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.

Cut Songs

Too Much For One Heart

Song begins around 1:02

     This song is a big solo that was supposed to go near Please, the number in Act 2 where John and Kim speak about how Chris has come for her. It was supposed to be sung by Kim about her son Tam, and how much he reminds her of Chris. It's a beautiful song, and the melody can still be heard throughout the score of the show. It didn't tell the audience anything new about Kim's character though, and it didn't progress the plot. Kim is basically just pontificating on a point the audience already knows about for three and a half minutes, and the song was cut for timing purposes.

The Sacred Bird

     The Sacred Bird was the original finale for the show. It's essentially just her final lullaby to Tam, where she sings that there's no reason for him to cry for her, for his life will be better with his father. She compares herself to "the sacred bird" (a phoenix) which, despite dying, will be reborn through her act of love. I think the song itself was rather effective, but at this point the audience doesn't know that Kim is going to shoot herself, and this number gave them too much time to figure it out. The number is still present to an extent, it's just drastically cut down. The number is present in its entirety on the London Cast Recording.

Little God of My Heart

                                                                             A link to the song

     This was another alternate version of the Finale, and the one used for most of the Broadway run. It disappeared around the time that the touring versions began. This one was really overt with the whole "she kills herself thing," and in my opinion sounds a little harsh for a final goodbye to your son. It too was dropped in favor the the current finale.

Kim's Escape

     This number is something of an enigma to me because it's not present on any recordings of the show, nor do any readily available bootlegs exist. It's present in the original vocal score of the show, but absent from the London Cast Recording, so it must have been dropped pretty early on. It's a short aria for Kim after she kills Thuy that went between This is the Hour and If You Want to Die in Bed. It contained a short reprise of I Still Believe, as well as some music not heard in the rest of the score. It also showed her resolving to find Chris in America, and her making the decision to track down the Engineer. People who have heard it have said that it's pretty.

Update: The song was cut early in the previews, but there is a bootleg of Lea Salonga singing it.

The Ellen Issue

The audience hates Ellen. 

     It's just a fact. People who like the show often like her, having had time to digest all of the information and look at it from every angle. But people who see it in the theatre often hate Ellen. Why? Because she's the main reason that Chris and Kim aren't together. The idea is that Kim managed to stay true to Chris for years despite living in such an awful place, and Chris still loves Kim. So why aren't they together? Because Chris's new wife Ellen is being mean, and it's kind of her fault that Kim shoots herself.

Is it Ellen's fault Kim shoots herself?

     In a way, yes, but at the same time, it isn't really her fault. The situation is this: Kim is still in love with Chris, Ellen is still in love with Chris, but Chris and Kim have a son. Ellen is pretty gracious about the whole, Asian-prostitute-having-his-child thing, and is kind to Kim during their one encounter and is willing to take Tam as her own son. She isn't, however, willing to take Tam away from his mother, and she's also not willing to take Kim to America, because she doesn't want her close to Chris. While I would say that's pretty selfish of her, it's also somewhat reasonable for her to just leave Kim in Thailand, as her and Chris had agreed to give Kim monetary support. Kim would just have to make a new life for herself in America, so they could just expect her to do the same in Thailand. Kim doesn't want this for her son, and shoots herself so Ellen will have no reason not to take Tam back to America. So, yes, technically Ellen is the reason for Kim's suicide, but I wouldn't say she caused it to happen, or even really wanted it.

I Still Believe

     

     This is Ellen's introduction number, and on reflection, it's probably one of the biggest reasons she's hated. We see Kim alone in squalor singing of how she still believes in her love for Chris despite years of war and pain. Then Chris bolts up from his nightmare screaming out for Kim. Then Ellen rises up next to him and sings about how she wishes he'd tell her who this Kim person is. You can't come back from that. Still, the number shows that she loves Chris, and that's what makes the rest of the story believable.

Room 317

Link to the song

     This number and the number that follows are what seals the deal on whether or not the audience is going to like Ellen. This is the song where she meets Kim for the first time. Claire Moore originated the number, which sucks because as Ellens go she wasn't that great. Too harsh. Instead I've provided a link to a bootleg of Liz Callaway singing the number opposite Lea Salonga in the original broadway cast (which was not recorded officially). She sounds way warmer on the number, which is nice.

