The singer was later revealed to be a spy and this eventually led to the diplomat being imprisoned in Paris.

Butterfly is loosely based on true events, that of an affair between a French diplomat in Beijing and a Chinese opera singer.

Butterfly must have been to design and perform on the small stage in St Jude’s Hall, the play’s Director John Graham, the set designer Don Oakley and the cast have created an excellent production overall. Jude’s has demonstrated that, like all fine and independent theatre companies, they will never shy away from a good script.ĭifficult though the epic story of M. Butterfly dispels all such misapprehension St. The company’s current production of David Henry Hwang’s Tony Award-winning M. They may also therefore think it unlikely the company would risk producing plays with content that may shock, such as nudity or sexually explicit dialogue. A time when Song Liling, the beautiful Chinese diva, touched him with a love as vivid, as seductive-and as elusive-as a butterfly.ĭue to the company’s name and its church hall venue, some people may wrongly believe that St Jude’s Players is aligned to the church. In the darkness of his cell he recalls a time when desire seemed to give him wings. He is accused of providing the Chinese government (via Liling) with French state secrets. Several years later Liling re-establishes a relationship with Gallimard, who is now divorced from his wife.Īfter living with Liling for over fifteen years, Gallimard is arrested and tried for espionage. Subsequently, he abandons her and returns to his wife in France. Gallimard first encounters Song on stage as she performs the title role in the opera and develops a relationship with her. Hwang interweaves details from the Bouriscot story with plotlines from Giacomo Puccini’s Madama Butterfly (1904). Butterfly was inspired by an article Hwang read about the real-life 1986 scandal involving a French diplomat, Bernard Bouriscot, who for twenty years maintained a relationship with an international spy and Chinese opera singer.Įchoing Puccini's Madame Butterfly, this highly theatrical drama presents Rene who is easy prey for the exotic charm of Chinese opera singer Song Liling. Butterfly opens in the cramped prison cell where French diplomat Rene Gallimard is being held captive by the French government-and by his own illusions David Henry Hwang’s beautiful, heartrending play was winner of a 1988 Tony Award for Best Play and nominated for the 1989 Pulitzer Prize.īased on a true story that stunned the world, M.

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