary people fighting to save their homes. Anyone, man woman or child could be a Viet Cong member, and would fight literally to the death to win. To avoid bombing raids from the US, they literally lived in tunnels. These were people willing to live in tunnels for years. They would not lose.

     For the US's part, their strategy was to just throw as much as possible as they could at the problem. Record amounts of troops were sent to Vietnam, mostly drafted men, the average age of the troops in Vietnam was 18. Because the only ways out of the draft were to either be injured or in college, it was primarily poorer young men who were sent to Vietnam. Despite African Americans making up 10% of the US population at the time, they accounted for 20% of US casualties in Vietnam. Where conventional troops were failing, the US tried to compensate through planes. Because the Vietnamese jungles presented such an advantage to Vietnamese troops, the US attempted to destroy them. They torched the jungles, bombed them, and dumped a dangerous chemical pesticide called Agent Orange on the forests to kill them.** The conditions were awful, and troops stationed in Vietnam were mostly just concerned with living to get out. Returning Vietnam veterans had high rates of PTSD, alcoholism, and drug use. The US responded by sending the troops cigarettes to help them cope with the stress. The Army of the Republic of Viet Nam (ARVN) was the South Vietnamese's official military.

The Tet Offensive:

     Tet is an important Vietnamese holiday that celebrates the beginning of the Lunar New Year. On 30-January-1968, a ceasefire had been declared to celebrate the festival, and the South Vietnamese took advantage of the occasion to hold burials for the dead, which were too risky to hold when there was fighting going on. Viet Cong soldiers disguised as mourners launched surprise attacks on over 100 cities in Vietnam, as well as 12 US air bases, and Saigon, then the capital of Vietnam. This is called the Tet Offensive, and the resulting fighting lasted for over a month. While technically a victory for the US, who were able to reclaim these areas, it was a moral defeat, as much was reduced to rubble in the process, and the attack was a clear indication that the Viet Cong were fighting to win.

The War in the US:

     

     The war was extremely unpopular back in the US. People who opposed the war were called Doves, while supporters of the war were called Hawks. During the war, a credibility gap formed between what the government reported, and what freelance reporters showed. Though the US was adamant that we were winning the war, reporters brought back images of death and destruction. Much  of the distrust for the government we feel today stems from this period. The pressure from the war caused Lyndon B. Johnson to decline to run for a second term (unprecedented at the time), and allowed Richard Nixon to take the presidency. He had campaigned on the platform of ending the war, and began a process known as Vietnamizatoin, where the US would slowly pull out of Vietnam, replacing American troops with Vietnamese troops. This was his way of achieving "Peace with honor," where we get to pull out of the war without surrendering. Despite this, he also increased bombing on North Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.

     The My Lai Massacre occurred on 16-March-1968, but was covered up until late in 1969. A platoon of US troops enters My Lai village, and rounded up all of the villagers, and killed them. Somewhere between 300 and 500 innocent people were slaughtered. The atrocity was later discovered, and 25 men are tried for the murders, but all were found innocent*** because they were just following the orders of Lt. Calley, who was persecuted.****

The War is Extended:

     On 30-April-1970, Richard Nixon went on national television to announce that US troops had invaded Cambodia. The Pentagon Papers were a series of papers leaked to the New York Times. They were 7,000 documents that demonstrated that the war had been planned to extend into other countries, and that the US had every intention of staying until North Vietnam was defeated. The documents went as far back as Eisenhower, and showed that the government had been lying to the American people for years. Towards 1973, Nixon increases the bombing of Vietnam, but the attacks are not successful. Polls showed that the majority of Americans wanted out of Vietnam, and we were being pressured by China and Russia, who were allies of North Vietnam.

     19-March-1973 the US signs a peace treaty with Vietnam. The treaty allowed for the North Vietnamese to keep troops in South Vietnam, but the North and South were not to fight. Thr treaty also organized for all prisoners of war to be returned, provided that the US finally left Vietnam.

The Fall of Saigon:

     In 1975, North Vietnam launched a massive invasion of South Vietnam in March. Any remaining forces were quickly overwhelmed, and Vietnam was reunited back into one Communist country. Saigon fell, and the capital of Vietnam was renamed as Ho Chi Minh City. Refugees poured out of Vietnam. They were called boat people because the small boats taking people out of the country were crammed to the point of sinking.

