Review: Miss Saigon

Miss Saigon

The latest of the major international success musicals,
Miss Saigon, composed by Claude-Michel Schönberg, arrived in Finland at the age of fifteen
with a delay of one year. Since its London premiere in 1989, it has been made into a
80 different productions around the world; In the Nordic countries, Copenhagen was the first to arrive,
where it was first seen in 1996, and in Stockholm for a couple of years
later.

Helsinki City Theatre’s Miss Saigon has been created with the same recipe
than the production at the Tallinn Castle Hall a year and a half ago.
In addition to Swedish director Georg Malvius, British set designer Ellen Cairns
and Estonian choreographer Jüri Nael have been involved in both performances.

A few actors and choir members have also been snatched from the neighbourhood.
In the male lead, Chris alternates with the somewhat unknown Mika Turunen
Estonia’s former Eurovision representative Koit Toome, who was seen on stage during the musical’s
premiered on Wednesday.

The City Theatre has had its best to offer:
costume designer Sari Salmela and lighting designer Juha Westman can do well
in any international comparison. Salmela’s construction site has been enormous, as
The musical, which is quite intimate in terms of story, has spectacular crowd scenes,
one of which has about half a hundred performers on stage – and everyone has a different
accessories!

The musical has a message

Miss Saigon represents the kind of musical that has a message.

At the heart of the story is a young Vietnamese girl named Kim who falls in love
American soldier Chris. Or falling in love and falling in love; The man is
on the other hand, a saving angel out of the abyss of war and to keep him alive
alternative, prostitution.

It is the end of the Vietnam War, and in the spring of 1975, the Americans
Leaving Saigon so suddenly that the couple, who had just spent their wedding night, left the roads
resign. In accordance with the plot adapted from the opera Madame Butterfly, a girl
gives birth to a child that the man who has returned to his home country knows nothing about. Its time
after longing for his beloved and healing his war depression, he marries another
with a woman.

The story has jumped forward three years. Chris’s veteran friend John
leads a charity that tracks down and helps
illegitimate children brought to Vietnam by soldiers, who were sent to Vietnam in a “liberated”
In Vietnam, they are treated like the enemy’s bastards. Kimin has been shown
with his son as a boat refugee to Bangkok, where Chris and his wife are now
direction to settle accounts with their past and to be able to continue
from a clean slate.

Ellen’s wife agrees that they would give Kim child support, and
Tam-son, but refuses to adopt her husband’s illegitimate child. Kimin
the view is that the best life for a child is in the United States with his father and is ready
to die by one’s own hand for that goal. Death frees Chris
stalemate, but enough pent-up feelings to say goodbye to Kim’s body
includes that the future of marriage does not bode well either. But it’s not anymore
This musical’s job is to tell.

The Buddha’s palm is not afraid of a bird

On Wednesday, the role of Kim was played by the Master of Arts in Theatre and Drama
Sanna Majuri, who has solid music studies before the Theatre Academy
& Jazz Conservatory. The combination of education is exactly what a Finn
musical theatre misses.

Although his professional experience is still quite limited, Majuri carries the demanding
while retaining its sensitivity, and the delicately girlish appearance is also suitable
ethnorole. The actress is strongly present in Kim’s emotions and interpretation
also conveys the fact that not all human behaviour is motivated by the
According to the thinking: A bird is not afraid in the palm of a Buddha’s hand.

Koit Toome primarily interprets the role of Chris in vocals. His
His acting expression is quite clumsy. Just as stiff in that area is Johnia
Lauri Liiv, who also helped Estonia and came into the picture from the music side.
Also in these roles, the Finns alternate, Mika Turunen as Chris and Sami
Hintsanen as John, have earned their merits from singing. Although
everyone – Toome the most – has musical experience, the whole central male choir
Strictly speaking, it represents the amateur theatre department.

Singer or actor, that’s the dilemma

The women are the strength of the performance: Maria Ylipää, who plays the role of Ellen
Like Sanna Majuri, she is studying at the Theatre Academy. She has studied
music and dance since childhood, singing for about five years; there he is absolutely
Great, such effortlessness and ease of sound delivery is rarely heard.

22-year-old Ylipää is still a tough girl as a musical actress – if you want to work in the field
enough. It’s time for Finnish musical theatre with its production-specific engagements
narrow ground, and there is not really a profession specializing in the sport
to be born.

It also seems that institutional theatres are also trying out new faces
rather than using professional actors with singing skills, which you would think
can be found among freelancers. For a role like Puntti Valtonen’s pimp,
who is responsible for lightening the drama, it is the singing actor who is at his best. No
Valtonen is not a Pavarotti, but a washable professional
musical theatre maker.

Valtonen will also be surrounded by the spectacular characters of the musical Miss Saigon.
mass scenes, of which the presentation of the American dream is absolutely incredible
An investment with all its characters: from dancing hot dogs to Coke bottles,
From Uncle Samuli to glittery Elvis, country folklore and the funnel head of The Wizard of Oz
sheet metal.

There are places in Miss Saigon’s course where the viewer might fall a little
from the cart. It is a so-called. all the text is performed singing. Something
Words are bound to be missed. Instead, a successful structural trick is to skip over
situation that led to Kim and Chris’s breakup and return to it as a flashback: Vietnam’s
The tension between the lovers is only released in the final scenes. And the “real”
landing a helicopter on the scene to pick up Americans from the embassy is
An impressive sight in itself, let alone because of the content of the scene.

Miss Saigon is a melodrama that makes you cry. Vietnam, my beloved…