On Musical Translations, Their Quality and the Original Texts

 "You'd never get away with all this in a play,

but if it's loudly sung and in a foreign tongue,

it's just the sort of story audiences adore;

in fact a perfect opera!"

- Charles Hart & Richard Stilgoe: The Phantom of the Opera

It regularly baffles me that some musical fans demand that a musical should be performed in its original language (usually English) even in a foreign country. Most examples I've seen have come from German and Finnish fans, mostly because they are used to the original (English) cast and want to hear the "original" experience just as it is in West End or on Broadway. (Which leads us to topic Replica vs. Non-Replica Productions, but about that I will rant talk about later. Meanwhile, check out this excellent blog post.) For example in Germany some jukebox musicals even are performed with English songs and German dialogue, which for me sounds silly but apparently has some point. Granted, it saves money in short and small productions, and in some cases the lyrics aren't important at all. Honestly speaking, the translations also quite often suck.

However, the original text isn't automatically better than a translation of it. In my opinion, a musical often sounds better in a foreign language simply because the listener doesn't understand it as well as their native language and isn't so used to hearing it, so everything sounds much more original, creative and exotic. For example, Frank Wildhorn's love songs sounded really great to me in Hungarian, until I learned the language a bit more and realized that the translations had exactly the same lame clichés as the English lyrics. I just hadn't heard those clichés in Hungarian that often, so for me they hadn't yet become clichés. Earlier the same happened with German. Nowadays you get so bombarded with English language that, for me, everything now sounds lame in English. (In Finland e.g. TV shows and movies aren't dubbed but subtitled, unless they are for young children.)

Most people also don't understand foreign languages nearly as well as they think they do. Most often this happens with English, because, you know, everyone speaks English and yada yada. Yes, you can understand exactly what they say on stage, but on the same time you are very likely to miss most of the culture-related connotations, intertextuality and other such hidden meanings that form the text "behind" the actual text. Even the native listener may not explicitly realize everything they get from the text, but it's still there and affects on their interpretations of the songs, characters and plot. It's a fact proved by scientists that an average person always gets much more out of things in their native language than in a foreign one. I may be wrong, but I also think that the actors get much deeper in their roles when they understand every aspect of the text they're performing and the text is also good. Not forgetting how painful it is to hear people sing for three hours with bad accent.

This leads us to the importance of using good, professional translators in musicals. Too often I've seen someone like the conductor's wife or the director of the production do the translating, just because professionals cost too much and hey, everyone can translate. (<-- Sarcasm.) Besides, it's a musical, it doesn't matter what they sing because people come there to be entertained and hear the singer's voice and see a good show, right? This may well be true with for example the early musicals of 1940's or operettas, when the main point of the show was the star actor who was singing the songs. The songs contained only one thought or feeling, and the action stopped while the actor sang. (Ironically, many old Finnish translations of operettas I've heard are much more stylish than modern translations of works from the same era.) A modern example would be French musical spectacles like Notre-Dame de Paris that often require some adapting when brought to other countries, where slightly different things are expected of musical productions.

In most modern musicals, the songs advance the story and are essential for understanding what's going on. In such situation you cannot trust that the listener will understand the story based on only the spoken parts, especially if the musical is sung-through and there are no spoken parts. The text must be in a language that the listeners understand well, and the translation must be possible to sing, easy to understand, and it must contain all the important information and preferably also the hidden meanings.

Amadé writing with Wolfgang Mozart's blood in Mozart!.

Who is a good, professional translator, then? Someone who is capable of seeing the explicit and hidden meanings of a text and expressing them in another language, so that another person can make their own relevant interpretations of it and sing the result. Of positive examples I could mention Michael Kunze, of whose work Sir Tim Rice once said that the German translation of Aida is better than the original English text.

Sadly it's a rare species, at least in Finland. In most Finnish musical translations I've heard, it seems that the translator hasn't understood the source language (with the Finnish Elisabeth as the best/worst example), couldn't write grammatically and semantically correct Finnish (again, Elisabeth), couldn't read notes and fit the lyrics into the music so that the result is singable (Rebecca), or didn't understand different styles like the differences of language used in a brothel scene and used by an upper-class lady (Evita). In worst cases the translator is a combination of these lovely traits (Les Misérables). From this point of view, I can understand why fans would often rather hear the original lyrics than a bad translation.

