Miss Saigon
Miss Saigon is a sung-through stage musical by Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil, with lyrics by Boublil and Richard Maltby Jr. It is based on Giacomo Puccini's 1904 opera Madama Butterfly, and similarly tells the tragic tale of a doomed romance involving an Asian woman abandoned by her American lover. The setting of the plot is relocated to 1970s Saigon during the Vietnam War, and Madama Butterflys story of marriage between an American lieutenant and a geisha is replaced by a romance between a United States Marine and a seventeen-year-old South Vietnamese bargirl.
The musical premiered at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London, on 20 September 1989, closing after 4,092 performances on 30 October 1999. It opened on Broadway at the Broadway Theatre on April 11, 1991, with a record advance of over $39 million, and was later staged in many other cities and embarked on tours. Prior to the opening of the 2014 London revival, it was said that Miss Saigon had set a world record for opening day ticket sales, with sales in excess of £4m reported.
The musical was Schönberg and Boublil's second major success, following Les Misérables in 1985. As of October 2024, Miss Saigon remains Broadway's fourteenth longest-running show.
Background
The musical was inspired by a photograph, which Schönberg found inadvertently in a magazine. It showed a Vietnamese mother leaving her child at a departure gate at Tan Son Nhut Air Base for the child to board an airplane headed for the United States where the child's father, an ex-GI, would be in a position to provide a much better life for the child. Schönberg considered this mother's actions for her child to be "The Ultimate Sacrifice," an idea central to the plot of Miss Saigon.Highlights of the show include the evacuation of the last Americans in Saigon from the Embassy roof by helicopter while a crowd of abandoned Vietnamese people screams in despair, the victory parade of the new communist regime, and the frenzied night club scene at the time of defeat.
Principal characters
Synopsis
Act 1
In April 1975 at "Dreamland", a Saigon bar and brothel, shortly before the end of the Vietnam War, it is Kim's first day as a bargirl. The seventeen-year-old peasant girl is hauled in by the Engineer, a French-Vietnamese hustler who owns the joint. Backstage, the girls ready themselves for the night's show, jeering at Kim's inexperience. The U.S. Marines, aware that they will soon be leaving Vietnam, party with the Vietnamese sex workers. Chris Scott, a sergeant disenchanted by the club scene, is encouraged by his friend John Thomas to go with a girl.The girls compete for the title of "Miss Saigon", and the winner is raffled to a Marine. Kim's guilelessness strikes Chris. Gigi Van Tranh wins the crown for the evening and begs the marine who won the raffle to take her back to America, annoying him. The showgirls reflect on their dreams of a better life. John buys a room for Chris and the virgin Kim. Kim is reluctant and shy, but dances with Chris, who tries to pay her to leave the nightclub. When the Engineer interferes, thinking that Chris does not like Kim, Chris allows himself to be led to her room.
Chris, watching Kim sleep, asks God why he met her just as he was about to leave Vietnam. When Kim wakes up, Chris tries to give her money, but she refuses, saying that it is her first time sleeping with a man. Touched to learn that Kim is an orphan, Chris offers to take her to America with him, and the two fall in love. Chris tells John that he is taking leave to spend time with Kim. John warns him that the Viet Cong will soon take Saigon, but then reluctantly agrees to cover for Chris. Chris meets with the Engineer to trade for Kim, but the Engineer tries to include an American visa in the deal. Threatening the Engineer at gunpoint, Chris forces him to honor the original arrangement for Kim.
The bargirls hold a "wedding ceremony" for Chris and Kim, with Gigi toasting Kim as the "real" Miss Saigon. Thuy, Kim's cousin, to whom she was betrothed at thirteen, arrives to take her home. He has since become an officer in the North Vietnamese Army and is disgusted to find her with a white man. The two men confront each other, drawing their firearms. Kim tells Thuy that their arranged marriage is now nullified because her parents are dead, and she no longer harbors any feelings for him because of his betrayal. Thuy curses them all and storms out. Chris promises to take Kim with him when he leaves Vietnam. Chris and Kim dance to the same song as on their first night.
Three years later, in 1978, a street parade is taking place in Saigon to celebrate the third anniversary of the reunification of Vietnam and the defeat of the Americans. Thuy, now a commissar in the new Communist government, has ordered his soldiers to look for the still-corrupt Engineer. For the Communist Party, he goes by the name "Tran Van Dinh" and has spent the past three years working in the rice fields as part of a re-education program. Thuy orders the Engineer to find Kim and bring her to him. Although the intervening period is not shown, it is apparent that Kim and Chris have become separated in the three year time jump. Kim has been hiding in an impoverished area, still in love with Chris and steadfastly believing that Chris will return to Vietnam and rescue her. Meanwhile, Chris is in bed with his new American wife, Ellen, when he wakes from a dream shouting Kim's name. Ellen and Kim both swear their devotion to Chris from opposite ends of the world.
