History Theatre / MissSaigon

* CrosscastRole: Tam. He's a toddler and has no lines, so it scarcely matters. It helps that his name (like much of Vietnamese names, and indeed every Vietnamese name in this show) is unisex.

** Pinkerton, Chris's counterpart in ''Madame Butterfly'', was a massive {{Jerkass}}. Chris in this musical is presented as more of a NiceGuy, as his actions of leaving Kim behind was justified.

Act Two opens in America, where John is deeply involved in an American charity organization that helps with the aftermath of the war, specifically, linking American fathers to their "bui doi" (interracial) children. He tells Chris about Kim and Tam, which leaves Chris in the uncomfortable position of telling Ellen exactly why he wakes up yelling Kim's name sometimes; the three travel to Bangkok for some sort of family reunion. Meanwhile, we have a {{Flashback}} to the Fall Of Saigon, where it turns out that Chris did his darnedest to get Kim out with him; in fact, John had to punch him to keep him from not boarding the chopper. Kim goes to Chris's hotel room but finds only Ellen, who is not unsympathetic to her plight but doesn't want to be second fiddle to one of her husband's byblows. Ellen issues Chris an ultimatum - [[TriangRelations her or me]] - and Chris agrees to limit his contact with Kim and Tam to monetary support sent from America. Of course, Kim isn't particularly happy about this, so once the Americans are at her front door, she takes the only action left her. The curtain falls.

* ForegoneConclusion

TimeSkip to 1978, Ho Chi Minh City (what Saigon was renamed after the DirtyCommunists took it over). [[ForegoneConclusion Kim is still there]], living in poverty. Even though three years have passed, she is still devoted to Chris, [[IWillWaitForYou and she has been waiting for him to rescue her]]. Chris is asleep with his new American wife, '''Ellen''', as it appears AbsenceMakesTheHeartGoYonder. (Maybe. He still has {{Catapult Nightmare}}s about the last time he saw her: in a crowd of would-be refugees being [[KillEmAll gunned down]] by the Commies.) Kim is still being stalked by Thuy, though, and reveals her motivation for HoldingOutForAHero: [[AsianBabymama she and Chris have a son]], '''Tam'''. Thuy goes a little AxCrazy over this and [[MamaBear Kim]] has to shoot him. She then goes to The Engineer, who points out that Tam having an American father ups their chances of being allowed to emigrate to America. As the curtain falls, they book passage to UsefulNotes/{{Bangkok}} as the first leg of this journey.

* CrosscastRole: Tam. He's a toddler and has no lines, so it scarcely matters.
** Helps that his name (like much of Vietnamese names, and indeed every Vietnamese name in this show) is unisex.

The date is April 1975. A group of American Marines are out for one last night on the town, since they will be pulling out of Saigon soon. They visit a sleazy nightclub called "Dreamland" run by an HonestJohn known as '''[[EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep The Engineer]]''', and populated by a number of hookers, including '''Kim''', a 17-year-old girl who would probably be TheIngenue if it weren't for her profession. She catches the eye of '''Chris''', one of the marines; his friend '''John''' makes the arrangements, and the OfficialCouple get together. However, after finding out that Kim is a HeartwarmingOrphan, [[PetTheDog Chris offers to take her back to America with him]]. Of course, this is easier said than done, since the [[CommieLand NVA]] are going to be moving in on Saigon in a matter of days. Even better, Kim and Chris' [[FourthDateMarriage Fourth-Date]] AccidentalMarriage is interrupted by '''Thuy''', joint victim of a ChildhoodMarriagePromise their parents made. Of course, Kim's parents are dead, she loves Chris, ''and'' Thuy has gone over to the DirtyCommunists, so Kim's not going for it. Thuy promises revenge and storms out again.

TimeSkip to 1978, Ho Chi Minh City (what Saigon was renamed after the DirtyCommunists took it over). [[ForegoneConclusion Kim is still there]], living in poverty. Even though three years have passed, she is still devoted to Chris, [[IWillWaitForYou and has been waiting for him to rescue her]]. Chris is asleep with his new American wife, '''Ellen''', as it appears AbsenceMakesTheHeartGoYonder. (Maybe. He still has {{Catapult Nightmare}}s about the last time he saw her: in a crowd of would-be refugees being [[KillEmAll gunned down]] by the Commies.) Kim is still being stalked by Thuy, though, and reveals her motivation for HoldingOutForAHero: [[AsianBabymama she and Chris have a son]], '''Tam'''. Thuy goes a little AxCrazy over this and [[MamaBear Kim]] has to shoot him. She then goes to The Engineer, who points out that Tam having an American father ups their chances of being allowed to emigrate to America. As the curtain falls, they book passage to UsefulNotes/{{Bangkok}} as the first leg of this journey.