The Legacy of the War:

•      58,000 American troops died, mostly young men under the age of 20.
•      303,000 American veterans return wounded.
•      1.5 million Vietnamese died.
•      15 million Vietnamese fled the country.
•      400,000 South Vietnamese were put into harsh labor camps.
•      The surrounding area was incredibly destabilized, and the unrest in the area directly led to the genocide that would later take place in Cambodia.

*Evidence later surfaced that showed that this second attack on American Navy may have been fabricated by US officials looking for an excuse to start a war. With the technology at the time, troops would have had to have physically seen the torpedo launched, and weather reports for the day the attack apparently happened show that visibility was very low. In addition, people present on the ship that was "fired upon" later claimed that they never saw anything.

**Agent Orange causes birth defects in areas sprayed with it to this day. For the love of God, do not Google image search Agent Orange. Just don't. Please. Trust me. I know you're curious now, but don't do it. I saw some things for a few seconds and now they haunt me.

***Incidentally, this is not a legitimate excuse, nor was it at the time. A precedent had been set in the Nuremberg Trials, held after World War Two, which established that soldiers were responsible for human rights atrocities committed under orders, which they had every right to disobey if the orders were morally incorrect.

****Strangely enough, the story of the My Lai Massacre would later be converted into a musical called The Lieutenan. The musical was a rock opera knockoff of Jesus Christ Superstar, and featured Lt. Calley as the hero, incorrectly fingered as the fall guy for the military. It was fortunately not successful and closed 7 years to the day of the massacre.

The Plot

       Miss Saigon opens in April of 1975, the height of the Vietnam war, in a seedy nightclub/brothel called Dreamland in Saigon. We see the girls there begin to prepare for the evening, the club owner/their pimp, the Engineer, enters with a new girl: Kim, a 17 year old virgin from the countryside. The Engineer holds a contest where patrons of Dreamland vote on a girl to be crowned "Miss Saigon," who will be raffled off. The girls all want to be Miss Saigon, because the club is frequented by US Marines, and each girl hopes for one of the soldiers to take her back to America. The Engineer himself has hopes of gaining a visa to get out of Vietnam; he wants to be an American entrepreneur. 

     Though a girl named Gigi wins Miss Saigon, the soldier who wins her is cruel and leaves her to reflect on her life, and dreams. We then go back to Kim, who in a wedding dress has caught the eye of Chris, a disillusioned American GI. His friend  John purchases Kim for Chris, who beds her despite some misgivings. Afterwards, he's ashamed, and sad because he's met her just before he leaves Vietnam. 

       When Kim wakes, he tries to pay her, but she refuses his money and tells him her backstory: her family and village were destroyed, and she has no need for his pity. He is touched, and proposes that they marry. She agrees enthusiastically, and Chris telephones John, who works at the embassy. John argues that the Viet Cong are due to take over the city any day, but agrees to get Kim's papers through. Chris then "negotiates" to buy Kim from the Engineer by threatening him at gunpoint. 

     When he returns, the girls from Dreamland hold a party for Kim, and sing a wedding song. The "wedding" is interrupted when Thuy, Kim's cousin who belongs to the Viet Cong, enters. He was betrothed to Kim as a child, and ends up gun to gun with Chris over Kim. Kim says that since her parents are dead, she's no longer bound to him, and Thuy leaves cursing them all. After everyone else leaves, Kim and Chris share a tender moment where they dance together.

       The final notes of their duet segue into a Communist parade that is taking place three years later in 1978. Saigon has been overtaken by the North Vietnamese, and the Americans have all pulled out. Thuy, now a high ranking officer of the Viet Cong, tracks down the Engineer, who was being held in a work camp, and has him track Kim down. We find Kim living in squalor, and she sings a song of devotion to Chris. In America, Chris wakes from a nightmare screaming Kim's name, and his American wife Ellen sings she wishes he would be more open with him.

