The Production of M. Butterfly and the Reflection of Culture - Essay Example

Analysis of the production of M. Butterfly and the reflection of culture M. Butterfly is a play David Hwang. It is one of the highly acclaimed and popular Asian American plays produced in the 20th century. The importance of the play written by Hwang as well as the increasing significance of Asian American theater depict the increasing attention accorded to the cultural, intellectual and political issues: gender, race, sexualities, ethnicity, and most importantly how they intersect. The vital strategies of comprehending M Butterfly rely both on the political contexts between China, North America and Europe and on the Orientalism culture of politics. Criticisms towards M. butterfly range from arguments or debates over illustration of sexualities and ethnicity, Orientalism politics, theatre to performance theories. As such, this essay explores and analyzes the production of M. Butterfly and ways through which the play manifests Asian scenic designs, tales, costume designs, movements, and sounds to the whole world. The play incorporates various Asian elements. For instance, the stage design has a hanamichi, the actors wear Japanese traditional clothes and the story line depicts the notion of an Asian woman who is slender, beautiful and submissive. Additionally, M Butterfly employs the element of cross-dressing which is a Chinese characteristic commonly used by Beijing opera actors. All these elements in the play represent Asia. Madama Butterfly by Giacomo Puccini inspired David Hwang into writing the M. Butterfly play. Hwang based his play on a true story. Renne Galiimard, the protagonist works as a civil servant in the French Embassy in China. The protagonist falls in love with Song Liling, the Chinese opera diva while in the process of watching Madama Butterfly. They immediately establish a love relationship that proceeds to last more than two decades. The end of the love passion comes when authorities sentence Gallimard of treason with subsequent imprisonment. To his surprise, the protagonist discovers that the purported lover was a man and a government investigator. Gallimard commits suicide for failing to accept the truth. The play by Hwang has three acts. Act 1 has thirteen scenes whereas Act 2 has seven and three scenes in the last Act. M. Butterfly presents a fictionalized story of a French diplomat who was in a relationship with an Asian, specifically Chinese singer for more than twenty years without actually knowing that his beautiful obedient and submissive lover was actually a male. Gallimard views himself as being clumsy when it comes to love. However, he considers himself blessed since he has a devoted beautiful and exotic woman (Liling Song). Hwang employs the term oriental in the play to refer to how the West considers Asians exotic. Most Americans have traditionally considered all Asians to look alike. The play illustrates this by the main action theatrically moved to China form Japan. More specifically, the appropriations of Chinese Beijing opera elements in the play represent the Asian monolithic culture. Song Liling appears on stage dresses in traditional Chinese garb while dancing. The play employs Chinese music during the scene that slowly transforms into Puccini’s opera love duet. Liling in her second stage appearance still dances to the Chinese music. Unlike in her previous appearance, she appears in Japanese gisha (Butterfly). By the sole fact that Liling appears on stage as Gallimard is keenly watching stretches her image objectification by the western view. Unknown to the protagonist, Liling is a Chinese spy whose intent was to manipulate Gallimard by extracting information from him concerning the Vietnam War. The author uses various deconstructive techniques in the play. Among them, Hwang applies flashbacks within disorganized memories. Scene Four in Act 1 for instance, takes the memories back to 1974. This was when the protagonist was in a school in France. Marc, a friend to Gallimard attempts to persuade him so they go to a party. The lack of confidence in Gallimard on the ability of Marc to handle girls contributes to the refusal by the protagonist to go to the party. Act 2 has another episode of flashbacks. The act starts in present times within the prison cell occupied by Galiimard. The protagonist gives his comments about opera by Puccini. Immediately after, it flashes back to Beijing in 1960. This was when Song lived in the house with Galliard. The design of the theatre and play reflects a semicircular ramp, curved around inner sets intricately. This allows for a smooth transition between or over the stage spaces. Liling enters the stage via this ramp. This acts as a depiction of kabuki’s hanamichi. Kabuki hanamichi was a passage or way that ran from the stage has left side via the audience and ending at the end of the theatre. Nevertheless, the play employs kabuki by using kurogo. This term refers to stage assistants wearing black. In addition, the characters undergo on stage changes unlike in the western theatre world where these changes are supposed to occur backstage. For instance, there is a transition and change from scene eleven acts two to scene one act three. In this transformation, song addresses the audience directly by informing them of his upcoming change on stage. He removes his wig, kimono and makeup and subsequently appears as a man wearing an Armani suit. Gallimard transitions for the last time during the play’s last/final scene on stage. They exchange their roles in acts of self-sacrifice (butterfly/pinker ton roles). They have been performing these roles for the time their relationship lasted (20 years). In the play, Gallimard puts makeup that used by Beijing opera female members. The makeup transforms him to have a white face with the eyes surrounded by rogue, and covering both cheeks and the sides of the nose. The kimono (which is a traditional Japanese costume) together with the makeup depict Asian cultural elements. Both the make-up and the kimono represent the Chinese and Japanese culture respectively. However, by juxtaposing both elements, the play’s author exposes the west’s lack of differentiation between the different Asian countries or cultures. Gallimard further reflects this generalization and confusion when he says that he has an orient vision in which slender