The Genesis of Ellen's Solo:

     The way I see it, the number immediately after Room 317 is going to make or break Ellen. As such, the songwriters had a tough time deciding exactly what they should have Ellen sing there.

What If He Doesn't Come Back Home Tonight?

What if he doesn't come back home tonight?

She is so beautiful a man just might...

But I know him.

That love for her

Was long ago...

But if he doesn't come back home tonight...

What if he doesn't come back home tonight?

     This was the original number written for Ellen, and while it was apparently recorded on the demo tracks for the show (twice, actually. Supposedly there are two versions) those recordings aren't available to us. Those lyrics are all that I could find on the song.

Who Says I'm Hurt?

     This grainy audio is the only record we have of this number. It sucks. Really its only significance is that it gave rise to other numbers which sound eerily similar, but have much better lyrics. Basically, what she's saying in this song is "I just realized that I don't really know my husband, and that kinda sucks I guess?" The number isn't really effectively conveying a point that needs to be made at such a pivotal moment in the show, and didn't make it through the preview period in London.

A Man I Don't Know At All

     Here's some trivia for y'all! This number is really just a footnote in Miss Saigon history, as it was never actually recorded. It exists only on old copies of the vocal score, one of which I have. It's basically Now That I've Seen Her (which I'll talk about later) with an additional introductory verse.    

Her or Me

It's her or me, 

and it's me he must choose

I don't hate this girl.

Even so,

It's her or me. 

It's a fight I can't lose.

     Those lyrics aren't winning Ellen any sympathy. This number is the one they settled on for the London production, and I'm not a huge fan. The song is beautiful, yes, but the problem is that it draws too much attention to the ugly fact that Chris is ultimately just going to have to make a choice between Ellen and Kim, and it makes Ellen seem pretty selfish for wanting to win.

Now That I've Seen Her

     This is probably a much better number for the spot. Structurally, it's pretty similar to Her or Me, it's just less about the choice that Ellen is going to force Chris to make, and more about her feelings at the time. Up until this point Kim had only been a name, but now she's going to have to confront that fact that her husband had another wife. This song is about how real that moment was for Ellen, and I think it works because it conveys to the audience how Ellen is feeling at the moment: confused. Also the title of each song has been fitting onto the same four note sequence, and I think "now that I've seen her" fits way more organically with the music than the other versions did.

Maybe

     This is a new number written for the slot that went in during the 2011 run in Holland, and is currently replacing Her or Me in the London revival. It's absent from the licensed version though, so schools still perform Now That I've Seen Her. It focuses on how much Ellen wants to salvage her relationship with Chris, and it's...okay. It's effective, it sets Ellen up as being determined to win Chris back in a sympathetic way, but I just don't like the tune as much as I do the other songs. The only thing that I really remember about it after hearing it is the part where she says "maybe," which is several parts. It's probably better at setting up her character though, so I think putting it in was the right choice.

Final Thoughts:

     Pictured above is Margaret Ann Gates, who played Ellen towards the end of the show's run on Broadway. You may notice that she's Asian. Ellen is typically cast as a blonde, brunette, or redhead white lady to contrast with the obviously Asian Kim. But critics were intrigued when a woman of Asian descent was cast as her. It gave an added layer of meaning to her character, where it seemed as if Chris only married her because she reminded him of Kim. This is why Ellen feels like such a tragic character to me: She genuinely loves Chris, but Chris doesn't truly love her back because he loves Kim. Kim undoubtedly has a harder life, but Ellen has her own problems too, and I think her character deserves some respect for dealing with the situation as gracefully as she does.

     That said, in the hands of the wrong actress, she is such a pain to deal with.

Racism

I'm going to preface this whole thing by saying that I have literally no idea what I'm talking about. I know more about Miss Saigon as a show than I do about actual Vietnamese culture. But I felt in order for my views on the show to be truly complete, I had to include this. If the show offends you, I'm so sorry. The Vietnamese community deserves much better representation than this show gives them, but for now, this is what we have, and I'm going to stand by it as best I can.

