The Oxford Dictionary of Plays

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M. Butterfly

M. Butterfly

Author: David Henry Hwang

First Performance: 1988, New York

Published: 1986

Genre: Trag. in 3 acts

Setting: Aix-en-Provence, 1947; Beijing, 1960–6; Paris, 1968–70, 1986

Cast: 8m, 8f

René Gallimard, in his prison cell in 1986, looks back at the events that ended his marriage and diplomatic career. He remembers his adolescent youth and his search for the ideal woman. In 1960, he was posted with his wife Helga to the French embassy in Beijing, where at a reception he meets the beautiful and sensitive performer Song Liling singing an aria from Puccini's Madame Butterfly, expressing the Western view of the ultimate devotion of the oriental woman. After meeting her again at the Chinese Opera, Gallimard and Song become lovers. Her modesty will not allow him to see her naked, but she teaches...

[The entire page is 386 words long]

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