Displaying items by tag: Anthony Festa

When Schönberg and Boublil’s Miss Saigon made its original run in the early 90s, I missed it — too far away to catch a traveling performance, and too young to have seen or even afforded to see it. And back then, I was way too young to have really understood the big, Important (with a capital I) issues the musical raised, or which were raised by its very being. Sure, I knew many of the show’s songs, from the ubiquitous double-CD soundtrack that seemed to exist in the music collection of nearly every person I knew. But like they say, that Miss Saigon was wasted on the young.

So given the chance to see the current touring production currently playing at the Cadillac Palace Theatre, I sat down not so young, but ready to finally see the show I thought I’d known all those years. And while it was every bit the spectacle I imagined, my experience — and the experiences our world has had — added even more substance and complexity to an already substantial and complex tale.

First, the spectacle. Many of the touring productions coming through Chicago are great but feel pared down compared to shows that would stay for extended periods. Perhaps it’s also the style of recent shows, as well, to be economical and sparse when it comes to stage design. But that’s not the case with this Miss Saigon.

The sets dazzle, with red-light signs flashing, American flags waving, Ho Chi Minh glaring, and chopper blades throbbing. The costumes, too, transport you, to brothels catering to America GIs, huts housing the Vietnamese whose land they’ve overrun, and embassy gates closed to some.

The ensemble dazzles, as well, making the cast seem even larger than it is. Whether it’s said servicemen out for a bit of R&R or the women whose lot in life is to provide it, whether it’s postwar Communist soldiers marching in file, or postwar American men looking to provide for the children fathered half a world away, the cast fills all the roles the show requires, and they fill them well.

The ensemble really earns its pay during the showstopper near the end when Red Concepcion’s pimp, The Engineer, champions that elusive “American Dream” — high-stepping and singing as The Engineer preens and prances. Concepcion’s Engineer takes on even more meaning than perhaps he would have 25 years ago, as the fast-talking, macho-walking archetype who’ll use others — particularly those less powerful than himself — is one fully come to life. So, too, do some of his lines hit hard, especially the added bit about “Cocaine, shotguns, and prayer—hallelujah!” being the American dream, of then or now. But whether portraying the awfulness of yesteryear or that which we now face, Concepcion steals the show.

That’s not to say the rest of the cast isn’t wonderful. Starting the second act, J. Daughtry’s John changes from a typical young Marine at war to a man who’s been changed by the things he saw and did while there. Leading a men’s chorus in “Bui Doi,” a song about the children fathered by American soldiers and “born in strife,” Daughtry’s voice rises above the chorus and the moving pictures of children projected behind him, reaching for the rafters even as it laments the lows of humanity’s inhumanity.

Anthony Festa, as John’s fellow Marine Chris, also subverts the macho American infantryman one would expect. Whether it’s the touching “Wedding Ceremony” he shares with Kim (hauntingly chorused by the female ensemble members into something like a hymn) or his duet with her on “Last Night of the World,” a “song played on a solo saxophone, a crazy sound, a lonely sound,” he cries “a cry that tells us love goes on and on.”

But it is Emily Bautista as Kim whose cry is the loudest, the loveliest, and goes on and on across the Cadillac’s stage. Bautista brings both vulnerability and strength to a role that in lesser hands might very well be engulfed by such a grand staging. From singing to and with Chris of the sun and moon, to telling the son she had with him that “I’d Give My Life for You,” Kim’s life is the focus, from her entrance to her exit.

And everything in between is what will surely take the breath away and break the hearts of anyone in attendance of this production of Miss Saigon, a production that not only shines a light on an unfortunate international moment of the past, but on the continued problems with humanity and inhumanity with which our world still struggles.