Miss Saigon opened in 1989. The musical represents Schönberg and
Boublil's second major success, following Les Misérables in 1985. As of
April 2017, Miss Saigon remains Broadway's thirteenth longest-running
show.
Miss Saigon is based on Puccini's opera Madame 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 Madame Butterfly's story of
marriage between an American lieutenant and a geisha is replaced by a romance
between an American GI and a Vietnamese bargirl. The musical's inspiration was
reportedly 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 to board an airplane headed for the United States where her
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 screams in despair, the victory parade of
the new communist regime, and the frenzied night club scene at the time of
defeat.
Act I
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 ("Overture"). The US Marines, aware that they will
be leaving Vietnam soon, party with the Vietnamese prostitutes ("The Heat
Is on in Saigon"). Chris, 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 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 ("Movie in My
Mind"). John buys a room for Chris and the virgin Kim ("The
Transaction"). Kim is reluctant and shy, but dances with Chris. Chris
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
("The Dance").
Chris, watching
Kim sleep, asks God why he met her just as he was about to leave Vietnam
("Why, God, Why?"). When Kim wakes up, Chris tries to give her money,
but she refuses, saying that it is her first time sleeping with a man
("This Money's Yours"). Touched to learn that Kim is an orphan, Chris
offers to take her to America with him. The two fall in love ("Sun and
Moon"). 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 ("The Telephone Song"). Chris meets with
the Engineer to trade for Kim, but the Engineer tries to include an American
visa in the deal. Chris forces the Engineer at gunpoint to honor the original
arrangement for Kim ("The Deal").
The bargirls hold
a "wedding ceremony" for Chris and Kim ("Dju Vui Vai"),
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 ("Thuy's Arrival"). The two men confront each other,
drawing their guns. 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
("What's This I Find"). Chris promises to take Kim with him when he
leaves Vietnam. Chris and Kim dance to the same song as on their first night
("Last Night of The World").
The scene then
cuts to three years later, in 1978. A street parade is taking place in Saigon
(since renamed Ho Chi Minh City) to celebrate the third anniversary of the
reunification of Vietnam and the defeat of the Americans ("Morning of The
Dragon"). Thuy, a commissar in the new Communist government, has ordered
his soldiers to look for the still-corrupt Engineer. 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 intervening
three years. 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 ("I Still Believe").
A week later,
Thuy's soldiers find the Engineer somewhere up north. For the Communist Party,
he goes by the name "Tran Van Dinh" and has spent the past three
years working in the rice fields. 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 reeducation camp. Kim
introduces him 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 pulls out
a gun and kills Thuy ("You Will Not Touch Him"). She flees with Tam
("This Is the Hour") and tells the Engineer what she has done
("If You Want to Die in Bed"). The Engineer refuses to help her until
he learns that Tam's father is American ("Let Me See His Western
Nose") – 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.
The three set out on a ship with other refugees ("I'd Give My Life for
You").
Act II
In Atlanta,
Georgia, John now works for an aid organization whose mission is to connect Bui-Doi
("street children," meaning children conceived during the war) with
their American fathers ("Bui Doi"). 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. Chris finally tells Ellen about Kim and Tam ("The
Revelation"). In Bangkok, the Engineer is hawking a sleazy club where Kim
works as a dancer ("What a Waste"). 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
("Chris Is Here"). 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 ("Kim's Nightmare").
In the
nightmare/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 of a mob 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 ("The
Fall of Saigon").
Back in 1978
Bangkok, Kim joyfully dresses in her wedding clothes ("Sun and Moon
[Reprise]") 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. Kim is heartbroken and refuses to believe Ellen. Ellen asks Kim
if Chris is the father of Tam, and Kim confirms that he is. Kim says that she
does not want her son to continue living on the streets and pleads 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
("Room 317"). Ellen feels bad for Kim, but is determined to keep
Chris ("Now That I've Seen Her", originally "Her or Me”).
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 will leave Tam and Kim in Bangkok but offer them
monetary support from America. John warns that Kim will not find it acceptable
to have Tam stay in Thailand ("The Confrontation"). Back at the club,
Kim lies to the Engineer that they are still going to America ("Paper
Dragons"). The Engineer imagines the extravagant new life that he will
lead in America ("The American Dream"). 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 ("This Is the
Hour [Reprise]"), Chris, Ellen, John, and the Engineer arrive just outside
her room. The Engineer comes in to take Tam outside to introduce Tam to his
father. While this is happening, Kim steps behind a curtain and shoots herself.
As she falls to the floor, everyone rushes into the room at the sound of the
gunshot and find Kim mortally wounded. Chris picks up Kim and asks what she has
done. She asks him to hold her once more and 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 his arms as he cries her name ("Finale").