But who says that a translation automatically sucks? Wouldn't it be better for everyone to demand more high-quality translations than demand no translations at all? A good translation is not a Mission: Impossible. It simply requires more effort from the translator, more time (and yes, money) given by the theatre to the translator, and people recognizing a good translation and knowing to ask for one. As long as people assume that it's a bad translation because that's the way musical translations are, they also get what they've asked for: a bad translation.

This is one reason why I am so happy about the Finnish translation of Tanz der Vampire being so excellent. It has received explicit praises from both theatre critics and the audience, which tells quite a lot, because a common truth is that a translation is usually only commented when there's something wrong with it. Another common - though sad - truth is that a translator has done their job really well when the audience doesn't notice the existence of the translator but explicitly praises the text.

Just for your entertainment: a man with a huge turban.
(Egri csillagok, Győri nemzeti színház)

In the best case one excellent translation could make people see that musicals can also be translated well, which hopefully makes the theatres and the audience ask for better translations, which in turn might make the translators set higher goals for themselves. This also requires that the theatres give the translator a chance to make a better translation, because if you pay and set a deadline for a quickly made translation, all you get is a quickly made translation, and if you settle with that, nobody wins in the situation. Offer more time and more money, and a good translator with any self-respect will make a better translation.

All this could be said about any work of art that's object to translations: novels, songs, subtitles, dubs, poems. In my DVD of Rocky Horror Picture Show there are no subtitles during the songs even though the songs include essential information about the story, whereas when the film was shown in TV, Yle's translator had done excellent job with the subtitles and they made me laugh, hard. It annoys me that people don't appreciate their native language, good musicals, translators or good storytelling enough to demand that they could actually understand what's going on on the stage. Sometimes a visually entertaining show with catchy tunes is enough, but why shouldn't good lyrics be a part of the experience?

Empress Elisabeth travels to South Korea

Elisabeth (Kunze&Levay) premiered yesterday in Seoul, South Korea. I'm not usually into Asian theatre scene, because I don't know the cultures or languages, and the Japanese and Korean etc. style of staging musicals usually doesn't appeal to me. But I must say I've been impressed by the South Korean take on Kunze's musical, first Mozart! and now Elisabeth. They're blending modern and traditional style in a way that, for me, hits the timeless and time-breaking world of Kunze's musicals perfectly. The characters portray feelings and emotional situations very familiar to modern spectators, even if their context is historical, and I think these photos are a perfect mixture of both. I dislike bringing the characters of historical stories into modern or some imaginary weird world, which happens too often especially in opera when people desperately try to "spice up" the traditional stories, but these photos show that it's possible to make (or at least promote) costume dramas with a stylish touch of modern style, too, without losing the historical costume drama aspect.

Photo sources: Cafe.naver.com & MusicalElisabeth.com (warning, loads slowly)

Photo copyrights: EMK Musical Company

Elisabeth (Kim Sun Young and Ok Ju Hyun)

The Death (Ryu Jung Han, Song Chan Eui and Kim Jun Soo)

Lucheni (Kim Su Yong, Choi Min Chul and Park Eun Tae)

Franz-Josef

Franz-Josef

Sophie

Sophie

The three Rudolfs

Based on the photos I've seen, the actual staging is slightly more traditional than in these early press picturses, but the general feeling of them is still there. I'd like to see a production like this done in Europe as well, since this semi-Gothic-Victorian-Modern-something style is popular here, too. For smaller theatres afraid of expensive costume dramas with hoop skirts and whatnot, a bit more modern take could be an interesting solution.

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Chess (concert) - Budapest 2010

I've been a fan of Abba since I was 10, but Kristina från Duvemåla's score made me think I'm not interested in Björn&Benny's musicals. Besides, how could a musical about chess be interesting? It's a board game, for heaven's sake!

Boy, was I wrong...

I don't usually get this hooked to realistic musicals with no supernatural-ish themes, but somehow Chess is an exception. The story is touching, the characters realistic, and it has one of the most beautiful musical scores I have ever heard, if not the most beautiful. It was love at first sight.

