That being said, Miss Saigon is the one British pop opera that I’ve never been able to completely write off.  I graduated high school in the mid-1990’s, so like many theater enthusiasts of my generation my early musical theater education came from these musicals.  They were the gateway through which I was able to become acquainted with more sophisticated musicals.  And by the time I had encountered musicals like Sunday in the Park with George, and Cabaret I had all but shed any remaining soft feelings I once had for those syrupy British Easy Listening schmaltz-fests; except for Miss Saigon.  I still had fond memories of seeing it on Broadway as a high schooler, and the melodramatic bombast of this show towered over any of the others in this canon.  What can I say?  It spoke to me.

Miss Saigon is a modernization of Puccini’s Madame Butterfly moved out of the world of 19th Century American Imperialism, and into the world of 20th Century American Imperialism.  It’s set in Viet Nam during the 1970’s in the time just prior to,  and several years after, the Americans finally cut and run leaving the country to the Communists we were there to stop.  A morose young G.I. named Chris (Christopher deProphetis) is feeling the pressure of the war.  His friend John (C. Mingo Long) purchases him an evening of companionship with Kim (Jihyen Park), a virginal young prostitute orphaned by the war. Kim brightens up Chris’s life; they fall in love, and promise to wed.  Three years later the Communists have clearly won the war, and Kim and Chris have been separated by oceans and the fates.  All of this plays out with suitably tragic consequences.

What I learned watching the show in a new production by Virginia Musical Theater is that Miss Saigon, like all of the British imports of the time, requires the lavish production values of its original production to work.  Without the smoke and mirrors to disguise the emptiness it’s much easier to see that there’s just nothing there.  Of course, the show’s legacy in contemporary theater history is firmly secure at this point, so there is little point in discussing its intrinsic value much further.

VMT’s production, on the other hand, was marred with a miriad of technical and timing problems that was surprising, considering its new season under the banner Broadway at the Center is being so highly touted.  The facility is lovely, but seemed to overshadow the happenings onstage which felt under-rehearsed; as if the show had opened without benefit of tech rehearsals.  Michael Licata’s uninspired staging, Matthew Schlief’s nonexistent lighting design, and Michael Anania’s hideous set were all problematic.  However, nothing was quite as problematic as the follow spots that were so jittery I began to wonder if the operators were in the throes of simultaneous strokes. The orchestration was reduced from its original 25 member pit to a 16 member band, which mostly sounded good, although the score was robbed of its requisite melodrama without the power of more instrumentalists.  The orchestra was not without its problems, though, frequently getting out of sync with the performers and each other.  At one moment the orchestra stopped completely, as if to register everyone was caught up before they continued.

And then the helicopter landed.  For what its worth it wasn’t a bad execution of an all but unstageable moment, but, if it’s not an awesome moment, it’s hardly a moment at all.  It does come as the climax of a lamely unnecessary flashback sequence which appears in the second act only, one assumes, to hold the helicopter back to the last possible moment.  After all, we wouldn’t want the audience sneaking away at intermission, would we?

On the other side, the performances were all actually quite good.  Many of the performers had done the show in productions previously.  Ms. Park possesses a lovely soprano, and was quite good in the role of Kim.  Mr. deProphetis had the look of the All-American G.I., and a nice pop tenor voice, but was emoting in the style of an American Idol finalist rather than acting.  Mr. Long was very good as John, even managing to put over one of the show’s worst numbers, a gospel plea to save the half-breed Vietnamese children of U.S. soldiers (although the accompanying PowerPoint presentation was jarringly anachronistic).  Ms. Power sang well in the role of Ellen, but she’s more of a plot complication than an actual character, and she did the best with what she had.  Mr. Martino played the Engineer in a gratingly self-indulgent performance in which he chewed the scenery (regardless of whether it was attractive or not) until there wasn’t any left.  All of this adds up to naught, however, as the substance of the show is about as thick as whipped air.

It wasn’t completely a waste; a number near the end of the show featured a kick line of Asian Marilyns and light-in-the-loafers Elvises, and was a hilariously unintentional camp highlight.  I wanted to like the show more.  After all, VMT is the only professionally produced musical theater in the area.  And the quality of Miss Saigon wasn’t too out of step with the quality of previous VMT efforts, when they used to perform at the bygone Pavillion Theatre.  However, now that VMT is Broadway at the Center, their programming is tending to large shows that can sell tickets, but require a level of technical capability the company is not showing.  Titanic is next, which requires not only a ship, but a sinking as well.  Indeed, this seems far more technically complicated than landing a helicopter.  For the time being, we shall wait and see if VMT’s productions equal the grandeur of the new theater that houses them. I guess only time will tell whether Virginia Beach’s new artistic emperor is, in fact, wearing clothes.