M. Butterfly
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''M. Butterfly'' is a play by
David Henry Hwang David Henry Hwang (born August 11, 1957) is an American playwright, librettist, screenwriter, and theater professor at Columbia University in New York City. He has won three Obie Awards for his plays '' FOB'', '' Golden Child'', and '' Yellow ...
. The story, while entwined with that of the opera ''
Madama Butterfly ''Madama Butterfly'' (; ''Madame Butterfly'') is an opera in three acts (originally two) by Giacomo Puccini, with an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It is based on the short story "Madame Butterfly" (1898) by John Luther ...
'', is based most directly on the relationship between French diplomat
Bernard Boursicot Bernard Boursicot (born on 12 August 1944) is a French diplomat who was caught in a honeypot trap (seducing him to participate in Chinese espionage) by Shi Pei Pu, a male Peking opera singer who performed female roles, whom Boursicot believed to ...
and
Shi Pei Pu Shi Pei Pu (; December 21, 1938 – June 30, 2009)
''
Peking opera singer. The play premiered on Broadway in 1988 and won the 1988
Tony Award The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Broadway Theatre, more commonly known as the Tony Award, recognizes excellence in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual cer ...
for Best Play. In addition to this, it was a Pulitzer Prize for Drama finalist in 1989.


Productions

''M. Butterfly'' premiered at the National Theatre, Washington, DC, on February 10, 1988. The play opened on Broadway at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre on March 20, 1988, and closed after 777 performances on January 27, 1990. It was produced by
Stuart Ostrow Stuart Ostrow (born February 8, 1932) is an American theatrical producer and theatre director, director, professor, and author. Early life Stuart Ostrow was born in 1932 in New York City to Abe and Anna Ostrow. He attended The High School of Music ...
and directed by John Dexter; it starred
John Lithgow John Arthur Lithgow ( ; born , 1945) is an American actor. Lithgow studied at Harvard University and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art before becoming known for his work on the stage and screen. He has been the recipient of numerous ...
as Gallimard and BD Wong as Song Liling. David Dukes,
Anthony Hopkins Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins (born 31 December 1937) is a Welsh actor, director, and producer. One of Britain's most recognisable and prolific actors, he is known for his performances on the screen and stage. Hopkins has received many accolad ...
,
Tony Randall Anthony Leonard Randall (born Aryeh Leonard Rosenberg; February 26, 1920 – May 17, 2004) was an American actor. He is best known for portraying the role of Felix Unger in a television adaptation of the 1965 play ''The Odd Couple'' by Neil Sim ...
, and John Rubinstein played Gallimard at various times during the original run. The play was a 1989 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. A highly unusual abstract staging, featuring
Puccini Giacomo Puccini (Lucca, 22 December 1858Bruxelles, 29 November 1924) was an Italian composer known primarily for his operas. Regarded as the greatest and most successful proponent of Italian opera after Verdi, he was descended from a long lin ...
's opera ''Madame Butterfly'' intermixed with French pop music, had Kazakh
countertenor A countertenor (also contra tenor) is a type of classical male singing voice whose vocal range is equivalent to that of the female contralto or mezzo-soprano voice types, generally extending from around G3 to D5 or E5, although a sopranist (a s ...
Erik Kurmangaliev Erik Kurmangaliev (January 2, 1959 – November 13, 2007) was a Russian- Kazakh opera singer, actor and a leading public figure in Russia's perestroika music scene. Early life Kurmangaliev was born in Kazakhstan, which at the time was part of the ...
star as Song; he also sang two of Butterfly's arias live during the show. This production was directed by
Roman Viktyuk Roman Hryhorovych Viktyuk ( uk, Роман Григорович Віктюк; russian: link=no, Роман Григорьевич Виктюк, Roman Grigoryevich Viktyuk; 28 October 1936 – 17 November 2020) was a Ukrainian theatre director, act ...
in
Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...
, Russia and ran from 1990 to 1992. It is published by Plume and in an acting edition by Dramatists Play Service. An audio recording of the play was produced by L.A. Theatre Works, with Lithgow and Wong reprising their Broadway roles along with Margaret Cho. A Broadway revival opened on October 26, 2017, at the Cort Theatre, with previews beginning on October 7. Starring
Clive Owen Clive Owen (born 3 October 1964) is an English actor. He first gained recognition in the United Kingdom for playing the lead role in the ITV series '' Chancer'' from 1990 to 1991. He received critical acclaim for his work in the film '' Close ...
and
Jin Ha Jin Ha is a South Korean-born American actor known for his roles in the TV series ''Devs'', '' Love Life'', and ''Pachinko'' in addition to the musical ''Hamilton''. Early life and education Ha was born in Seoul, South Korea, before moving to ...
, the production was directed by Julie Taymor. David Henry Hwang made changes to the original text for the revival, mostly centering on the issue of intersectional identities, but also for clarifications.