(Video link: Another, longer trailer in Facebook)

Out of all the musicals I've seen, Chess is probably the most difficult to put to words. If you want your musicals to be nice, light and feel-good, Chess might not be my first recommendation, though it has its funny scenes, too. This production felt like someone would gently, piece by piece, rip my soul open. The musical concentrates very much on raw feelings, communication and problems related to it, the big choices of life, the wrong choices, the right choices, and everything in between. Its world is not black-and-white in the sense of good and evil; every character is a shade of grey, they have their reasons to act like they do, and though they make mistakes, those are human mistakes, easy to understand. They're trying to lead their personal life as well as they can, even though they're all just chess pieces in the big political game between the USSR and the USA.

In Chess, the most beautiful melodies often aren't in the big hits, in my opinion. Florence's big solos are pretty but not perhaps the most memorable musical songs ever, and the more dancepop-like songs like "The Arbiter" and "One Night in Bangkok" aren't necessarily the best ones to summarize the style of the musical, though I like them very much. Of the big, clearly separate songs I love Anatoly's songs, the ensemble numbers and other group-of-people-singing songs the most, and also Svetlana's songs.

But the little melodies, sometimes slipped here and there and sometimes controlling half of the musical, and the huge and complex opera-like music truly nailed me to my seat. The music is catchy, beautiful, bittersweet, multi-layered and dramatic. There's something very flowing in it. The best metaphor I can come up with is a little mountain river that has just gotten free of ice and is now dancing among the rocks and ice leftovers. Add an occasional huge waterfall, a humorous fish and a dead puppy, and you might get close the general feeling of the Chess score.

The chess game theme is hypnotizing, as is "The Story of Chess". There's something even lullaby-like in them. I never cry in theatre, but the whole Endgame sequence brings through such desperation, willpower, sadness and beauty mingled together that I was holding back tears. By the reprise of "You and I" I was ready to sneeze on Anatoly's jacket and hug him and tell it's going to be all right.

The chess game. Photo: PS Produkció

For those who know the musical, the Hungarian concert production is basically the 2008 Royal Alber Hall concert, though compared to the 2008 concert, they had cut "The Merchandisers", "Hymn to Chess" and the scene in which Freddie tells Anatoly about a flaw in Viigand's game before the big final match, and also some dialogue and small reprises that aren't even listed in the song list. The cuts IMO made the story and scenes flow much better. The concert production follows the London storyline, and there's nothing extra on stage, just what really matters, and for me this production brings the best out of the musical. It has impressive show elements, yes, but somehow the dramatized concert form with very little sets seemed to leave more room to the musical itself, its idea and music.

I liked the changes they had made to Walter de Courcy's (the adorable Béla Pavletits) character. It wasn't explicitly told that he was a CIA agent, though in the end it was quite clear, and he wasn't shown as the bad guy (or as the good guy, for that matter). He wasn't your stereotypical agent like Molokov and there wasn't anything evil in him, he simply played his role in the big international game, used everyone equally, no matter if they were on his or on the other side, and secretly laughed at especially the easily fooled and used Freddie. I got the feeling that it was he who in the end wasn't on nobody's side but his own. Then again, so were most other characters in the end.

Related to this, the most important change was that (for the first time ever?) it wasn't indicated that Florence's father really hadn't been found and everyone had just lied to Florence. In the end Walter said something like "Now your father will be free" and, after Florence's reaction, smiling friendly, "Life being just a game isn't true", after which Florence sang the reprise of "Anthem". It wasn't explicit, but it left me with a clearly positive feeling about the whole matter. At least more positive than the "Haha, we have fooled you, now you lost the both men" in the other versions I've seen. I think the musical requires this little ray of hope, or otherwise they should place a portable psychologist's office outside the theatre.

Béla Pavletits, Géza Egyházi, Ernő Zsolt Kiss, Viktor Varga & Géza Gábor.
Photo: PS Produkció

The Cast

Anatoly Sergievsky: Géza Egyházi
Florence Vassy: Éva Sári
Frederick Trumper: János Szemenyei / Levente Csordás
Alexander Molokov: Géza Gábor / Balázs Csórics
Svetlana Sergievsky: Tímea Kecskés
The Arbiter: Ernö Zsolt Kiss
Walter de Courcy: Béla Pavletits
Leonyid Viigand: Viktor Varga / György Mihálka
The Mayor: Dávid Sándor
Diplomats, etc.: Gábor Jenei, Zsolt Szentirmai, Ádám Pásztor, Szabolcs Hetei-Bakó, Dávid Sándor
Reporters: Darinka Nyári, Beáta Ajtai, Márta Debreczeni, Réka Kovács, Véra Fekete Kovács
Choir: Jazz And More Choir

