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.
Though it bent (and blew) the minds of rapt audiences with its elusive opalescence nearly three decades ago, David Henry Hwang's 'M. Butterfly' returns to Broadway on heavier, drabber wings. True, the revival that opened on Thursday night at the Cort Theater, directed by Julie Taymor, has basically the same anatomy as its predecessor. But it has undeniably morphed into a more prosaic creature, and the tantalizing mists that surrounded its initial run have dissolved as if under a harsh morning sun. When the enigmatic title character in this breakthrough drama about the illusions of sexual and cultural identity is brusquely commanded to 'Strip!' by a stricken suitor, you're apt to think, 'No need guys. That's already been taken care of.'
'The Lion King' has secured Julie Taymor's status as a director with style and vision. But her work here is short on passion and inspiration. Awkward sliding panels, which dominate the set design, add to the choppiness of the play. Scenes from operas add pageantry but mostly feel like padding. On the other hand, the drama also omits details. That includes what the initial attraction is for Gallimard when he thinks Song is a man. The fluidity of gender is certainly topical today, but the question of how Song carried on the gender-bending ruse for so long remains unanswered. Song's anatomically explicit courtroom testimony of the mechanics of his duplicity still leaves questions. Basically it comes down to that people see what they need to see.
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