MButterfly was written by David
Henry Hwang and premiered on Broadway in 1988. On the same year,
the play won the Tony Award for Best Play. It tells the story
of a married French diplomat, Rene Gallimard, who fell in love with Chinese
opera star Song Liling, a woman he considers to be perfect. The play is
inspired by Giaccomo Puccini's
opera, Madame Butterfly, and is loosely based on events surrounding
a 1986 espionage trial. It is revealed that Song is a homosexual male playing
the part of a woman. and a spy for the Communist Party of China.
The cast is composed of theater
greats. RS
Francisco is a male actor who
played the role of Song Liling, an Oriental girl who will seduce Rene, brought to
life by French actor Olivier Borten. Janine
Desiderio plays a brilliant Helga, the wife of Rene, from the
thick French accent to the body language that exudes a longing for his husband.
Veteran Scottish actor Norm Mcleod also joins
the cast as Manuel Touloun, the French ambassador to China as well as
trilingual American actor Lee O'Brian as
Marc, Rene's sexually unapologetic best friend. Filipina-Chinese actress Rebecca Chuaunsu played the role of Suzuki and Mayen Estanero was a vicious Comrade
Chen, with her cartoonish Chinese accent. Completing the cast is two-time ALIW
Awards finalist Maya Encila as Renee, a young,
sexually liberated Danish woman.
The play starts off quite
slowly, with Rene first establishing that he was a man of great importance to
France and that he was once loved by the “perfect woman” – his butterfly. His
monologue is accompanied by reenactments of his most important memories. This
includes his first time encountering an explicit magazine, his political
marriage to Helga, and his sexually charged conversations with Marc.
Gallimard's lengthy lines were delivered with a wry dorky sense of dry humor
which made him oddly endearing, and his fate sadder. The story picks up its
pace when Song Liling is first introduced to Rene through the former’s
performance of “Madame Butterfly”. Francisco as Song Liling, on the other hand,
gives the audience a wonderful show of submission–graceful movements, honeyed
voices, and beautiful weeping. However, the real delight of it is the tinge of
mastered manipulation that silently seeps through Song’s actions all throughout
the play.
The chill-inducing music
and sound effects along with the lighting design that borrowed inspiration from
Japanese rising sun propelled the play one suspenseful scene after another. The
transformation of Song Liling from Rene’s dainty butterfly to the man he reveals
himself to be is made more evident with the costumes. The set design for it
truly did set the mood for the play, especially at the play’s ending. The last
part was the most heartbreaking and most intense. RS Francisco and Olivier
Borten will once again make the hairs behind our neck stand with trepidation as
they barrel into the play’s finishing moments. This play will leave you
standing and clapping your hands in awe.
The play gracefully dons it layers–the discontentment
of Gallimard, the careful deceit of Song Liling, the start of the communist
revolution, the nation’s hatred of homosexuality, and the perspective of the
feminine oriental. Indeed, truly a masterpiece on stage.