       The Engineer enters with Thuy, who is once again rebuffed by Kim. He threatens to have her dragged to a work camp, and to explain to him why she won't marry him, she reveals her son, Tam, Chris's son. Thuy says that Tam is an abomination and an enemy and says he must die. Kim pulls out a gun (given to her by Chris), and says that she'll shoot Thuy if he touches her child. Not believing her, Thuy tries to stab Tam, prompting Kim to shoot him, and she flees with Tam through the parade. Meanwhile, the Engineer is packing his things to leave Saigon. Kim comes to him for help, and when he learns she had a son with an American, he makes plans for them to go to Bangkok, hoping to impersonate Kim's brother and use Tam as leverage to get into the US. Alone with her son, Kim sings that she'd give her life for him.

     Act 2 opens on John, who is giving a presentation on Bui-Doi, a name used to describe children conceived during the war. He works for an organization that tires to reunite these children with their American fathers. Shortly afterwards Chris enters and John informs him that he has news on Kim, who Chris has been agonizing over. He says that he's found her, and that she has a son. Chris breaks the news to Ellen, and the scene shifts to Bangkok, where the Engineer works as a promoter for a cheap nightclub where Kim is a bargirl. 

     John enters and tells them that Chris is in Bangkok, but before he can explain his marriage, he is cut off by Kim, who's overjoyed thinking that Chris has come to take them to America. John can't bring himself to tell her about Ellen, and departs, saying he'll bring Chris to her. The engineer has his doubts that Chris will actually come for them and sets off to find Chris himself.

       Kim has a nightmare where the ghost of Thuy tells her that she's guilty of murder and that Chris won't come for her. In her dream she recalls the night Saigon fell and she was separated from Chris. He had left her in their hotel room (leaving the gun we see her shoot Thuy with for protection) to go process her emigration papers when the Viet Cong descended upon the city. Chris is stuck at the embassy as the Americans evacuate, and the ambassador orders that no more Vietnamese be allowed in. 

     Kim is stuck in the throngs of people trying to force their way into the embassy, but can't get in, just as Chris can't get out. The ambassador refuses to leave until everyone else has boarded, prompting John to physically force Chris onto the helicopter. As he flies away, Kim vows her love for him, and the Engineer rouses her from the dream and tells her where Chris is. She leaves Tam with him and sets off.

       When Kim arrives at the hotel, Ellen is the only one there. She mistakes Kim for the maid, just as Kim mistakes her for John's wife. Ellen calmly explains the situation to Kim, who falls into hysterics. Ellen is adamant that her and Chris will support Tam, however she says they aren't willing to separate him from Kim. Kim angrily replies that if Chris feels that way, he must tell her herself, and she storms out. Alone, Ellen decides that while she is sympathetic to Kim, she too is in love with Chris, and is determined to keep him. 

When Chris and John return, Ellen recounts the events to them, and offers Chris an ultimatum: her, or me? Chris chooses Ellen, and Ellen says that she'd be willing to take Tam, but not Kim, for she knows that Chris still loves her. They decide to leave Tam and Kim in Thailand, but support them from America, despite John's warning that Kim won't be satisfied with that.

       They tell this to Kim, who reluctantly agrees to the deal, but tells them to come back to her home that night to meet Tam. Kim tells the Engineer that Chris has agreed to take them to America. The Engineer then has an elaborate fantasy about what his life in America will be like. 

     Kim pulls Tam aside and tells him to look at her face and to remember it. When Chris, Ellen and John arrive, the Engineer takes Tam outside to meet them. While alone in the room, Kim takes her gun and shoots herself. Chris enters, horrified, and him and Kim share one final kiss before she dies.

Notes:

• Kim and Chris spent approximately two weeks living together, as mentioned during "The Confrontation."

• "Bui Doi" goes into more depth about it, but there was intense discrimination against the children of American soldiers in South-East Asia. The Engineer faced it, and Kim didn't want her son to face it, hence her insistence he go to America.

• Bankok is in Thailand.

• After Saigon fell, it was renamed Ho-Chi-Minh City, a name that remains to this day.

The Score

For this section, a lot of people are in a lot of numbers, but don't necessarily have that much to do. The singers of each number will be listed as this:

Bold means that they are a primary soloist

Italicized means that they are featured in the number for a period

Underlined means that they have a solo, but not a very significant one

Normal text indicates ensemble position.

