Miss Saigon’s epic blend of war, romance, and show-stopping production numbers has rarely if ever been brought to more dazzling, breathtaking life than in its Tony-nominated 2017 Broadway revival’s First National Tour, now mesmerizing and moving audiences in equal measure at the Segerstrom Center For The Arts.

The year is 1975, the place is Saigon, and with two decades of bloody civil war finally nearing their end, the timing could not be worse for U.S. Marine sergeant Chris Scott (Anthony Festa) to lose his head over seventeen-year-old Kim (Emily Bautista), fresh from the countryside and the newest employee at the Dreamland Night Club, where the girls do more than dance for their supper.

Unbeknownst to smitten young lovers, Saigon is about to fall.

Along the way, Kim’s North Vietnamese fiancé Thui (Jinwoo Jung) seethes at seeing his betrothed consorting with the enemy, bar girl Gigi Van Tranh (Christine Bunuan) longs for the innocence she lost long ago to sexual harrassers like G.I. John Thomas (J. Daughtry), Ellen (Ellie Fishman) discovers her husband of two years has a past his late-night screams can only hint at, and the Eurasian known simply as The Engineer (Red Concepciôn) attempts in vain to pursue “The American Dream” while managing the nightclub where Kim, Gigi, and their fellow bar girls strut their stuff.

Like the CinemaScope epics of the 1950s and ‘60s, Miss Saigon owes much of his success to its skill at telling an intimate love story in a panoramic setting, and when you’ve got a helicopter descending from the sky above and a 1959 Cadillac convertible showing up tail fins and all, it’s no wonder Miss Saigon has been one singular spectacular sensation since its 1989 London World Premiere.

The spectacle is still there in its most recent revival, but so are the human relations at its core, along with a gritty realism previous incarnations may have lacked, not to mention some of the most out-and-out gorgeous melodies ever to enchant Broadway audiences in a musical whose songs* tell its story with only occasional snippets of spoken dialog to give its leading players a vocal rest.

Under Laurence Connor’s masterful direction (kept alive on tour by and associate director Seth Sklar-Heyn), Segerstrom Center audiences are assured not only the flash and flesh of Saigon/Bangkok nightclub nightlife and an action-movie-ready, helicopter-propelled escape from Saigon, but six absolutely superb lead performances.

Concepción’s scrappy trickster of Engineer may not be the lean-and-hungry wolf Miss Saigon aficionados have grown accustomed to seeing, but he’s no less of a stage burner-upper and never more so than in the surreal nightmare that is the eleventh-hour showstopper “An American Dream.”

Stunning newcomer Bautista makes Kim entirely her own, investing the 20th-century Madame Butterfly with fresh-faced innocence, inner grit, and dramatic gifts to match her stunningly expressive soprano.

As for the object of Kim’s undying love, not only does Festa possess the requisite looks, pipes, and physique to win a young girl’s heart, his acting choices make for what may well be the most devastatingly played final seconds in Miss Saigon history.

Daughtry’s sexist-turned-activist John takes an already powerful song (“Bui Doi”) and gives it vocal pyrotechnics to do late great Luther Vandross proud; Fishman’s Ellen is not only a featured standout, a new song (“Maybe,” replacing “Now That I’ve Seen Her”) gives Ellen dimensions we’ve never before been privy to; and USC MFA grad Jung gives the villainous Thuy humanity along with his Korean GQ physiognomy and powerful tenor chops.

Last but not least, Philip Ancheta, Devin Archer, Eric Badiqué, Bunuan (who sings the living daylights out of “The Movie In My Mind”), Eymard Cabling (The Engineer at certain performances), Rae Leigh Case, Taylor Collins, Matthew Dailey, Noah Gouldsmith, Keila Halili, Keely Hutton, Adam Kaokept, David Kaverman, McKinley Knuckle, Madoka Koguchi, Garrick Macatangay, Jonelle Margallo, Myra Molloy (Kim at certain performances) Kevin Murakami, Jackie Nguyen, Francesca Nong, Matthew Overberg, Adam Roberts, Michael Russell, Julius Sermonia, Nicholas Walters, and Anna-Lee Wright provide their own razzle-dazzle as bar girls, barmen, marines, street vendors, embassy workers, acrobats, conference delegates, street workers, club dancers, marines, and more, with swings Brandon Block, Joven Calloway, Nancy Lam, Ilana Lieberman, and Brian Shimasaki Liebson backstage to step in at a moment’s notice. (Adorable Haven Je played Tam at the performance reviewed.)

Bob Avian both recreates and refreshes his original 1989 choreography including plenty of erotic undulations, dragon acrobatics, and A Chorus Line kicks, with a special revival shout-out for the acknowledgement that not all males visiting Bangkok are interested in “Girls! Gorgeous Girls!” (Associate choreographer Jesse Robb keeps dances/musical staging tight on tour.)

Production design is brand new this time round, and every bit as magnificent at production stills suggest, as is Will Curry’s musical direction and the pit orchestra he conducts.

Jovon E. Shuck is production stage manager, Michelle Dunn is stage manager, and Sue Karutz and Rachael Wilkin are assistant stage managers.

I’ve seen Miss Saigon multiple times over the past twenty-five years, and this is quite simply the most impressive Miss I’ve experienced since its First National Tour played the Ahmanson back in 1995. Future regional productions will be hard-pressed to match the magic being made on the Segerstrom Center stage this week and next.

*music by Claude Michel Schönberg, lyrics by Richard Maltby, Jr. and Alain Boublil, adapted from Boublil’s original French text, with additional lyrics by Michael Mahler

Segerstrom Center For The Arts, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa.
www.scfta.org

–Steven Stanley
October 2, 2019
Photos: Matthew Murphy

Tags: Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg, Orange County Theater Review, Richard Maltby Jr., Segerstom Center For The Arts