Word: salonga
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...patented English-musical mix of romance and melodrama, soliloquy and strife, all bound up in an unsurpassed spectacle. Seen through the eyes of two Vietnamese characters -- a pimp and hustler of irredeemable cynicism called the Engineer (Jonathan Pryce) and a woman of unquenchable faith and optimism called Kim (Lea Salonga) -- the narrative fuses a crude soap-opera plot with subtle satire of relations between capitalism and the Third World. Big in cast (45), emotion and physical sweep, the story ranges from the neon vice bars of Saigon and Bangkok to the red- bannered propaganda parades and squalid re-education camps...
...fact, most stood by Aquino, including Senate President Jovito Salonga, who has been critical of her policies. "It took so many years and so much sacrifice to get rid of the dictatorship," said Salonga. "We must protect this democracy despite all its faults and weaknesses...
...central romance, like the political backdrop, is a rescue fantasy. Soldier Chris (Simon Bowman) meets Kim (Lea Salonga), a village girl turned prostitute, and seeks to save her from that servitude, then from the wrath of a cousin to whom she was betrothed in childhood. At last, impulsively, he vows to save her from the coming chaos. His heart is good, but his head is clouded: he has no thought for the practical realities of her future in an alien land, only for the sweet moment of his own chivalry. Even that fails. In this revamping of Madama Butterfly, Chris...
...provides something subtler, less lushly melodramatic. Bowman and Claire Moore as his wife make the best of thankless parts, although his pitch and accent wobble while she sings gloriously. Jonathan Pryce is deliciously campy yet sympathetic as the Engineer, a Eurasian pimp evocative of the emcee in Cabaret. In Salonga, a star is born. Playing a plaster saint, she is stunningly real. But the show's final moments are so bleak that despite an $8 million advance, its future may not be assured. Some downers, like Les Miz, are at heart ups. This one is only a down...
...candidates would be elected; though the official count was not completed, Aquino's forces clearly fell short of that goal. Among those defeated were two of the President's relatives. "This is a rejection of the concept of political dynasty but not of Cory," said Senate President Jovito Salonga, an Aquino ally...