An Open Letter to Lily Janiak on "Miss Saigon"

What a wonderful panel that was last night at Litquake!  I'm looking forward to your  podcast on "Miss Saigon." You have a very demanding job, and I always read your reviews with interest even when I disagree with you.  I respect your opinion, and I thought you stood your ground very well as the sole woman in the panel of critics!  .

I was disappointed in the production of "Miss Saigon" that I  saw in NYC in 2017 because I'd loved the CD and so had my students, many of whom were Vietnamese.

 I thought the songs had a lot more poignancy and even more subtlety than the brassy, fast-paced show I saw after longing to see it for a couple of decades.. 

But I thought i"Miss Saigon" showed the corruption the US brought to Saigon, the desensitization of the men serving in the military who created, used, and felt contempt for the women, and their desperation to get back their lives and the ability to feel something other than loathing and self-loathing.  I also thought it showed what the women went through because of the war and the military presence.  Maybe the Communist "fiance" was a little over-the-top, but I felt for him too, fighting against the American invaders and then losing the woman he'd wanted to marry to an American soldier.

  My students loved the song "The Movie in My Mind," with its desperate longing for the cliches of American life. 



They are not nice, they're mostly noise
They swear like men, they screw like boys
I know there's nothing in their hearts
But every time I take one in my arms
It starts
The movie in my mind
The dream they leave behind
A scene I can't erase
And in a strong Gis embrace
Flee this life
Flee this place
The movie plays and plays
The screen before me fills
He takes me to New York
He gives me dollar bills
Our children laugh all day
And eat too much ice cream
And life is like a dream
Dream
The dream I long to find
The movie in my mind
 
I thought of Kim as a strong woman who'd endured brutality and was doing what she could to maintain her sanity and sense of worth and later doing the Madame Butterfly act to save her child. 

I realize that the music isn't Puccini, but I still think it is, as a woman last night suggested, a musical we should have around so our children and grandchildren get a look at how wars destroy lives--not that they need to go back to what the Vietnamese call The American War for that!  I think "Miss Saigon" shows how power corrupts and depicts the tragedy war brings  forth. (Maybe you were right in your interpretation of her question as being about keeping the show as an example of shows of an era.)

As I say, I'm looking forward to your podcast.  The friend I attended the event with last night, Maxine Einhorn, is going to be the moderator at an event you're doing at Folio on November 5, when I'll be away.  I'm so sorry to miss that.