In 2007, I booked my first mainstage gig fresh out of high school. It was a production of Miss Saigon, one of my favorite shows of all time. Unlike Aspects, this was a (mostly) positive experience. In addition to this being my first gig that wasn’t a school show or a youth production, it brought about the beginning of several friendships that I fully expect to last for the rest of my life. And it was a welcome distraction from what was a very difficult time in my life, one I will get into in a future post. That being said, this is a “War Stories” post so let’s jump in, shall we?
Before we go any further, we need to get this out of the way for the sake of context. This was one of those productions of Miss Saigon, a musical that takes place almost entirely in Asia, that barely featured any Asians in the cast, a choice I will not even begin to justify. We started rehearsal with one Asian woman in the ensemble who promptly left two days in and honestly, who could blame her? I was 18 years old at the time and didn’t know any better and the theater that produced the production, to this day, still has a huge diversity problem that I hope gets addressed in the future. Moving on.
For those who don’t know, Miss Saigon tells the story of Kim, a Vietnamese girl, and Chris, an American GI who fall in love during the Vietnam War but are separated when Saigon falls. Kim gives birth to a son and names him Tam. And it is Tam who our story ultimately concerns….all three of them.
For the majority of our rehearsal period, we were without a Tam. Our choreographer stood in for him whenever we rehearsed a scene he was in, which was quite the sight to behold. Eventually we were introduced to the little girl who would be playing the role. Her twin sister, older sister (who I’d worked with when we were kids) and mother would basically be nonspeaking extras in the show. They would also basically be the only four Asian actors in the cast. The programs had been printed, we had taken pictures of this kid in the costume, it looked like the show was good to go….or so we thought. We were already getting into tech rehearsals when I came to the theater one day to see a young boy in her place. At first I thought, “Maybe he’s a vacation cover or something.” Turns out the girl’s dad, for whatever reason, had pulled everyone out of the show. “Great timing, bro” is all I can say. The show went from having a whopping four Asians, all in nonspeaking roles, to two Asians (Tam #2’s mother would later take one of the walk-on roles. Yet another story for another time).
The only real snafus we had with our new Tam was that apparently no one on the creative team thought to tell him just how intense the scenes he was in could get. So the poor little guy would start crying and we’d have to stop to calm him down. Who could blame him, his character gets a knife pulled on him in his first scene alone for crap’s sake. But eventually he got through it like a pro, bless his heart. The show opened, audience response was enthusiastic (dunno how enthusiastic it would be now given how whitewashed the thing was), we eventually sold out the rest of the run, basically save for one actor getting a bad sprain and having to modify his track because of it, all was well. And then came….that weekend.
I believe it was roughly our third weekend when I arrived at the theater and was informed that our Tam had come down with a fever and was home sick. The solution…bring in a ringer. But here’s the thing, this kid, now our third Tam, was white and had red hair. The solution was to slap a black wig on him and a small layer of foundation. So for one weekend only, paying audiences were treated to *pause for dramatic effect* THE WHITEST MISS SAIGON EVARRRRRR!!! Thankfully Tam #2 was back on his feet for the remainder of the run but I facepalm every time I think about it.
In the future, my hope is to do a much more inclusive production of Miss Saigon…because man oh man have I got some stories to tell.
And on one final unrelated side note, because this production seemed hellbent on being so utterly cringe in retrospect, everyone who wasn’t playing an American in the show had to wear eyeliner to make their eyes look more pointed…in my case, I looked like a crap Jack Sparrow cosplay. I had to shower to get mine off after every show so my towel was so moist during the run that my bedroom reeked of mildew. So many thanks to the creative team for whitewashing Miss Saigon so hard, you made my room stink.
Till next time.
The Aspie Actor 