By Chung Ah-young
Staff Reporter
The musical ``Miss Saigon" is returning to stage four years after it premiered in Korea in 2006. The revival production will be upgraded from the 2006 version with revisions to the translated text and stage sets.
Set in Vietnam in 1975, the musical revolves around a tragic love story between a young Vietnamese woman, Kim, and an American soldier, Chris. After Chris meets Kim at a night club, they fall in love with each other. However, they are separated when the American troops are withdrawn from Saigon. After returning to the United States, Chris marries another woman because he thinks Kim died. But Kim lives in poverty with her three-year-old son in Bangkok.
The musical is renowned for the spectacular scene when Chris escapes from Ho Chi Minh, which will be presented using three-dimensional special visual effects.
The new production will include the on-stage Cadillac scene, which symbolizes the American dream. The Cadillac set had not been used for the tour performances since 2004 because of space limitations. But the scene began appearing in 2007 in Australian performances. The Cadillac is the same model, which was used in the 1950s in Vietnam.
KCMI, a local organizer and producer, along with Cameron Mackintosh, the British producer, modified the book's translation as the flawed translation of songs and dialogue had spoiled the original script's dramatic sentiments in the previous version.
For the revival performance, more than 1,300 contestants applied to audition, breaking the record of 1,100 applicants in 2006.
Rising musical star Lim Hye-young, who played the lead in the musical "My Fair Lady," Kim Bo-kyung, who performed Nehebka in the first Korean version of ``Aida" and Kim, who was in the 2006 version of "Miss Saigon," will share the female lead. Korean-American Michael Lee and Lee Gun-myung will again take the role of Chris.
The show will bring its haunting, memorable numbers such as ``Movie In My Mind,'' ``The Last Night Of The World,'' ``I Still Believe,'' ``Why God, Why?'' and ``The American Dream" to the stage.
``Miss Saigon," created by Claude-Michel Schonberg and Alain Boublil, is a modern adaptation of Puccini's ``Madame Butterfly.'' It was originally inspired by a photograph in which a Vietnamese woman leaves her child at the airport on a flight for the U.S. where her daughter's father, a former soldier, lives.
Since its inception in 1989, ``Miss Saigon'' has been produced in 13 languages in 317 cities and 26 nations.
The musical will be on stage from March 13 to April 4 at Goyang Aram Nuri Arts Complex in Gyeonggi Province, from April 16 to May 1 at Seongnam Arts Center and from May 14 to Sept. 12 at Chungmu Art Hall.
Tickets cost from 20,000 to 110,000 won. For more information, call (02) 518-7343 or visit. www.miss-saigon.co.kr.