David Henry Hwang's modern classic, M. BUTTERFLY charts the scandalous romance between a married French diplomat and a mysterious Chinese opera singer - a remarkable love story of international espionage and personal betrayal. Their 20-year relationship pushed and blurred the boundaries between male and female, east and west - while redefining the nature of love and the devastating cost of deceit.
Academy Award nominee and Golden Globe Award winner Clive Owen will star as Rene Gallimard in the first Broadway revival of David Henry Hwang's Tony Award-winning play, M. BUTTERFLY, directed by Tony Award winner Julie Taymor.
For the Tony Award-winning play's first Broadway return, Hwang will introduce new material inspired by the real-life love affair between French diplomat Bernard Boursicot and Chinese opera singer Shi Pei Pu that has come to light since the play's 1988 premiere.
oday's audiences will find the deception that is at the heart of 'M. Butterfly' far less shocking than when it won the Tony for best play in 1988. Maybe not shocking at all. In reworking the piece for the revival that opened on Broadway Thursday night, playwright David Henry Hwang, along with director Julie Taymor, clearly recognized the need to come at the intriguing - and true - story from a different angle.
Though it ends with a tragic death that mimics the searing ending of Puccini's 'Madama Butterfly ' - which is alluded to (and heard in bits) throughout - Taymor's plodding, sometimes fussy staging, coupled with Hwang's revised version of the play, ultimately leave a wearying, watery impression. Today the play seems overstuffed with now-shopworn metatheatrical gambits (direct address, audience engagement, a fake 'I'm ending this show now' moment, etc.), as well as self-explanatory dialogue that bluntly lays bare its themes. Plus there's the melodramatic climax for a big finish.
1988 | Broadway |
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2017 | Broadway |
Broadway Revival Production Broadway |
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