Rachelle Ann’s new journey
For her achievement in landing the role of “Gigi” in the upcoming restaging of Miss Saigon at London’s West End, Rachelle Ann Go deserves more than just an article “announcing” her feat.
The best thing that came out of Rachelle Ann’s triumph was that she really earned it, from the time she had to deal with a struggling career that pitted her against numerous powerful songstresses to the pains of heartbreak, not to mention her journey from one network to another.
With Cameron Mackintosh’s announcement that she grabbed the role previously essayed by Isay Alvarez, Rachelle Ann proved she’s more than just a variety show singer or an occasional character actress. She showed even the likes of Mackintosh and the musical’s creators, Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schonberg that her talent goes beyond belting out songs to wild abandon but to portraying a difficult character on the musical stage in a disciplined yet evocative manner.
Drastic turn
Now, Rachelle Ann will take a drastic turn from impressing local Sunday audiences to the punctilious and detailed set of West End habitués. Theater, particularly performing at this side of the world, demands no simple transformation for even the most successful pop stars. The art and discipline are totally different from what singers like Rachelle Ann are accustomed to. Acing a song with the best vocal calisthenics is not really a good key to success. Rachelle Ann also has a relative lack of solid theater experience, with only a few under her belt, including recent productions like Tarzan and Little Mermaid, in which she grabbed a Best Actress plum for the lead role of Ariel.
Despite these, Rachelle Ann knows what it takes to overcome these challenges. It is her passionate dedication to her craft and the discipline and the professionalism she always exudes. In this particular inroad to international theater, this means totally forgetting yourself while putting yourself in character—another sort of challenge with a role like Gigi, the hardened stripper who goes head to head with Kim for the title “Miss Saigon”—considering the skimpy suits she’d wear and the sort of explicit acts she needs to do onstage.
Will these be a hurdle for Rachelle Ann? A definite no.
She will surely rise above it and make an indelible mark in the production.
We wish Rachelle Ann well in her new journey. The same wish applies to the rest of the Filipinos in the musical, including Jonjon Briones as “The Engineer” and Eva Noblezada in the lead role as “Kim.”
