Metamorphosed Butterfly to play Hult Center
By Ming Rodrigues
Emerald Contributor
This Is not the famous Pucci
ni opera Madame Butterfly To
.in extent it is a takeoff, but tills
1UHH Tony Award winning
play is more bizarre because
it's basis! on something that nr
tun 11 y happened
M Butterfly, Asiun-Amorican
playwright David Henry
Hwang's storv of love and de
ception, was horn from a news
storv of events that took pluce
in the world of international
spy rings between Paris and
Beijing i arlrig the Vietnam War
and the aftermath of those
events
The real Prench diplomat.
Bernard Boursicot, fell in love
with Shi Peipu, .1 popular Chi
rinse opera singer who he
thought was ,i woman
Legend has it that Boursicot
eventually passed classified In
formation to Peipu under the
belief that 'she’ would be
harmed by the Chinese govern
ment otherwise But it wasn't
until they were both jailed that
Bourisrol discovered Peipu's
true gender.
"This is one of your more
though I-provoking, social-com
mentary tvpe of intellectual
plays," said Patricia Cush k, as
sistant director of marketing at
the Hull (Tinier
"And from the way tickets
are selling out over the more
traditional, lighter plays and
mush els, the dramatic appeal
of M Butterfly has been more
than anticipated."
M Butterfly ran for 777 per
formances on Broadway the
longest running play since
Amadous Its first national tour
played 2T> cities In f>2 works,
becoming one of I hi? longest
and most successful opening
tours of a straight dramatit
play.
When first researching the
story. Hwang found a quote
from Hoursinot that ss.is an at
tempt to amount for the fart
that fie had never seen his Chi
rinse "girlfriend" nuked
"He salt), I thought she was
very modest I thought it was a
Chinese custom,' Hwang said
in a press release
"Now, I am aware that tflis Is
not a Chinese custom, that
Asian women are no more sh\
with their lovers than are worn
en of the West," added Hwang
"1 am also aware, however, that
Boursicot's assumption was
consistent with a certain stereo
typed view of Asians as Ixiw
mg, passive flowers
"He probably thought lie had
found his Madame Butterfly,"
said Hwang, adding that In Chi
nese- American slang, a "Butter
fly" is a woman who personi
fies the Western i ultural stereo
type of the passive Oriental
woman
Thus came the Idea of do
constructing Puccini's < lassie
opera about a young Asian
woman who pines away and fi
nally dies for her love of a cruel
American naval officer
Hwang came up with his
own twist to the play: The
brent liman fantasizes that he is
Pinkerton (the naval officer)
and his lover is Butterfly
By the end of the piece, how
ever, he realizes that it is he
File photo
The characters ot Boursicot and Peipu tall Into a love complicated by deception in David Hwang's M. But
terfly, which will play at the Hull Center beginning Sept.30.
who has been Butterfly, in that
ho has boon (bipod hv love, and
the Chinese spy who exploited
that love is the real Pinkerton
But one might ask how such
a delusion could possibly he
carried through.
"From my point of view,"
Hwang wrote in his script's
afterword, "the impossible'
story of a Frenchman duped by
a Chinese man masquerading as
a woman always seemed per
fectly explicable, given the de
gree of misunderstanding be
tween men and women and
also between East and West, it
seemed inevitable that a mis
take of this magnitude would
one day take place."
If anything. M. Du tt nr fly is
intended as a challenge for the
audience to question the essen
tial relationships of East and
West, men and women, fantasy
and reality.
"I consider it a plea to ull
sides to cut through our respec
tive layers of cultural and sexu
al misperceptions, to deal with
one another truthfully for our
mutual good," Hwang said.
" I hoso who prefer to bypass
the work involved will remain
in a world of surfaces, with
misconceptions running ram
pant,” he added. "This is, to
mo, the convenient world in
which the French diplomat and
the Chinese spy lived."
M. Butterfly opens the Hu It
Center's On-Droadway series
Monday, Sept. 30 at H p.m. in
the Silva Concert Hall. Tickets
are S25. S22.50, S18.50, and
515 and are available at the
HMIJ Main Desk or by calling
the Hull Center at 687-5000.
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