The songs in the show are as follows:

Act 1:

1. Overture - Orchestra
2. Backstage at Dreamland - Engineer, Gigi, Kim, Bar Girls
3. The Heat is on in Saigon - Engineer, Kim, Gigi, Yvette, Mimi, Yvonne, Chris, John 
4. The Movie in My Mind - Gigi, Kim, Bar Girls
5. The Transaction - The Engineer, John, Chris
6. The Dance - Chris & Kim
7. Why, God, Why? - Chris
8. This Money's Yours - Chris & Kim
9. Sun and Moon - Chris & Kim
10. The Telephone Song - Chris & John
11. The Deal - Chris & The Engineer
12. The Wedding - Bar Girls, Kim, Gigi
13. Thuy's Arrival - Thuy, Chris, Kim
14. The Last Night of the World - Chris & Kim 
15. The Morning of the Dragon - Viet Cong members, Two Guards, Engineer, Thuy
16. I Still Believe - Kim & Ellen
17. Back in Town - Engineer, Kim, Thuy, Two Guards
18. Thuy's Death / You Will Not Touch Him - Thuy & Kim
19. This is the Hour - Viet Cong members
20. If You Want to Die in Bed - The Engineer
21. Let Me See His Western Nose (or Kim & Engineer) - Kim & Engineer
22. I'd Give My Life For You - Kim, chorus

Act 2:

1. Entr'acte - Orchestra
2. Bui Doi - John, Chorus
3. The Revelation - Chris, Ellen, John
4. What a Waste - Engineer, Hustlers, Tourists, John, Kim, Owner
5. Please - John & Kim
6. Chris is Here - Engineer, Kim, John, Club Owner
7. Kim's Nightmare - Thuy
8. The Fall of Saigon - Chris, Kim, Officers, Citizens, John
9. Sun and Moon Reprise - Kim
10. Room 317 - Kim & Ellen
11. Now That I've Seen Her - Ellen
12. The Confrontation - Chris & Ellen, John
13. Paper Dragons - Kim & Engineer
14. The American Dream - Engineer, chorus
15. Finale - Kim, Chris

Listening to the Score: There are 2 commercially available versions of the score in English:

The Original London Cast Recording

  

     This is the obvious one. This is only the London Cast Recording, the Broadway cast was never recorded, but Lea Salonga and Jonathan Pryce were in both casts, and they're the two that really matter. Both of them come across as somewhat grating in this recording. I know that Lea Salonga was pretty young when this one was recorded, and she comes across as much stronger in live performances, but you should listen to her renditions of the songs if only because they're so iconic. I have to say give Jonathan Pryce a listen because he was the original Engineer and won a bunch of awards for it, but I personally don't like him. A) because he's white. B) because he's doing this weird character voice thing that isn't very fun to listen to. Plus, like, I get that the Engineer is a sleazy character, but he just sounds drunk the whole time. In a bad way. Plus his accent is atrocious.

     This recording is also not complete. Some of the smaller, transitionary numbers are excluded (a significant sequence between "I Still Believe" and "Thuy's Death" is lost, as well as the introduction to the Fall of Saigon) and the recording contains the songs "Her or Me" and "The Sacred Bird," neither of which are in the show anymore.

The Complete Symphonic Recording

     This recording is my jam. Though only available if you buy a physical CD, the whole thing is on Youtube, so that shouldn't matter. It's called the complete symphonic recording for a reason: it's actually got the entire score on their, sans the cut numbers. The cast also comes across better on the recording: Joanna Ampil was 19 to Lea Salonga's 17, and somehow sounds a bit more mature, like she has a better grip on the character she's playing. Kevin Gray as the Engineer is actually Asian (how refreshing) and while he comes off as more cartoonish than Jonathan Pryce, he's much more likable. We also have Ruthie Henshall playing Ellen, and she's volumes better than Claire Moore. The only thing that I miss from the OLC is the short orchestral reprise of "The American Dream" that was part of the Sacred Bird on the OLC, because I think it's still in the show. Whatever, if you want the complete experience, listen to this recording.

Link to a Youtube channel that has the entire OLC recording.

Link to a playlist of the Complete Symphonic Recording

Link to a hybrid of the two scores that pick and choose the songs that I like.