Generally everyone was great, with the exception of 2nd Freddie, Levente Csordás, who wasn't exactly bad but also not as good as the rest of the cast. He didn't have a very Freddie-ish feeling in him, and his voice could have been better. The 1st Freddie, János Szemenyei, was really really good, though, he had just the right amount annoyingness and arrogance and his Fred was too impulsive to notice what really was going on around him. His acting was unbelievably intense, and he definitely gave his all and threw himself in the emotions of the cynic and abandoned character. (Video link: Rehearsal version of Pity the Child)

Géza Egyházi was easily the best Anatoly I've encountered. Slightly stubborn, slightly stiff at the first look and silently desperate, but there was also the flirty and romantic side under the surface. He wasn't a big bundle of larger-than-life angst, but just a man whose life was in dead end and who didn't quite know what to do about the situation. His Endgame part was heartbreaking. His velvety baritone sounded great in especially the "Mountain Duet", the "Anthem" and the Endgame, and I keep being hooked to his "Where I Want to Be":

Molokov was incredible, one of the highlights of the performances. Géza Gábor is an opera singer, a bass, and his voice fit the songs perfectly. My face must have looked like O_o when he first opened his mouth and started to sing. He had comical talent and added some subtle funny details to the character, although his Molokov definitely had to be taken seriously. Balázs Csórics was good, too, but with a baritone Anatoly a bass Molokov works much better, if we assume that the lower the voice is, the further the character is from sweet tenor boys. (Video link: The Soviet Machine)

Éva Sári (Florence) had a strong and beautiful voice, and she had a very Florence-ish attitude, will of her own. I think Tímea Kecskés as Svetlana perhaps acted a tiny bit better, but I had nothing to complain with Éva, either. I'm sad that I didn't get to hear Réka Koós as Svetlana. Anyway, I enjoyed the both ladies' performance very much.

Then the singing and dancing ensemble. Ernö Zsolt Kiss (Arbiter) is in many ways a pleasure to the eyes: he looks good, he's dressed well, and I like the way he moves. The male singers kept catching my attention with their detailed acting, and I loved their "Embassy Lament". The British choreographer said in an interview that she'd like to take all the dancers with her to England, and I understand her, since especially the "Soviet Machine" and the chess matches were stunning. (Video link: The Arbiter) Also the Jazz and More choir sounded excellent, and I loved it how the huge choir loomed behind the actors like some half-demonic Angel Choir of Doom.

The musical plays very very rarely, and though they actually were supposed to quit last year, they announced two more shows in April 2012.

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Mozart! - Operettszínház, Budapest 2010

Mészáros Árpád Zsolt / Dolhai Attila - Wolfgang Mozart
Németh Attila - Hieronymus Colloredo
Földes Marci - Amadé
Vágó Zsuzsi / Szimenfálvy Agota - Constanze Weber
Pálfalvy Attila / Földes Tamás - Leopold Mozart
Vágó Bernadett - Nannerl Mozart
Náray Erika - Waldstätten bárónő
Bereczki Zoltán - Emanuel Schikaneder
Langer Soma - Karl Joseph Arco gróf
Marik Péter - Doktor Messmer
Molnár Piroska - Cäcilia Weber
Dénes Judit - Aloysia Weber
Ullmann Zsuzsa - Josepha Weber
Tihanyi Lívia - Sophie Weber
Csuha Lajos - Fridolin Weber, Thorwald

Attila Dolhai & Amadé (Photos: Operettszínház)

 This was the first time ever I saw some production of Mozart! on stage. I must say I'm happy with the start, because the Hungarian production works in many ways very well. It has some of the usual Operettszínház faults like too much pointless ensemble and too much unimportant & not very good-looking set pieces, but generally it wasn't as bad as I had feared. Either I've gotten used to the theatre's style or then I was just too traumatized by their Elisabeth two years earlier.