Plot

The first act introduces the main character, René Gallimard, a civil servant attached to the French embassy in China. In a prison, Gallimard is serving a sentence for treason. Through a series of flashbacks and imagined conversations, Gallimard tells an audience his story about a woman that he loved and lost. He falls in love with a beautiful Chinese opera singer, Song Liling. Gallimard is unaware that all female roles in traditional
Beijing opera Peking opera, or Beijing opera (), is the most dominant form of Chinese opera, which combines music, vocal performance, mime, dance and acrobatics. It arose in Beijing in the mid-Qing dynasty (1644–1912) and became fully developed and recognize ...
were actually played by men, as women were banned from the stage. The first act ends with Gallimard returning to France in shame and living alone after his wife, Helga, finds out about his affair with Song and divorces him. In act two it is revealed that Song had been acting as a spy for the Chinese government, and she is actually a man who has disguised himself as a woman to seduce Gallimard and extract information from him. They stay together for 20 years and married until the truth is revealed, and Gallimard is convicted of treason and imprisoned. Unable to face the fact that his "perfect woman" is a man, he retreats deep within himself and his memories. The action of the play is depicted as his disordered, distorted recollection of the events surrounding their affair. In act three, Song reveals himself to the audience as a man, without makeup and dressed in men's clothing. Gallimard claims he only loved the idea of Butterfly, never Song himself. Gallimard throws Song and his clothing off the stage, but holds onto Butterfly's kimono. In scene three, the setting returns to Gallimard's prison cell, as he puts on makeup and Butterfly's wig and kimono. Then he stabs himself, committing suicide just as Butterfly does in the opera.


Changes for 2017 Broadway revival

Hwang revisited the text for the Julie Taymor-directed 2017 revival, largely to incorporate further information that had emerged about the Boursicot case, and address intersectional identities. Changes include: *Song Liling initially presents as male to Gallimard, only to claim to be physically female but made to dress up as a man by her parents. **Hwang noted in an interview that the surprise reveal that Song Liling is actually a man no longer carried the shock value it did in 1988, especially after '' The Crying Game'' used the same tactic only a few years later. *The show is changed to a two-act structure. *Act 1 ends with Song telling Gallimard that she is pregnant (this moment originally occurred during Act 2). *Further information on how Song Liling managed to mislead Gallimard even while they were intimate.


Film adaptation

Hwang adapted the play for a 1993 film directed by
David Cronenberg David Paul Cronenberg (born March 15, 1943) is a Canadian film director, screenwriter, and actor. He is one of the principal originators of what is commonly known as the body horror genre, with his films exploring visceral bodily transformation ...
with Jeremy Irons and John Lone in the leading roles.


Opera adaptation

Chinese-American composer and colleague
Huang Ruo Huang Ruo (黃若, born 1976) is a Chinese-born composer, pianist and vocalist who now lives in the United States. Biography Born on Hainan Island off the southern coast of China in 1976, Huang was taught piano and composition from the age o ...
used the play as the libretto for his opera which premiered in July 2022 at Santa Fe Opera.


Relevance to the LGBT community

In an interview with David Henry Hwang, the playwright states: “The lines between gay and straight become very blurred in this play, but I think he knows he's having an affair with a man. Therefore, on some level he is gay.” In a 2014 review for the Windy City Times, Jonathan Abarbanel states that Song Liling “may be gay but it's a secondary point raised only as a way by which Chinese government agents can control him. As an exploration of sexuality, it's about the Divine Androgyne who Song Liling may recognize and exploit, and which Gallimard certainly recognizes and embraces in the play's closing moments.” The Washington Blade refers to Gallimard as “a gay man who couldn’t be himself. He had to mask behind male bravado, cultural and religious dicta, and diplomatic constraints. But he was willing to overlook and deny everything in pursuit of love.” Hwang talked to several people with nonconforming gender identities to get better insight into the character of Song, but he ultimately stressed that the character is not transgender. “He recognized how Song might be differently received by a modern audience more savvy about the wide spectrum of gender identity.” Ilka Saal writes: “The playwright uses the figure of the transvestite to lay bare the construction and performativity of gender and culture. Yet he stops short of questioning compulsory heterosexuality at its base, and thereby fails to use queer desire in order to open up interstices, categories of 'thirdness,' in this tight homophobic structure.” In an article for Pride Source, Pruett and Beer state: “Gallimard is a man who thinks he is heterosexual, but is in fact a practicing homosexual for 20 years. Song takes on the role of a woman, but always self-identifies as a gay man, not a transgendered person.” Christian Lewis, when writing about the 2017 revival, wrote in the Huffington post that “this production does not explore any foray into non-binary or transgender identities, which is perhaps its one major flaw.”


Awards and nominations


Original Broadway production

"'M. Butterfly' Production Broadway"
playbillvault.com, accessed October 11, 2015


References


External links

* * {{Navboxes , title = Awards for ''M. Butterfly'' , list = {{DramaDesk Play 1975–2000 {{TonyAwardBestPlay 1976-2000 1988 plays Broadway plays Plays by David Henry Hwang Drama Desk Award-winning plays LGBT-related plays Tony Award-winning plays Plays set in China Cross-dressing in literature