MICHELLE T. HALL (DRAMATURGE) IS THE LITERARY MANAGER OF ARENA STAGE, here is her synopsis shared in the 'M. BUTTERFLY' program for further insight.... "In M. Butterfly, Hwang deconstructs and subverts audience expectations of the 1904 opera Madama Butterfly by Italian composer Giacoma Puccini. This iconic opera, based on a true story shared by 1860's American writer John Luther Long, who heard it from his missionary sister, tells of a Japanese woman, Butterfly, who falls in love with an American man, Pinkerton, who marries then spurns her. She commits suicide over the affair. (The real Butterfly's suicide attempt failed.) Hwang also utilizes a lesser known true story–overheard at a party–about a long lasting affair (1960s-1980s) between French diplomat Bernard Boursicot and his Chinese lover, Beijing opera star, Shi Pei Pu. Pei Pu turned out to be a spy and as a result Boursicot was convicted of treason. The Frenchman also attempted suicide and failed. Hwang combines and expands on these true stories to invert assumptions about race, culture, sexuality, and gender roles. The initial M. used in the title is the French abbreviation for Monsieur, so the title translates to Mr. Butterfly. Hwang usurps the original psychosexual dynamic of the opera by having Gallimard end as the spurned lover (the feminine role) even as he dreams of being the betrayer (the masculine role). When the play begins, Gallimard is a rather mediocre man, a junior diplomat who said, "Passion, I banish, and in its place–practicality," upon marrying his plain but well-connected wife. He believes true masculinity means exerting power over a beautiful woman-a power he has never experienced until he meets Song. Enamored of Puccini's opera, Gallimard fashions his behavior after Pinkerton, and average guy who lords himself over the beautiful, submissive Butterfly. Gallimard says, "I had finally gained power over a beautiful woman, only to abuse it cruelly." Gallimard and Song's love story plays out against a backdrop of volatile 1960s East-West relations. Western colonial empires are crumbling. The French have recently lost control of French Indochina and the stage is set for what America will come to know as the Vietnam War. The People's Republic of China teeters on the verge of the most violent wave of its Cultural Revolution. As a result of China's militant nationalism and mounting xenophobia, intellectuals and artists, especially those educated in the West, are brutally purged or rehabilitated. Hwang likens Gallimard's relationship with Song, the relationship ionized in the opera Madama Butterfly, to this larger landscape of western encounters with the East, "the Orient." The late scholar Edward Said, in his ground-breaking book Orientalism, describes that term not merely as a word but rather as an entire intellectual system whereby western cultures can define themselves as superior to eastern cultures. This knowledge leads them to the conclusion that they should rightfully colonized other cultures. More to the point, they believe that the other cultures welcome this act of colonization. Using his personal relationship as a cultural barometer, Gallimard stakes his diplomatic career on the assumption, as he says, that "Orientals will always submit to a greater force." Just as Gallimard ignores the complexities of other cultures at the expense of his diplomatic career-predicting that China will open to western trade and that the Communists will eventually be defeated in Indochina-so he chooses to over look the uncomfortable elements of his relationship with Song. He is blinded by his desire for the "oriental" as a submissive, idealized "other" over whom he should hold power. His Love for Song is inextricably linked to this ideal and proves to be his undoing. Song explains the attraction: "Her mouth says no, but her eyes say yes. The West believes the East, deep down, wants to be dominated-because a woman can't think for herself." Through a specific story of two people from different worlds, Hwang captures a socio-political dynamic that has existed and continues to exist in East-West relations. Above all, Hwang looks at the complexities of human desire. Gallimard's love for Song as Butterfly represents the human longing for absolute beauty and perfect love in an otherwise mediocre, lackluster world, the divine spark that makes life worth living. "Why can't anyone understand? That in China, I once loved and was loved by, very simply the Perfect Woman," Gallimard explains. Hwang vividly reminds us that whosoever would condemn Gallimard's misplaced love has probably not loved nor loved well." October Newsletter Go To Current Newsletter