Let me start with the biggest negative side of the performance: Árpád Zsolt Mészáros as Wolfgang Mozart. I can sort of understand why his portrayal is like it is and why some people like it, but for me he totally wasn't Wolfgang. Most of the time he behaved like a 5-year-old with an ADHD and occasionally he turned into a retarded clown. Wolfgang has those sides, yes, but MÁZs took it a bit too far for my taste. I'd like to add about ten years to his mental age and take out the worst straight stupidity. Kunze's Wolfgang is supposed to be clever in his own way, after all, just not very good at taking care of his everyday life. I don't know if the impression had been any different if I had really understood all the lyrics, but based on the German lyrics I couldn't always see MÁZs!Wolfgang thinking or saying the things he sings, mostly in the angsty songs. Even though I'm usually on Leopold's side, I want to feel sympathy for Wolfgang at least in some scenes. In this case I couldn't see things from Wolfgang's point of view.

But if you forget the actual portrayal, his acting was extremely good and intense, pretty much in the same way as he sings very well but I don't like his voice. Technically everything essential is there, but then we get to speak about different tastes in characters and voices.

Attila Dolhai

 Besides, I can't help it and it totally isn't his fault, either, but I simply find the guy repulsive. There's something in him that makes me think touching him would make me vomit. I had forgotten how much sex there is in the Hungarian production, and let's just say that I could have done without a couple of sights of MÁZs making out with someone. Not to mention Wolfgang stripping off all his clothes in one scene, which I had happily forgotten about, too.

Later we had Attila Dolhai in the role, and though I kind of liked his portrayal more and prefer his voice, I felt he lacked energy and acted in a bit too old and mature way for Wolfgang. I wish I could see someone totally different in the role.

Attila Dolhai

I really, really like the way they handle Amadé in this production. The kid truly is demonic, and on the same time he in a way seems to be a very good friend of Wolfgang's. Like, in the end Amadé first kisses Wolfgang's cheek lovingly and then stabs him in the heart to drain his last drops of blood for the Requiem. One of the rare moments when I actually really liked MÁZs was in "Der rote Rock", when Amadé first came to stage as his double. Wolfgang puts on the red coat, looks into the mirror, sees Amadé in it - completely to his own astonishment -, and for half a scene they just look at and kind of discover each other, until Wolfgang seems to accept that okay, I've got an invisible 8-year-old me following me and writing me music. I've never seen Amadé being presented like that, usually he just is there and Wolfgang knows it, so it was interesting to see Wolfgang's reactions to him. Generally the two reacted very much to each other, they were pals but also enemies, and Amadé going *facepalm* when Wolfgang was once again lured somewhere by ladies was sweet.

Szilveszter Szabó and brains

Luckily MÁZs is my only complaint about the cast. Attila Németh's voice isn't quite enough for Colloredo's songs, but his acting made it up. I wish I could see Silveszter Szabó as Colloredo. Both Vágó girls suited their roles well and didn't shout that much. The same goes for Erika Náray and Zoltán Bereczki, and the rest of the people were okay or good, too. I must give a special mention to Soma Langer as Count Arco. The guy was hilarious and had great facial expressions and sang very well.

Mozart! is one of my favourite musicals ever, but it seems to be hard to make a really good production of it. We've come to the conclusion that when you get the rights to perform Mozart!, you get the libretto Kunze happens to like best at that moment, and then some additional scenes you can fit into preferred places in the musical. The Hungarians have quite a nice mixture, although there still are scenes that could be left out, moved to another place or made a bit differently. Like, I don't approve of replacing "Was für ein grausames Leben" with a preprise of "Wie wird man seinen Schatten los", because the latter is much more effective when it only comes in the end of the 1st act. And yet there later seemed to be a random short reprise of "Was für ein grausames Leben", the point of which I didn't quite get. I also wonder why "Ein bissl für's Herz" is almost in the end, when things are starting to go downhill and more dramatic. The song feels out of place.

Szilveszter Szabó and a phallic candle

I very much like the final scene, I actually got goosebumps in it and that doesn't happen very often nowadays. I love the original finale song, too, but ending the musical with "Mozart! Mozart!" works better, and Amadé "conducting" it was creepy. Colloredo's travel scene with the Episode Of The Portable Toilet impressed me, the skiing guys on the sides of the cleverly made sleigh worked very well and the toilet part of the scene was great. I also adore "Egyszerű út", the new duet between Colloredo and Wolfgang somewhere in the 2nd act.

Zoltán Bereczki playing air tuning fork

I regularly forget how much I love Mozart!'s score. Some songs are less good than the others, but it definitely has some of my favourite Levay songs ever, like the abovementioned "Mozart! Mozart!". Generally I adore the musical even if I sometimes forget its existence for a while, it's definitely one of my favourites and would deserve more productions. The story is tragic and touching, about growing up, making independent choices, not understanding people and fighting against norms, and seeing the musical done well feels like a mental gym.

