Broadway’s Musical Vs. the Reality of Saigon

I went to the Broadway musical “Miss Saigon” last week to see if it would trigger any memories of events I witnessed 16 years ago. The show features a spectacular helicopter evacuation. The real thing was spectacular too, in a larger way.

But “Miss Saigon” could have used a nonstop drum roll, or something, to give an air of tension, because April, 1975, in the South Vietnamese capital was an exciting time. It had color, violence, noise, tears, corruption, defeat, sex and real helicopters. These were the elements of a good news story and could have been the ingredients for a great musical.

I’ll bet money with any member of the press corps who was in Saigon on April 30, 1975, who can say he or she had a bigger story before or since. It was the end of a great American experience.

The show couldn’t possibly re-recreate the whole thing. South Vietnam’s abrupt transformation from a free-for-all Disney world of war into a sterile Communist state was done by adding a few red flags in straight lines and some sinister-looking dancers performing martial arts steps. That gave me a shiver. Or was that a memory?

But, for me, much of “Miss Saigon’s” reality ended right there. The American soldier with whom Kim (Lea Salonga) falls in love was emotionally prepared to leave Vietnam behind but then met her and fell in love, and things changed for him. “I like my memories as they were, but now I leave remembering her,” he sings.

Not everyone was trying to leave Saigon in those last days. Most Vietnamese were just waiting for the other side to arrive. A lot were anxious, but didn’t appear scared. Quite a few were busy looting American installations for refrigerators, air conditioners, office equipment and loose change. Some were squeezing foreigners for last-minute departure assistance fees. Everyone was out to make as much money as possible before it all flew away.

Engineer (Jonathan Pryce) played a very credible hustler. I have fond memories of many like him.

“Miss Saigon” was real in its bar scenes. One of the girls dancing on stage sported a tattoo--not something very big anywhere else in the world in those days. Tattoos on girls scared me 16 years ago. They were always badly done and they were always just initials. There was nothing funny about those tattooed girls. They were hard. I didn’t come across any selling themselves for American visas in the last weeks before the fall of Vietnam, but there were many working for dollars. Piasters were worthless by the middle of May as it turned out.

The soldier (Hinton Battle) in “Miss Saigon” was lucky to meet a “good girl,” let alone fall in love with her. There were millions of good girls in Vietnam, but they were not allowed to meet foreigners. He was very lucky.

But the press corps in April, 1975, didn’t have much time to fall in love. How could anyone handle love and still file stories? The Americans were pulling out, there were big battles on every major road leading into the capital to cover, orphans dying in plane crashes, corrupt leaders fleeing the country, new governments being sworn in, human-interest stories all over the place.

There was a lot of work to do and every day got shorter and shorter. By the time the helicopters came in to do the last picking up, I was too tired to go to the staging areas, so I stayed put and in the end was very well treated. I got out a month or so later, with all my baggage too. I think more than a couple of hundred in the media corps made out well by doing exactly the same thing--staying behind. The Vietnamese did not begin their own exodus for almost a year.

I’ll never forget Vietnam. “Miss Saigon” I’ve forgotten already.