The set
Something I really enjoy seeing in musicals is the effort that is put into creating the set and having it move and change very quickly between scenes. You can be in war torn Saigon in one moment, and then suddently flashing neon lights of Bangkok come down onto the stage to form the next scene.

A scene I particularly liked was where the GIs are leaving Vietnam and the Vietnamese people are being left behind, the audience is able to see things from the GI’s perspective inside the embassy, and then the fence changes so that now the perspective is from the angle of Kim and the other Vietnamese outside the embassy. This change happens several times and is done pretty smoothly. Then, to top it all off, this was actually done as a ‘flashback’ and so there is all this raw emotion and despair on stage and suddenly, you are back to Kim three years later sitting in her room quietly sobbing.

The props
I enjoy seeing different types of props on stage, especially the big ones that seem to appear from nowhere, like that big American car. The only downer was that there was no helicopter like in the older productions. But they still seemed to achieve a similar effect using the screen and having guys just jump ‘through the door’.

The chorus
I really liked the Asian guys who played the role of random Viet guys in the background. It was funny seeing them do really Asian things, like squat, eat out of a takeaway box while sitting around, randomly trying to get people to buy drinks, and trying to sell stuff without much success. It was so Asian! - and to be able to say that meant that they captured that Asianness well. It’s also fun to track certain actors as they change costumes and take on other roles, like dreamland prostitutes who become Viet cong soldiers, who then become poor Vietnamese villagers and then finally cute American showgirls donning blonde wigs.

Another cool thing to watch is child actors. Even though the child actor we saw that evening didn’t have to do much (he just stood there most of the time, and when called, he ran towards the person with outstretched arms). Also interesting is that several children play the part of Tam and most of them are girls, whereas Tam is supposed to be a boy. I couldn’t really tell. I think it was a boy….?

So, like any musical, it had its particular musical-type things within it. The most emotional parts of the story were when both women express their love for the same man. It’s so sad…very heartbreaking.
Now for some lowlights…

The acting
I thought the acting was sometimes a bit artificial, like it was just being ‘put on’ for the sake of it. It didn’t seem to arise out of any inner emotion and happened so quickly that I didn’t have time to feel the gravity of what they were feeling. It was frustrating to watch especially in the love sequences. Maybe having watched more opera in the last 2 years and seeing actors stand there and sing the same phrase about 10 times with different facets of the same emotion has made me more particular about facial expressions.

Sound
This is more of a personal taste thing. I guess having not watched a musical in a while and instead watching symphonies and operas over the past 2 years, it felt strange when I heard all the sounds of the orchestra and the stage that night coming out of an amp to the left of me, rather than coming out from the front of the stage.

Well, that’s all for now. I may have some other comments later