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Miss Saigon - Operettszínház, Budapest, December 2011

I don't like Miss Saigon that much. It has some nice tunes but the story is quite uninteresting for me. Anyone reading this blog may have noticed that in most cases saccharine and/or tragic larger-than-life love stories of beautiful and innocent young people are not my piece of cake. I don't like West Side Story, which probably tells it all. Nevertheless, I have a habit of checking out musicals in Hungary if I can, because there I know I can get good performance quality with relatively little money.

© Operettszínház

As I expected, the story didn't impress me, and though I like some songs, most of the musical was rather boring. Even though there were lots of sets and props, the Operettszínház seems to have learned something during these years because they did not lift people to sing their solos on platforms. Not even once. I was amazed. Besides, they put up such a huge show that it made up the boring story for me.

I had my usual shouting problem with the cast: almost everyone's singing hurt my ears. The best exceptions were Árpád Zsolt Mészáros as the Engineer (or Professzor, as he's called in Hungarian), whose voice I don't like that much even though he sings very well, and Sándor György-Rózsa (John), who was pleasant to listen to. After the whole 1st act of sharp nasal voices, his Bui Doi was heavenly. Árpád Zsolt Mészáros's acting saved the show for me, he was so full of energy and slime and despair. I've seen the same style in many characters that he plays, and it suited the Engineer, too. Zsuzsi Vágó as Kim and Dénes Kocsis as Chris were okay acting-wise, though you could hear that Dénes is quite young and his voice wasn't always enough for the role. I liked Miklós Máté Kerényi as Thuy, it was nice to see him in a bad guy role for a change.

Árpár Zsolt Mészáros & Marilyns

The show started with the sound of helicopter, with a video projection of jungle and running fighters and whatnot, as if we were in the helicopter, hunting for enemies. Red lights, smoke, sound filling the theatre – very well made. When the "helicopter" reached its destination, two soldiers slid down from the front stage's high roof with ropes, started to shoot around on stage and generally showed the cruel reality of war like we had been in the middle of it. (I did get the feeling that someone had released their inner little boy who likes to crawl in mud and shout 'bang!'.)

The big dance scenes were impressive – and big. "The Morning of the Dragon" reminded me of public shows in lands like China and North Korea: soldiers, gymnastic dancers, a dragon breathing fire, all in black and shades of red, and finally a huge statue in the style of Socialistic Realism. Having watched photos of Kim Jong Il's funeral a few days back, the scene was thought-provoking. Also the Engineer's scenes were so lavish, over-the-top and full of kitsch that it must have been intentional. In "American Dream" there was a flow of American symbolic people dancing on stage, then came six Marilyn Monroes, then came Spider-Man and Superman, after that a cabriolet in the best Las Vegas style… When you thought you had seen it all, they always brought a new shiny piece of show to the stage. Oh, and the famous helicopter scene looked great as well, they had a real-size helicopter lowered to the stage with a propeller and all and it looked very real.

The sets (by Kentaur) were a little disappointment. They were sometimes quite cleverly made, but there was again too much unimportant stuff on stage, especially in real-life scenes like the girl bars, Kim's room, the Vietnamese surroundings and Chris's hotel room. The dream and dance scenes worked well, though. In "Last Night of the World" the stage was almost empty, there was only a watchtower with a soldier playing saxophone on top of it. In the end of the scene he was suddenly shot and fell down and the saxophone was left hanging from the tower. I loved the detail. In Kim's nightmare the stage was empty and lit red, and from somewhere emerged the all-white ghost of Thuy with a bright red blood stain on his chest. Creepy.

Operettszínház also specializes in showing prostitutes and other women of that kind in very little clothes, but I had never seen them in this little clothes. There was a bored-husband-taken-to-theatre sitting on both sides of me, and I could feel them suddenly getting very interested in what was going on. :-P Personally, I could have done with less bare flesh, but then again, I'm not Hungarian. It also wasn't clear to me why there were two very similar long-ish prostitute scenes in the musical, because I'm pretty sure that we'd have gotten the picture of sad prostitutes forced to serve pathetic soldiers/tourists with a bit less effort, too.

All in all, not something I'd go to see again, but nevertheless an interesting production.

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