"Miss Saigon," set in the 1970s during and shortly after the U.S. military occupation of Vietnam, is like war: loud, vulgar and unsettling.

It's about actions taken without careful thought about the consequences, about the nightmarish nature of war and the difficulty of making peace, with nations and with oneself.

The Music Circus presentation, the last production of the season, runs through Sunday at the Wells Fargo Pavilion. It is a stunning production – costumes, staging, the sheer mechanics of it all – but also a bit of an assault on the eyes and ears.

"Miss Saigon" is from the creators of "Les Misérables" (music by Claude-Michel Schonberg and lyrics by Richard Maltby Jr. and Alain Boublil) and brings Puccini's opera "Madame Butterfly" into modern times, setting the epic tragedy in Saigon during the Vietnam War.

Eric Kunze plays Chris, an American soldier disillusioned with war and life, until – one night in a bar run by The Engineer (played by Kevin Gray), he meets Kim, a Vietnamese bar girl, played by Ma-Anne Dionisio. They fall in love during the final days of the American occupation of Saigon, but when the Americans abandon the city, Chris is unable to take Kim with him.

Abandoned, she does what she must to survive, and he, with difficulty back in the States, finally manages to do the same. Several years later, with Chris now married, Kim re-enters his life with complications aplenty.

Stafford Arima directs the large and talented cast with assurance. Kunze and Gray have performed their "Miss Saigon" roles on Broadway, and Dionisio has played her role in London and Canada. They are seasoned performers, but they bring energy and commitment to the roles as if they were new, not old, acquaintances.

Kunze and Dionisio have several fine duets, best of which is the exquisite "Last Night of the "World." Gray is a particularly strong comic actor, as evidenced by his all-out embrace of "The American Dream."

In addition to the tragedy of war and loves and lives lost, "Miss Saigon" also tackles the thorny issue of children fathered by American GIs and abandoned – knowingly or otherwise – in Vietnam. Josh Tower's outstanding tune "Bui Doi" about these casualties of war is a show highlight.

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