and thin women dressed in kimonos and chong sams die or their unworthy foreign lovers. Cross-dressing is also another element of kabuki theatre adopted by the play. Cross-dressing is an action in which a male performer emulates a female’s actions and behaviors on stage and in real life. To make the cross dressing effect be felt by the audience, the play authors have to tell the audience that the play’s character is a male performer trying to emulate a woman. As such, the audience will separate the actor from the character. This helps to construct the character throughout the play. Since the beginning of the late eighteenth century, male performers in china have been dressing as women therefore taking up the roles of female characters especially in Beijing opera. This practice referred to as the dan in Chinese. The cross dressing practice was made popular by a growing custom in the 18th century where boys were bought from the poor parts of the various Chinese provinces and forced to take female roles in Beijing opera. A contract was normally signed which required the boy or boys to return to their parents after a given period. However, the boys trained in the art of opera before the required period expired. During their time in the capital, some of them would take the role of courtesans since female prostitution was restricted or banned. Consequently, the boys now as actors (dan) would assume female roles on stage, and they would assume these roles in other parts of social life. The boys or female roles considered to represent the ideal and perfect woman. As song once said, it is only a man who can know how a real woman is supposed to behave and act. Furthermore, the idea of cross-dressing cemented by kabuki theatre where the act of men undertaking women roles can be traced to 1629 when women were banned from appearing on theatre stage. To reiterate the point stated earlier, the Japanese took the adoption of female roles by males to extreme ends. The onnagata actors not only tried to illustrate femininity, but also tried to become women. The Japanese actors went to extremes up to points where they lived and behaved as women outside the theatres. They wore women’ clothes and additionally engaged themselves in womanly duties such as sewing. M Butterfly uses the concept of onnagata and kabuki’s feminism from a traditional viewpoint. The action by song to continue acting as a woman even in the absence of Gallimard in scene four illustrates this case well. As such, the adoption of female roles by men is a traditional aspect of Beijing opera. Therefore, this aspect of the play interpreted to represent Asia. Space in the play depicts the psychic reality of Gallimard. During the opening scene of the play, Gallimard appears in an enchanted space that is in his cell. Gallimard comes up with the vision and imagination of how a perfect woman looks like while in this enchanted space. Gallimard enters a dreamlike stance where he creates a fantasy that the audience deconstructs to mean or show the unfulfilled wishes he has. His primary desire is to be in control. The theatre uses an A effect technique where the actor tends to play his part out of character. This technique is often associated with Asian art and theatre. The play’s actors get out of their characters and take time to tell the audience what is occurring on stage. The primary for this is to enhance and make it easier for the audience to understand the play more. Therefore, Gallimard wishes to be in charge by looking for a new twist to the story where song returns to his arms thereby redeeming his glory. In order to make this possible, the play incorporates theatre within or in theatre. Gallimard thus assumes the pinker ton role as he commences to narrate the story. He acts as a master of ceremonies by introducing all the characters to his audience. Furthermore, Gallimard assumes the stage director role as he draws the audience’s attention and interest to one of song’s many first appearances where he describes her movement in detail (intra dialogic on stage direction). The actors in the play adorn kimono attires. The term translates to mean ‘a thing to put on or wear’. The kimonos worn by the characters in the play represent Asia since these garments originated from the region. The kimonos are often t shaped clothes with a hem just below the ankle. They are mostly or wrapped around the wearer’s body with the right side being under the left side. These garments matched with zori that is traditional footwear in Japan. In ancient times, all genders wore kimono. However, in present times, females when going for special occasions mostly adorn kimonos. Therefore, the play uses Asian dressing. Kabuki is a traditional dance drama practiced in Japan. Its actors wearing makeup also characterize it. A kabuki stage has a projection termed as hanamichi. This projection goes into and through the audience. It is through this projection that the actors exit or enter the stage. In addition, some scenes traditionally performed on this projection. Kabuki traced back to the seventeen century in Japan when Izumo began commenced doing a new and different style of drama. In the beginning, both genders performed the drama. However, the restriction of female performers later meant that the men adopted the female roles. Hwang in an interview quipped that he was interested in the different ways he would create theatre. He insisted that he preferred theatre that uses different mediums at his disposal to create keep the audience glued to the play (Hwang et al, 1989). To do this, he incorporated dance, opera, comedy and music in the play. Additionally, he went further and incorporated theatrical things such as costumes and make up changes. In light of this, little or no attention went to M. Butterfly theatricality. Relying on postmodern aesthetics theory (parody, intersexual references), the play employs a lot of stage pictures, dramatic shapes, theatrical proxemics, language, character construction, and kinesics which contribute greatly to its thematic content. On a broader view, these attributes also depicts a Chinese/ Japanese culture. However, from a western point of view, the play illustrates many aspects from the Asian culture. Work cited Hwang, David Henry, & John Louis DiGaetani. ‘M. Butterfly’; an Interview with David Henry Hwang’. TDR (1989): 141-153. Print. Read More