The Engineer takes Thuy to where Kim has been hiding. Kim refuses Thuy's renewed offer of marriage, unaware that his men are waiting outside the door. Furious, Thuy calls them in and they begin tying up Kim and the Engineer, threatening to put them into a re-education camp, before Thuy orders them out and allows the Engineer to leave. Again, Kim refuses to go with Thuy and shocks him by introducing Thuy to Tam, her three-year-old son from Chris. Thuy calls Kim a traitor and Tam an enemy, and tries to kill Tam with a knife, but Kim is forced to shoot Thuy to protect Tam. Thuy dies as the street parade continues nearby, with Kim showing horror and heartbreak at her action, before fleeing with Tam.
The Engineer laments being born Vietnamese and wishes to go to the US. Kim tells the Engineer what she has done, and he learns that Tam's father is American – thinking the boy is his chance to emigrate to the United States. He tells Kim that now he is the boy's uncle, and he will lead them to Bangkok. As Kim swears to Tam that she would do anything to give him a better life, the three set out on a ship with other refugees.
Act 2
In Atlanta, Georgia, John now works for an aid organization whose mission is to connect Bui-Doi with their American fathers. John tells Chris that Kim is still alive, which Chris is relieved to hear after years of having nightmares of her dying. He also tells Chris about Tam and urges Chris to go to Bangkok with Ellen, and Chris then finally tells Ellen about Kim and Tam. In Bangkok, the Engineer is hawking a sleazy club where Kim works as a dancer. Chris, Ellen, and John arrive in search of Kim. John finds Kim dancing at the club and tells her that Chris is also in Bangkok. He then tries to tell her that Chris is remarried, but Kim interrupts. She is thrilled about the news and tells Tam that his father has arrived, believing that they are to go to America with Chris. Seeing Kim happy, John cannot bring himself to break the news to her but promises to bring Chris to her.The Engineer tells Kim to find Chris herself because he doubts that Chris will come. Kim is haunted by the ghost of Thuy, who taunts Kim, claiming that Chris will betray her as he did the night Saigon fell. Kim suffers a horrible flashback to that night.
In the nightmare and flashback to 1975, Kim remembers the Viet Cong approaching Saigon. As the city becomes increasingly chaotic, Chris is called to the embassy and leaves his gun with Kim, telling her to pack. When Chris enters the embassy, the gates close, as orders arrive from Washington for an immediate evacuation of the remaining Americans. The Ambassador orders that no more Vietnamese be allowed into the Embassy. Kim reaches the gates of the Embassy, one in a crowd of terrified Vietnamese trying to enter. Chris calls to Kim and is about to go into the crowd to look for her. John is eventually forced to punch Chris in the face to stop him from leaving. Chris is put into the last helicopter leaving Saigon as Kim watches from outside, still pledging her love to him.
Back in 1978 Bangkok, Kim joyfully dresses in her wedding clothes and leaves the Engineer to watch Tam while she is gone. She goes to Chris's hotel room, where she finds Ellen. Ellen reveals that she is Chris's wife. While Kim is heartbroken and initially in denial about the truth, she soon confirms to Ellen that Tam is Chris's son, and says that she does not want her son to continue living on the streets, pleading that they take Tam with them back to America, but Ellen refuses, saying that Tam needs his real mother, and Ellen wants her own children with Chris. Kim angrily demands that Chris tell her these things in person, and runs out of the room. Ellen feels bad for Kim, but is determined to keep Chris.
Chris and John return, having failed to find Kim. Ellen tells them both that Kim arrived and that she had to tell Kim everything. Chris and John blame themselves, realizing that they were gone too long. Ellen also tells them that Kim wants to see Chris at her place and that she tried to give away her son to them. John realizes that Kim wants Tam to be "an American boy." Ellen then issues an ultimatum to Chris: Kim or her. Chris reassures Ellen, and they pledge their love for each other. Chris and Ellen agree to leave Tam and Kim in Bangkok but offer them monetary support from America, while John decries their decision as selfish. Back at the club, Kim tells the Engineer that they are still going to America. The Engineer imagines the extravagant new life that he will lead in America. Chris, John, and Ellen find the Engineer and he takes them to see Kim and Tam.
In her room, Kim tells Tam that he should be happy because he now has a father. She tells him that she cannot go with him but will be watching over him. Chris, Ellen, John, and the Engineer arrive just outside her room. The Engineer comes in to take Tam outside to introduce him to his father. While this is happening, Kim steps behind a curtain and shoots herself. As she falls to the floor, Chris rushes into the room at the sound of the gunshot and finds Kim mortally wounded. He picks up Kim and asks what she has done. Replying that the gods guided him to his son, Kim asks Chris to hold her once more and they share one last kiss. Kim then repeats something that he said to her on the first night they met: "How in one night have we come so far?", and dies in Chris's arms as everyone watches.