M. Butterfly

I was a bit conflicted about starting this blog off with M. Butterfly by David Henry Hwang. On one hand, it's my all-time favourite play and my dream production. On the other hand, the thought of expressing all of my ideas is daunting and vaguely threatening to my fragile artistic self-confidence. So I've decided to do this one in installments —as much for my sanity as for that of the reader's.

So… here we go.

My copy of M. Butterfly includes a wonderfully funny, insightful, and encouraging afterword by DHH. This was the second last paragraph:

"M. Butterfly has sometimes been regarded as an anti-American play, a diatribe against the stereotyping of the East by the West, of women by men. Quite to the contrary, I consider it a plea to all sides to cut through our respective layers of cultural and sexual misperception, to deal with one another truthfully for our mutual good, from the common and equal ground we share as human beings."



It sounds overly dramatic and —like most artistic notes I've read— self-important. But I had the pleasure to see DHH speak at Hart House a few months ago, and I know he is sincere. M. Butterfly is more than a clever interpretation of a scandalous, real-life event. It is a poetic and poignant conflict between illusion and truth.

Stay tuned for more!