‘Miss Saigon’ returns to its original home on Broadway

"Miss Saigon" star says the play's themes of "empathy, strength, resolve and love" are especially relevant today. (Photo grabbed from Reuters video)
“Miss Saigon” star says the play’s themes of “empathy, strength, resolve and love” are especially relevant today. (Photo grabbed from Reuters video)

NEW YORK, United States (Reuters) — “Miss Saigon” returns to its original home at The Broadway Theater in New York City after two years in London. The long-running musical, which debuted in 1991 and ran for nearly a decade, is a tragic love story set during the Vietnam War.

“Miss Saigon” star Jon Jon Briones said the play’s themes are still current today.

“When this first opened, it was, the Vietnam War was kind of, still fresh, but kind of far,” he said. “And it was the first televised war. And it was a devastating war because America was really involved in it. But now all the wars are more instant than that. People are texting, videoing it, and it’s in your living room, it’s in your bedroom, like a few minutes after it was shot. And so I think it’s much closer now to us, much closer to where you are even if you’re in a safe place. It’s in your face. It’s very relevant that you see families being torn apart and loved ones being torn apart. But at the same time, you see also good things come of it, empathy and strength and resolve and love.”

“Miss Saigon” co-star Eva Noblezada says her role of Kim is “epic.”

“She’s a tigress,” she said. “She fights for what she believes in and the things she clings to is love and is hope. And you see her get beaten, you see her get dragged through the mud quite literally and it’s sad to watch but it’s necessary, you know, all eyes on the truthful story.”

Previews for “Miss Saigon” begin on March 1 with opening night on March 23. The musical is scheduled to run through January 15, 2018.