Rating: 
Summary: crying game before crying game
Review: a retelling of the legendary marriage of two males, one man not knowing his lover's true anatomy for 20 years. though seemingly comedic in appearance, it is a gut wrenching tale of pain and disillusionment and contentness through society's projected realities.
Rating:
Summary: Calling Puccini's Bluff...
Review: Hwang's M. Butterfly is a splendid tale of conflicting differences between man and woman, East and West, love and lust. Based on a true story, M. Butterfly invokes commonly held sterotypes about both the East and West and calls into question normative constructs of gender and the power dynamic found within. Here, we see Gallimard, the quasi-male, Western representation, fall in love with another man, Song, who dupes Gallimard by dressing and carrying on as a submissive Asian mistress. The reader is taken on a journey of flashbacks and all throughout the play, is forced to walk along Gallimard's consciousness. By the play's unpredictable end, we see what happens when all the roles are reversed--when man becomes woman, East becomes West. Clearly, Hwang intended to play upon an inversion of modern-day stereotypes in this work and does so quite well. From this work, the audience is forced to question the myth of the standard gendered roles and ethnic markers. However, as well written and effective this play is, it does lack some serios character development, particularly for some of its minor characters. The audience does not get to know much about Helga or Rene and some may claim that Song's character is never fully and ripefully presented. He comes across as one dimensional and still confined to the very stereotypes which Hwang obviously wants to reclaim and rewrite. Overall, this is a fine theatrical piece and worthy of in-depth discussion. One bit of caution: do not precede to read this piece as a simple "coming out" story, as it is more substantive and profound. For a budding playwright, Hwang hits the mark with this one!
Rating: 
Summary: Constructions of Power
Review: Hwang's play, "M.Butterfly" attepts to deconstruct the opera "Madame Butterfly" by breaking the back of the play. He does this by reversing both gender roles and the identifications of power that go along with those roles. First, Hwang represents the Western man, who is stereotypically strong, crass, and powerful, as Rene, a rather effeminate man with homosexual leanings. In doing so, Hwang makes it possible for the sterotypically weak and effiminate Oriental man, played by Song, to dupe and therefore overpower the Western man. One problem Hwang runs into, however, is the fact that Song is presented as effiminate. In fact, for most of the play Song is dressed and acts like a woman. His lines play right into Rene's preconceptions about the East, which both leads to his promotion as well as his eventual destruction and downfall. While Song does appear to win in the end, Rene, in fact rejects him. Thus while Hwang does attempt to deconstruct many of the Western stereotypes about the East, and does, he also perpetuates others. This play examines the overwhelming power of sterotypes as a discourse, through the concepts of gender and with the backdrop of the Vietnam War.
Rating:
Summary: Knots Landing Meets San Francisco Gay Scene
Review: I had to read M Butterfly for my College Sophomore-level English class last semester. I admit: I cheated. I rented the movie version of M Butterfly with Jeremy Irons in it. I was shocked when I saw the movie. I had no concept of the plot. An American Man in China, a Diplomat/Spy during the Vietnam war era meets this Chinese Woman and he is smitten by her because he believes in the stereotype that all Chinese women are submissive and docile. She plays into it and they become lovers for a very long period of years. At the end he finds out that his Chinese lover is actually a man, something he claims he never knew. I watched the movie and said "yeah right, look at her, how can you not tell she is a man?" I was intrigued by the plot after the movie, so I read the play and I was completely engrossed. The play is so much more better than the movie. The play has a lot more characters and gives more depth. I felt sorry for the movie version of Gallimard because it seemed like he was duped, but in the play we find Gallimard to be quite sexist, cold, and down right mean. The play M Butterfly is a fine play. It blends homosexuality, male dominance, female submission, gender roles, racial roles all into one ball of plot.
