“Over the past year and a half, May Tran (writer, student and professional procrastinator of Vietnamese descent) has been inundated with PR for two professional and sixteen-hundred amateur productions of Miss Saigon. The following piece has been cobbled together from segments of the largely incomprehensible fury essays she wrote during her frequent and violent rage blackouts.
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In 1989, Miss Saigon premiered in London to rave reviews and in 1991, it opened on Broadway. It won Tonys and Laurence Olivier Awards for lead cast members Lea Salonga and Jonathan Pryce respectively. In 2014, the show made a wildly successful comeback with a sold out West End revival, starring Eve Noblezada, a young actress of Filipino descent, and looks to make its Broadway revival this year. In 2016, I saw no less than 6 casting calls for amateur productions. In short, it’s coming back with a vengeance and it’s fucking everywhere. It’s a spectacle, with the West End revival boasting an amazing set, talented cast and well-polished choreography. One production in Georgia hired a historically accurate helicopter to land as the show opened. The music is wonderfully composed, the story compelling. But the issue isn’t whether Miss Saigon is a good show or not, it’s whether a Vietnamese story should be told more responsibly and with the voices of Vietnamese people.”
Read the full article at Moonlight Feminists.