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Theater Review: Why Are We in Miss Saigon?
6 / 10
But then the unrelieved hyper-emphasis of Laurence Connor's direction basically squashes whatever might be good in Miss Saigon. Certainly the rather delicate (if leather-lunged) performance of Eva Noblezada as Kim doesn't get far across the footlights; you can hardly find her half the time. Indeed, none of the signposts and pointers an audience might look to for advice about what's going on work properly: The sound is unspecific, the lighting is overbusy, and the set makes it seem as if everyone in the cast lives in everyone else's hovel. It is only in that Constructivist parade, and a few similar scenes, that the pressure is equalized between the overwrought style of the production and its overwrought content. But it's not a good sign when the most cogent parts of a musical about American perfidy are the ones that borrow a totalitarian aesthetic.
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