Act Two opens in America, where John is deeply involved in an American charity organization that helps with the aftermath of the war, specifically, linking American fathers to their "bui doi" (interracial) children. He tells Chris about Kim and Tam, which leaves Chris in the uncomfortable position of telling Ellen exactly why he wakes up yelling Kim's name sometimes; the three travel to Bangkok for some sort of family reunion. Meanwhile, we have a {{Flashback}} to the Fall Of Saigon, where it turns out that Chris did his darnedest to get Kim out with him; in fact, John had to punch him to keep him from not boarding the chopper. Kim goes to Chris' hotel room but finds only Ellen, who is not unsympathetic to her plight but doesn't want to be second fiddle to one of her husband's byblows. Ellen issues Chris an ultimatum - [[TriangRelations her or me]] - and Chris agrees to limit his contact with Kim and Tam to monetary support sent from America. Of course, Kim isn't particularly happy about this, so once the Americans are at her front door, she takes the only action left her. The curtain falls.

* AbandonedWarChild: Kim and Chris fall in love when Chris is a Marine stationed in Saigon during the Vietnam War. Chris intends to take Kim back home with him, but is forced to leave her behind when the US forces are evacuated, leaving Kim to raise her son as a single mother.

** Subverted: guilt left him in bad shape--TheMourningAfter lasted for more than a year, he suffers from nightmares, and has problems confiding in Ellen about the trauma he went through.

** Ellen isn't necessarily a bad person, but her not wanting to take Tam is a complete 180 from Kate, her counterpart in ''Butterfly'', who not only asked for Butterfly's son, but promised to raise and love him as if he were her own.
** Even Chris gets a little of this. For all his {{Jerkass}} ways in ''Butterfly'', Pinkerton genuinely wants to make amends by taking his son to America. Chris on the other hand is willing to leave Tam in Thailand. However, one should note that he chooses to leave Kim and Tam in Thailand only when Ellen tells him to choose between her and Kim.
** Thuy also. He has [[CompositeCharacter two counterparts]] in the original: Butterfly's uncle who disowns her and condemns her for her actions, but disappears after the first act, and her wealthy suitor Yamadori, who calmly goes away after she rejects his marriage proposal. Thuy ''tries to kill'' Tam!

** In the revival, the actor playing Thuy manages to infuse him with enough humanity that one can think this--he seems to genuinely love Kim and be heartbroken when she rebuffs him, and his attempt to kill Tam appears to be out of obligation rather than genuine hatred. He wasn't born a monster, he was made into one.
** In fact he seems to honestly wish for Kim to shoot him once she takes out the gun. As if he cannot stand to live with the pain of knowing she still loves Chris and has borne his son, the shame Tam would bring to their union and/or the knowledge that she will hate him forever if he kills Tam (nor the dishonor and shame of ''failing'' to kill the boy). He begs her to shoot him, presses the gun to his own temple and when he goes after Tam it almost seems like he's intentionally provoking her into shooting.

* CharacterDevelopment: John seems like an apathetic callous asshole (verging on SociopathicSoldier) in act one, but once he gets back to the US he deeply regrets his actions - and by extension the entire USA's actions - in the war, becomes involved in charity organizations as a result, and effectively becomes TheAtoner.

* CounterpointDuet: "I Still Believe", sung by Kim and Ellen. The main "counterpoint" is the setting--Kim is alone in a hovel in Saigon while Ellen is in a comfortable bedroom in America, [[spoiler: sitting next to the sleeping Chris. Their lyrics are actually quite similar--each woman sings of her love for Chris, Kim of how much she misses him and hopes to be reunited with him, Ellen of wishing that he would confide in her and stop keeping her at arms' length.]]

* DiedInYourArmsTonight: [[spoiler:Thuy dies in Kim's arms and she dies in Chris' arms.]]

** It's Kim's song [[spoiler: "I'd Give My Life For You"]] that really takes this trope and hits the audience over the head with it, [[spoiler:as it turns out this is exactly what she ends up doing.]]
** One ''extremely'' subtle example from Chris when John tells him that Kim is alive. He sings, [[spoiler:"You don't know, John, these nightmares, the things that I've seen / I have seen her face burned, '''seen her shot with my gun.'''"]] Guess what Kim uses to [[spoiler: kill herself with.]]
** On a humorous note, in the revival, during the "What A Waste" scene, the [[Theatre/TheBookOfMormon Mormon missionary]] either ignores or seems frightened by the girls, but is clearly taking [[LongingLook lingering looks]] at the male prostitute. Is it any surprise when he finally gives in and reveals his homosexuality when the Engineer offers himself up?