     There are really only two other major shows that concern Asians. The first is Flower Drum Song, a 1958 Rogers and Hammerstein musical. It was actually pretty fair for its time, it had a predominately Asian-American cast (only one Asian role was played by a non-asian, and strangely enough it was played by Juanita Hall, an African-American) and didn't concern itself with any major issues. It was just a typical musical-comedy about a boy and a girl in love, and didn't really make any waves. People tend to look back on some of the jokes in it now with something of a sour taste, but for the most part it's pretty tame.

     The second is Pacific Overtures, a 1976 musical by Stephen Sondheim. It concerns itself with the imperialization of Japan, and was presented using techniques from traditional Kabuki theatre. It too had an all Asian-American cast, and was handled very well. Even if it had been offensive, it probably wouldn't have mattered, because the show opened against A Chorus Line and Chicago, so nobody paid it much attention. Still, it's pretty well respected as a work of art.

     What makes Miss Saigon different is that it concerns real people. Now, this isn't to imply that Miss Saigon is a true story. The people in the story aren't actual people in real life. However, the story concerns itself with the Vietnam War, which I went more in depth about in a different post. But the point is, the show concerns itself with some very heavy stuff, and it isn't handled very well. The show is poorly written.

It depicts all Vietnamese women as prostitutes.

     No, it doesn't. It's the story is about a Vietnamese prostitute. Because she is a Vietnamese prostitute, she only hangs out with Vietnamese prostitutes. The story doesn't make the claim that all Vietnamese women are prostitutes, it just is a story concerned with Vietnamese prostitutes, and there's no room in the libretto to show Vietnamese women who aren't prostitutes. While it's true that there is a "hyper-sexual" stereotype of Vietnamese women, the way the prostitutes in the show are presented doesn't really reinforce that.

Asian women are depicted as only wanting white men.

     

     Fair point. The song "The Movie In My Mind" is about how a bunch of Asian prostitutes are longing for American soldiers to take them back to America. But, like the prostitute thing, scope. The show chooses to focus on women who wanted to get out of Vietnam, I'm sure there were plenty of other non-prostitutes out there perfectly happy with Asian men. Plus, okay, it can't be denied that Vietnam was in a really sorry state at that point in history. Just because not every Vietnamese person wanted out doesn't mean that there weren't people who did.

     There's a lot of stink raised over how Kim was so obsessed with Chris for all of those years after only spending one night with him. First, to clear one thing up, they spent two weeks living together. Second, it's pretty clearly stated that she remembers him so well because she bore his son as a constant reminder of their love. At the end of the show, Kim willingly relinquishes Chris for her son's betterment.

Asian men are depicted as being "loathsome and undesirable."

     Fair point. However, this is just the Asian prostitute thing all over again. There are two principal Asian men in the show, Thuy and the Engineer. They're both villains, but this isn't because of some vendetta the authors have against Vietnamese men.

     The Engineer is a pretty reprehensible character. But then again, he's also a pimp. So him not being a white knight is understandable. But the Engineer isn't described as being the way he is because that's natural for an Asian man. His backstory was explained in the beginning of "The American Dream." He was born the child of a poor woman and a French imperialist. He was raised in an environment where he was made to literally pimp out his mother. He desperately wants to be an American because "businessmen never rob banks, you can sell shit and get thanks, that's what [he] learned from the Yanks." Plus we have the added layer of his half-breed status. There was a lot of discrimination against people children born from white men and Vietnamese women, it's still present today. The Engineer embodies the "sleazy, sneaky oriental" stereotype not because he's Vietnamese, but because he's essentially a white capitalist stuck in Asia. And yes, he's undesirable, but that's because he's a 40-something pimp. Plus, when you think about it, who were his primary customers at his brothel? White men.

     Then we have Thuy. Thuy is an interesting character because he can played very wrong by an actor. The character is much maligned for being a representation of the stereotype that Asian men are undesirable, and no Asian woman would have them when they could have a white man. (Apparently that's a thing?) To say this is a complete misinterpretation of the relationship between Kim and Thuy. They were betrothed to each other from a very young age, and Kim obviously wasn't very fond of him from the get go. But the primary reason for her not wanting to be with him is, you know, the fact that he's in the Viet Cong. That soldiers on his side of the war burned down her village and killed her entire family. That's a lady-boner killer. But Thuy himself is portrayed rather sympathetically. His love for Kim is depicted as genuine, and it's ultimately what drives him to madness. It's a lame motive for a character, but it flies in other media, so why are we suddenly getting all pissed about it here? And as for undesirable? Have you seen Hong Kwang Ho, the current Thuy in the West End revival?

