Some things are just understood. War is hell. Love endures forever. The more money that s poured into a production, the better it should be. This is set up in the very beginning of the musical, when the lighting gives the effect of a watercolor sun rising on a rice paper backdrop.
Flutes play a simple Asian melody as Vietnamese commoners mill about the stage.
The music swells, intensifying in temp and volume. It is in Dreamland that we meet Chris, a Marine working for the embassy in Saigon, and Kim, an orphaned teenager on her first night as a prostitute. She is young and naive. He is disillusioned and ready to go back to the states. After a night together, the unlikely pair fall in love.