* HookerWithAHeartOfGold: Kim, in name only. She isn't presented as being particularly sexualized; in fact, her appeal to Chris seems to be more on the grounds of NatureAdoresAVirgin.

* IronicEcho: Kim's final line showed up previously when the two were pledging their love. In the song "Sun and Moon," just as they were falling in love, Chris asks Kim, "How in the light of one night did we come so far?" In the "Finale," [[spoiler:just before she dies in his arms]], she asks him "How in one night have we come... so far?"

** Arguably Kim as well, who doesn't try and fight Ellen for Chris' love. Granted [[spoiler:her main priority became ensuring Tam's future, but still.]]

* LoveMakesYouEvil: Thuy's complete devotion to Kim, even after all those years, leads to him trying to kill her child in order to keep their honor. Might also be see as an AlternativeCharacterInterpretation.

* MistakenForServant: Ellen assumes Kim is the maid when she shows up at the hotel room.
* MoodWhiplash: The end of "Last Night of the World", one of Kim and Chris' love songs, segues right from the ending notes into the VillainSong, "Morning of the Dragon."

** No primary character of Vietnamese ethnicity have been played by an actor/actress of Vietnamese descent. At most, there's ''one'' ensemble member in the West End production who's British-Vietnamese. The Czech production even had a white actress play Kim, with two actresses of Vietnamese descent in the ensemble.

* ScrewTheWarWerePartying: The opening scenes, "The Heat Is On In Saigon". Despite the raucous atmosphere, the lyrics demonstrate that the soldiers are desperate for one last fling, and that the girls are desperate for one last chance to escape Vietnam.

* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: Along with ''Madame Butterfly'', the producers were inspired by a picture of a Vietnamese woman taking her daughter to the airport to put her on a plane bound for the US, where she would meet her father, an American GI she had never met before--and would never see her mother again.

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Gigi and the rest of the bar girls from Dreamland disappear from the narrative towards the end of Act One and we don't learn what happened to them after the fall of Saigon.

* WouldHurtAChild: Thuy tries to [[spoiler: stab Tam dead for being Chris' bastard son. Tam is ''two years old.'']]

* TakeThat: In the revival, at the end of the "American Dream" number, the Engineer begs the dancers to come back, saying, [[UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump "We can make it great again!"]]

* CatapultNightmare: Chris bolts upright in bed after yet another one of his BadDreams about Kim. Depending on the actress, Kim herself often does this following her flashback to when she and Chris were separated during the fall of Saigon.

* BlackBestFriend: Excluding the first West End production, many actors who play John are black.

* WomanInWhite: Kim in her first scene, representing her virginity and complete innocence and cluelessness regarding the world of prostitution.

* AdaptationalHeroism: The writers seem to have reasoned that Vietnam was such a tragedy on its own that they can offload all of the fault onto it. They're right -- nobody in the cast (save Thuy) is a bad person, and they're all doing the best they can, and it just ''doesn't matter'' because this horrible war and its horrible end just came in like a force of nature and rolled over them all. This gives the tragedy a truly nasty sting that was lacking from the source material.

** Kim is also a massive upgrade over Cio-Cio San, losing the naivete and gaining the iron will that her counterpart lacked.
* AdaptationalVillainy: Ellen isn't necessarily a bad person, but her not wanting to take Tam is a complete 180 from Kate, her counterpart in ''Butterfly'', who not only asked for Butterfly's son, but promised to raise and love him as if he were her own.

* AlasPoorVillain: In the revival, the actor playing Thuy manages to infuse him with enough humanity that one can think this--he seems to genuinely love Kim and be heartbroken when she rebuffs him, and his attempt to kill Tam appears to be out of obligation rather than genuine hatred. He wasn't born a monster, he was made into one.

* IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy: Ellen conveys this in the 2014 London revival with the song "Maybe", indicating that she'll be willing to give Chris up if necessary for him to heal.

** Towards the end of the show's first Broadway run, the role of Ellen, typically played by a white actress (specifically, a blonde or redhead) was cast with Margaret Ann Gates, who is Asian, resulting in a likely example of the ReplacementGoldfish trope--it now seemed as though Chris married Ellen only because she reminded him of Kim, rather than to move on with his life.
*** Corneilla Luna played the role of Kim in the Toronto production and the role of Ellen in the UK touring production, making her the only actress to do so, and a near-literal example of the "goldfish" trope.

* ShirtlessScene: Chris has a couple.