M. Butterfly

Now here's a play with depth. Here you have your racial stereotypes, your political stereotypes, your gender stereotypes, all coupled in a massive sexual stereotyping for the ages. A misunderstanding so great and maintained for so long requires a massive amount of explanation, an intro to which the playwright has thankfully provided us at the end of his work. The language was a bit coarse for my tastes, so my rating originally wasn't five stars. But the amount of thought and discussion this piece provokes is definitely better than five stars. It delves unflinchingly into sexual deviations and fetishes that the public would be better off being aware of, as the repercussions of these are more rampant than one would think. One can only show more hope that this becomes required reading in the future at some level of education. It may not require as much digging for meaning as most books, but it will definitely broaden one’s mind in ways that are necessary in this day and age. show less

David Henry Hwang’s masterpiece must be heard to be appreciated — no mere reading of the script can do it justice. Nor can David Cronenburg’s film version provide a substitute. With all of the political overtones stripped away, the film M. Butterfly becomes just another of the freak shows for which Cronenburg is so well known.

At its heart, Hwang’s original play reveals how the hubris and ignorance of the West and its preference for the comforting lies of Orientalism over a reality too harsh for the West to bear leads to downfall — in Rene Gallimand’s case, a humiliating political and personal one; in the West’s case, a humiliating political and military loss in the Vietnam War. The parallels are obvious, but in Hwang’s show more hands, so deftly handled that I would recommend the L.A. Theatre Works edition to everyone. show less

This was a very interesting play, based on historical fact, about a french man who falls in love with a Chinese diva. She becomes his mistress and stays so for twenty years, at the end of which he discovers that not only is she a spy for the Communist party, but is also a man. The writing is scintillating and intoxicating. The character of the Chinese diva is alluring and multi-dimensional. It's fascinating how the story parallels the opera Madame Butterfly, especially in the way that Gallimard, though he thinks he is similar to the womanizer Pinkerton, is actually more similar to Madame Butterfly herself. This play has a fascinating take on what Hwang calls the western Rape mentality towards the East. A fascinating and quick read that show more I highly recommend. show less

Hwang’s play was written the same year the Supreme Court upheld a law criminalizing homosexual sodomy. (It was performed a couple of years later.) It’s the story of a French diplomat who fell in love with a Chinese opera singer, who for twenty years he believed was a woman. (He never knew that the women’s roles were played by male singers in traditional Beijing opera.) It’s about Orientalism and sexual myths, cultural divides and gender divides, the lies we tell ourselves about other people in order to tell ourselves lies about ourselves, and it felt (sadly) fresh and true over twenty years later.

White male privilege will fuck you up!

There are a couple awkward lines and sometimes it feels like Hwang is being far too obvious with the themes of the play, not letting the audience work them out for themselves, but overall, M Butterfly is a fascinating study of racial and gender stereotypes in an East vs West battle of sorts. It's also an interesting puzzle to work out, with both leads providing their subjective view-points of events, distorting the truth to show the fantasies they had created. It openly embraces its theatricality, which is one of the reasons the movie is so disappointing in my opinion; it focused too much on realism which made it feel so awkward. The incorporation of the actual opera Madame Butterfly into the play show more provides an interesting mirror to the characters's situation, although the parallels do veer dangerously close to melodrama in one or two scenes. Obviously, the premise is one that may require a real suspense of disbelief for some - although it is based on a true story - but that feels natural to the play itself. Rene has spent so long building up his perfect fantasy, living out Madame Butterfly with his own apparently submissive beautiful Chinese woman, and he's desperate to hold onto it, even in the face of destruction. It's a play that would require a strong director and actors to match. Highly recommended. show less

Brilliant play. Blah movie. But both are worth getting into. The story is compelling and brings up a number of good points about the faults of Western, white male-dominated culture. Post-colonialism at its best and awfully funny dialogue.

FANTASTIC. A cutting and innovative interrogation of "Orientalist" stereotypes, using a real-life story and the opera *Madame Butterfly.* I am pretty sure this is the play I will be teaching this fall.