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Hinton Battle, 1956-2024

 Here are the British mega-musicals, shows that began on the West End before making a splash on Broadway: "Evita," "Cats," "Chess," "Les Miserables," "Miss Saigon," "Phantom."


Generally, these shows aren't great. I agree with Frank Rich that "Miss Saigon" is the best of the bunch.

First, though: "Miss Saigon" has some terrible writing. No one would mistake this for Sondheim:

They're called Bui Doi.....
The dust of life....
Conceived in hell....
And BORN IN STRIFE!!!!

Never fond of subtlety, the writers dream up a big number for the suicidal protagonist: "I'd Give MY LIFE for You." We might wonder if the two central lovers are humans or robots; we might wonder if their thoughts are the product of some early, secret form of AI:

The birds awake...
The stars shine, too!
My hands still shake.
I reach for you...
And WE MEET IN THE SKY!!!!

The Second Act is both weirdly padded and weirdly rushed. A puzzling flashback to the fall of Saigon seems to exist for the sole purpose of taking up space. The Engineer's 11:00 number does nothing to further the plot, and it seems to go on and on and on; it's an empty bit of "razzle dazzle." At the same time, the writers haven't made an effort to imagine a memorable confrontation between the two main characters, and they also haven't put work into the "love triangle" that could (could) make events interesting. A jealous woman sings of her rival: "Now that I've seen her....she's more than a name!" But this is the writers' wishful thinking. Kim is--really--just a name.

All this seems like an odd way to eulogize Hinton Battle, one of the Tony-winning stars of the Original Broadway Cast. I'll just add this. "Miss Saigon" changed the way I thought about war. In childhood, I'd never imagined that soldiers might go off to another country, sire children with the villagers, and then abandon those children to hopeless lives. It's a smart topic for theater. It's also smart to turn a main character into a spokesperson for those abandoned children--and to open Act Two at a conference whose focus is on humanitarian aid. The writing for "John" is bad--but I'll always defend the *idea* behind "Bui Doi."

And--wow--Hinton Battle could sing.

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