TEXT OF REVIEW (minor changes were made during recording and editing):

M. Butterfly

Back in 1964, a French Diplomat in China became infatuated with a singer from the Beijing Opera. When they met, the singer, now wearing men’s clothing, said she was a woman presenting as a man. They embarked on an affair that began in China and ended several years later in Paris, where it turned out the diplomat was passing secret information to his lover. He later said he never knew that the singer was really a man.

That story caught the public’s eye, and not long afterward, first time playwright David Henry Hwang used that story to create a play,which launched the career of B.D. Wong and later became a film with Jeremy Irons.

And now a production of M. Butterfly is at San Francisco Playhouse through March 14th. Of course, times change. When first produced on Broadway in 1988, gender roles outside of the gay community were rigid, and the East was still somehow viewed as exotic in the United States.

But change was already happening. Ten years earlier, Edward Said had redefined the term “orientalism” to describe, now quoting from Google, a Western system of representation that depicts the “East as static, exotic, and inferior to justify Western imperialism and domination.”

On top of that, gender fluidity hit the zeitgeist. While David Henry Hwang did update the play in 2017, it turns out there was no need, as we see and hear in the original 1988 version.

The show opens. We are in a prison cell where Rene, a former French diplomat, is serving out a sentence of treason. Mocked and reviled, he tries to explain exactly what happened and why, and how his uncontrollable obsession with the opera singer Song led to his ruin. The prison is real, and metaphorical. Rene is trapped in his fantasy and in his understandings, most of which are wrong and foolhardy.

Unfolding as a subtext is an examination of gender roles, of myths about the east, and of sexuality in general, as well as of the lies we tell ourselves, the lies we tell others, and the strictures society and governments put on all of us.

The production’s secret weapon are its two leads. Dean Lillard as Rene and Edric Young as Song are both brilliant, with a palpable connection, and repulsion. They are assisted by a superb cast in other roles, and mention must also be made of the gorgeous set design, lighting and costumes. This M. Butterfly is a sumptuous feast of theatre, for both the eyes, the intellect and the emotion.

M Butterfly plays at San Francisco Playhouse through March 14th. For more information you can go to sfplayhouse.org. I’m Richard Wolinsky on Bay Area theatre for KPFA.

The post Review: “M. Butterfly” at San Francisco Playhouse appeared first on KPFA.