Miss Saigon in the Netherlands

It's here!

Well, it's been here since September last year but I've been out of touch with my blog then, so I'm making up for lost time here. When I found out that it was showing here, I was over-the-moon, love drunk, delirious!  I'm so out of touch with the local news here that it was sheer luck that I saw the ad on one of the panel ad spaces at the bus stop.

The first thing I did was to look it up online the minute I got home on www.musicals.nl. It is showing at the Beatrix Theater in Utrecht, which is okay for me since it's only about a 2 hour drive, and besides, Jimmy and I could always spend the night there and take the next day to check out the surroundings. The ticket prices were also fairly reasonable at about EUR40 - EUR95 per person, depending on the seats. I was really getting worked up about seeing it, so I went online to do more research.

Screenshot on www.musicals.nl

Then I found out that apparently, this was the debut of the Dutch version of my favourite musical. So everything, and I mean, everything, is in Dutch. That stopped me in my tracks a little bit...

I pondered and pondered and I didn't know if I should go. Yes, I don't mind the Dutch language and I probably know the entire musical by heart, but still... I've wanted to see the stage performance for this musical since forever and it felt that if I went ahead and watched the Dutch version of it, I would be settling. Sort of.

I wouldn't mind seeing any other stage musicals in Dutch because I think it'll be a really good experience but I really cannot bring myself to see this particular one, my first and favourite one, in a language that is foreign to me. I know that if it's a stage performance of any other musical, like Cats, Phantom of the Opera, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat or even Starlight Express, I would have clicked on "Betaal Nu" in a heartbeat. 

Is that silly of me?

My old worn copy :)

It's just that I remember so clearly how I felt when I heard this musical back in the old days. The music playing on the bulky stereo, lying on the bed reading the CD inlet.

I felt the stirrings of something magical listening to Sun and Moon
Tapped my feet and bopped my head to the beat of The Heat Is On In Saigon 

Fell in love to Last Night of the World 

Felt torn but hopeful when I heard Please

Chuckled to the Engineer singing What A Waste 

Felt a chill run down my spine when John told Chris about Kim and her son in The Revelation

And I wanted to poke the eyes out of Ellen in I Still Believe and Her Or Me

(*note: in the local representation of this musical, in place of Her Or Me, Ellen will be singing Maybe or "Toch Nog" in Dutch, a new song written by Claude-Michel Schonberg, Richard Maltby Jr. and Alain Boublil)

The inspiration behind the beautifully heartbreaking Miss Saigon

I dug out my old CD and have been listening to it again in the recent days. And it has made me more certain that I want to wait it out until the original version comes about. Because if you ask me what my first love is, I think this is it.

Although, I have to admit that I am more than a little curious about how the Dutch version of Please is going to sound like.. heh heh *winks*

I've done a post on Miss Saigon the Musical many years ago on this same blog, and here's the link, if anyone is interested:

http://soonyee.blogspot.com/2005/08/miss-saigon.html

Miss Saigon

I was first introduced to Miss Saigon when I was 13 years old (wow... 10 years back!) One of my sister's friends loaned her a copy of the cassette and I was totally mesmerized by it. Yesterday, I was just sorting through my CDs and I found the Miss Saigon CDs that my sister bought for me as a birthday present when I was 17. So, I started listening to it again, in the comforts of my room and I fell in love with it all over again...

Miss Saigon is a musical by Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil and was produced by Cameron Mackintosh. It first premiered in London (Theatre Royal, Drury Lane) on September 20, 1989 and was opened on 11 April, 1991 at the Broadway Theatre in New York. Miss Saigon, along with famous musicals like Cats, The Phantom of the Opera and Les Misérables, is considered one of the greatest musicals in history.

Set in 1975 during the final days of the American occupation of Saigon, Miss Saigon is an epic love story about the relationship between an American GI and a young Vietnamese woman. Miss Saigon is based on a real-life episode, and tells the story of Chris (the American GI) who meets Kim, a beautiful, war orphan Vietnamese sold into prostitution in a Saigon brothel. The two have a reluctant sexual encounter, but end up falling madly in love despite their initial apprehension where Chris promised to marry Kim and to save her from the filth of Saigon. However, Chris is eventually forced to return to the United States as orders from Washington are for a total and complete evacuation of the embassy. The ambassador freezes the entrance of Vietnamese to the Embassy. During the next three years the two struggle to deal with the emotional aftermath of their affair.

The show was inspired by a photograph inadvertently found by Schönberg in a magazine of a Vietnamese mother leaving her child at a departure gate at Tan Son Nhat Airport to board a plane for the USA where her father, an ex-GI, would be in a position to provide a much better life.

One of the important issues highlighted in the musical is about Bui Doi's. Bui doi, meaning “less than dust”, is a slur aimed at the offspring of American soldiers and Vietnamese women who were left behind in Vietnam. Under communist rule, they are treated miserably, held in camps, and suffer injustice and prejudice. It broke my heart when John sang about bui-doi's in the musical. How can one treat other human beings as such?

A short excerpt:

Like all survivors, I once thought

When I'm home I won't give a damn

But now I know I'm caught

I'll never leave Vietnam

War isn't over when it ends

Some pictures never leave your mind

They are the faces of the children

The ones we left behind

They're called bui-doi, The dust of life

Conceived in hell, and born in strife

They are the living reminders

Of all the good we failed to do

We can't forget, must not forget

That they are all our children too

These kids hit walls on every side

They don't belong in any place

Their secret they can't hide

It's printed on their face

I never thought one day I'd plead

For half-breeds from a land that's torn

But then I saw a camp for children

Whose crime was being born

They're called bui-doi, the dust of life

Conceived in hell, and born in strife

We owe them fathers, and a family

And loving homes they never knew

Because we know deep in our hearts

That they are all our children too

....

Anyone who has never heard of Miss Saigon before, or have never taken the time to listen to it, take time to do so. You'll never regret it =) I'm just waiting to watch the musical for real...