Making Communism sexy.

Asian women are depicted as weak and in need of saving.

     Okay. I will say this is true of Gigi and the other prostitutes. That's more of a feminist issue than a racial one, but if you insist on bringing race into it, I can't really argue against the point. But I get pissed off when people levy this argument against Kim. Because screw you guys. Kim is a strong character. Yeah, it's true, Chris is the one who helps her out of prostitution, but to say she's weak is a really gross statement. She perseveres. In the absence of her husband, she does whatever she can to survive. Does this involve working as a stripper? Yes, because she's a young, uneducated woman. In most countries today that's exactly what she would have to do, I don't see why we're getting so up in arms about it just because she's Asian.

     Also, let's not forget the scene where Thuy threatens Kim's son and she straight up shoots him.

The Asian woman kills herself because a white man rejects her.

     NO. She kills herself so Chris will take her son to America, which he wouldn't do if she was alive. True, she's still in love with him, but the choice she makes is ultimately for her son.

Well then the Asian woman kills herself for the white man's son.

     It's her son too. She had a whole song about it. (The Sacred Bird)

It incorrectly depicts the Vietnamese during the war.

     Okay, so the depiction of the Vietnamese people during the war isn't ver elaborate as the story mainly centers around Kim and Chris. But the glimpses that we see are fair. The people pounding on the gates of the embassy to get out of Vietnam were real. Millions of people fled Vietnam as refugees. The Engineer is put into a work camp, as many south Vietnamese were. There were prostitutes. Not even because of the war, there's just always prostitutes.

     That said, I can't make any personal statements about the way that Vietnamese culture is depicted in the show. There's not that much actually there, and given that the show was written by some white guys, it's understandable if the little bits of authentic Vietnamese culture they tried to put in are wrong. I know that the song they sing during "The Wedding" is just foreign sounding gibberish. From what I can gather, marriages between cousins still happen today, so that checks out, but forced marriages aren't a thing apparently (though it's easy to make the argument that while Thuy and Kim were from a very small, close minded hamlet in the country, and that maybe they wouldn't have actually been forced to marry had Thuy not pushed for it so hard). The costumes of many productions are inaccurate. (Though this one's just a directional choice, I don't think we can blame the show for costumes.) The Communist parade leaves something to be desired.

     So yeah, maybe getting two French guys to write a show about Vietnam wasn't the best idea. But it happened, and let's just appreciate it for what it does have going for it. The show played well to audiences in the 80s, but doesn't really hold up as well today under a more informed eye. A lot of these things are just staging things, if you just have a director who's committed to keeping the authentic Vietnamese spirit alive in the show, by all means have at it.

It glorifies American involvement in Vietnam.

     "They are the living reminder, of all the good we failed to do."

     "Christ! I'm an American. How could I fail to do good?"

     "She's not the only one we'll have betrayed."

     The show harbors no illusions about US involvement in Vietnam, and was written by two French guys.

It's offensive that Kim would rather kill herself than have her child grow up in Asia.

     There was (is) well documented discrimination against the children of American soldiers in Vietnam. They were called Amerasians, and treated as trash. Many were actually sent to the US because their chances were better there. The Act 2 opening number "Bui Doi" is basically all about this, and the term Bui Doi has been appropriated to describe these children in some circles.

    Ultimately, I don't think it's offensive stereotypes at play here so much as just poor writing. The white people don't come out looking too great either. The authors probably drew some inspiration from stereotypes as part of their writing process because they were two French men who didn't know much about Vietnamese culture. That said, they do try to handle the matter with some degree of delicacy, to mixed results. While I would say that there are parts of the show that are misguided and insensitive, I wouldn't go so far as to say it's racist. Let's reserve that word for the real transgressions. The immense amount of money that this show has raised has not gone to any actual Vietnamese people, and that's a tragedy, but really out of our control.

     Honestly, for all that's wrong with Miss Saigon, I really love the show, and if that makes me a bad person, so be it. I just think it's remarkable that a show about a young Asian single mother prostitute could become one of the highest grossing and longest running shows of all time. I hope that there are better, more culturally sensitive shows in the future, but for now, please let me have this one thing.