FL MORRIS / FMORRIS@STARBULLETIN.COM Bar girls Laine Yoshioka, left, and Fran Gendrano surround Joey Caldarone, the Engineer, in Army Community Theatre's "Miss Saigon."

Final scene leaves
a bitter taste

An expendable Asian woman's timely suicide gets an American Vietnam vet and his wife out of an awkward situation -- that is the apparently intended, albeit unconventional, subtext of Army Community Theatre's otherwise enjoyable "Miss Saigon."

"Miss Saigon," presented by Army Community Theatre, continues at 7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays through March 19 at Richardson Theatre, Fort Shafter. Tickets: $14 to 25 (group discounts available). Call 438-4480.

Joey Caldarone, Shawna Masuda and Samuel Hesch are strong leads, and sound designer Sean Rowbottom provides the cleanest sound mix of any ACT production in memory, but the implication of a boy going to America over his mother's dead body tinges this story of star-crossed lovers with subtle hints of ethnocentrism.

Kim shoots herself after learning that Chris, the father of her child, has married someone else. She dies in Chris' arms. Ellen, Chris' American wife, leads Chris' son by the hand. Chris stands, takes the boy's other hand, and the newly created American nuclear family walks away with nary a look back at the woman lying dead in the dirt.

Surely something is wrong with this picture! Can this be the story that Alain Boubil, Richard Maltby Jr. and Claude-Michel Schunberg intended to tell?

Other than that final scene, ACT's long-anticipated production of the Broadway tear-jerker proves worth the wait.

Shawna Masuda (Kim) makes a stellar debut as a leading lady with her captivating portrayal of the heroine. She brings the emotion in the lyrics to life and makes each scene believable theater.

Joey Caldarone (Engineer) is an instant hit as the cynical opportunist born of a wartime interlude between a soldier and a prostitute during the French occupation. Caldarone sells "The American Dream" as a glorious paean to American materialism on the strength of talent and charisma, without the help of props or set pieces.

Caldarone's acting is also dead-on, whether the Engineer is slapping a hapless bar girl, cowering before communist big shots or scheming to pass himself off as Kim's brother to get an American visa.

Keoki Kerr (John) is solid in a key supporting role. He gets Act 2 rolling with his passionate performance of "Bui Doi, the Dust of Life," introducing the issue of American responsibility for children sired and abandoned by U.S. military personnel. He does a good job carrying the dramatic load thereafter, and his duet with Masuda is another high point.

Fran Gendrano is a woman to watch even before her poignant rendition of "The Movie in My Mind." Gendrano displays star power as leader of the parade of Marilyn Monroe clones who march through the Engineer's fantasies of America.

Jay Flores (Thuy) is strong as one of the designated villains, his final scene in Act 1 proving his range as actor, and vocalist Renee Garcia Hartenstein (Ellen) does a fine job infusing "Now That I've Seen Her" with rich shadings of emotion. Unfortunately, neither the script nor director Vanita Rae Smith's best efforts at changing the balance of the story make Ellen more than an unwelcome impediment to the resolution of the love story.

Samuel Hesch (Chris) steps smoothly into the role of the Marine and makes Chris' sudden emotional commitment to a woman he barely knows seem believable, as well as romantic. "Why God Why?" shows Hesch has the voice for the role. "Last Night of the World" caps his performance with Masuda in fine style.

Would that there were any indication of the same type of romantic connection between Chris and Ellen! Chris seems more wishy-washy than conflicted once he learns that Kim is alive and raising their son. Neither the script nor the actors' performances suggest that Chris' commitment to Ellen is strong enough to make his rejection of Kim final. It's more like he loves the one he's with -- for as long as he's with her.

The early bar scenes lack sizzle, and the helicopter evacuation seems thin and anticlimactic by the time we relive the fall of Saigon in the middle of Act 2, but these are minor issues compared with the final scene. As Chris walks away without a backward look at the body of the woman he once promised to marry, and the boy leaves his mother with no sign of grief, it seems that the death of an Asian woman doesn't matter, as if her existence is an inconvenience for an American couple.

And if that's where the story is coming from, Kim would have done better to have shot Ellen, reclaimed Chris for her own, and had the Engineer arrange a cover-up in exchange for getting him his ticket to the American dream.