Rating: 
Summary: An Incomplete Deconstruction
Review: M. Butterfly is ment to be a deconstruction of the "classic" story of Western-man-meets-Asian-woman imortalized in the Italian opera, Madame Butterfly, and the American musical, Miss Saigon. M. Butterfly is a biting social critique of the inherent racial, cultural, and sexual dynamics at play in the West's story of the East. The play is truly interesting in the way in which it deconstructs the West's imperialistic attitued toward the East and its women. The power in this relationship between an French dilomat and the Chinese opera singer seems to belong, as traditionally is the case, to the Western man. However, it soon becomes clear that the real power in lies in the hands of Song, who is actually a Chinese spy. It is a convoluted story in which all of the traditional roles are confused. And while it does a wonderful job of confusing the simplistic dominant-submissive binary construction along which we traditionally judge West and East, it does little to reverse the similar assumptions we as a society make when evaluating the male-female dicotomy. Throughout the play, while the power shifts back and forth between Eastern and Western characters, the weak character is consistently depicted as feminine while the power resides in whichever character is the most traditionally masculine at any given moment. In this way, Whang does both a service to society in breaking down the West's stereotypes of the East without likewise deconstructing our patriarchal society's imperialistic attitueds towards women.
Rating:
Summary: M. Butterfly
Review: M. Butterfly takes place in the mind of Rene Gallimard. While the play begins with him in a French prison, we are taken far away from this prison into the depths of his mind. His fantasies of Song Liling are both reality and illusionary. He will ultimately face the most shocking truth about the "woman" he thought he loved for twenty years. M. Butterfly takes a bold move in rearranging common roles set by our society, whether speaking for the present or from fifty years ago. This play dives deep into the pool of stereotypes and makes every turn imaginable. While the Eastern/Western dichotomy is presented with stereotypes of both sides, roles are soon reversed which gives the dichotomy a whole new meaning. Gallimard, initially portrayed as the Western dominant male, and Song, initially portrayed as the compliant Asian woman, will both eventually reverse their sexual roles although their enthnic identities remain in tact. Gallimard evolves from the controller to the controlled, while Song proves his power and control as his masculinity is revealed. All of this role and sexual confusion causes us to re-examine the stereotypes. Are they socially constructed or are they inherent in the person? You must read and decide for yourself!
Rating:
Summary: Turning the Familiar Inside Out
Review: M. Butterfly takes the well-known, traditional opera Madame Butterfly, and turns it upside down. It turns inside out the stereotype of Asian American women Americans almost take as fact. The common perceptions of male vs. female, East vs. West, powerful vs. powerless, homosexual vs. heterosexual are all overturned in this short play. Just when the reader thinks he or she knows what is going on, Hwang turns everything over once again. An astoundingly well written play... Be prepared for a surprise!
Rating:
Summary: Turning the Familiar Inside Out
Review: M. Butterfly takes the well-known, traditional opera Madame Butterfly, and turns it upside down. It turns inside out the stereotype of Asian American women Americans almost take as fact. The common perceptions of male vs. female, East vs. West, powerful vs. powerless, homosexual vs. heterosexual are all overturned in this short play. Just when the reader thinks he or she knows what is going on, Hwang turns everything over once again. An astoundingly well written play... Be prepared for a surprise!
Rating:
Summary: Social Misconceptions
Review: M. Butterfly, a play by Henry David Hwang, cleverly manipulates stereotypes about race, gender, and sexuality from the Puccini's Opera, Mme Butterfly. In Mme Butterfly, an American serviceman buys a Vietnamese wife for a price equivocal to pocket change. She is the epitome of the doting, submissive Asian stereotype. The American boasts that, like a Butterfly, the woman is so tame that she'll eat from his hand. During his stint in her country, she bears a baby boy. Yet, soon afterwards, the man is sent back to the United States, leaving the heartbroken wife waiting for his return. Finally, when she realizes that he is lost forever, she commits suicide so that at least her son will have a better life. In a heart wrenching scene, the small boy is retrieved by the American's new wife. Her unfailing love and her sacrifice are glorified. Yet, Hwang challenges this submission by playing upon this first M. abbreviation, using the french Monsieur instead of the opera's Madame. In Hwang's play, Song, an assertive Chinese opera singer, asks the American, and the reader, to reconsider his "favorite fantasy, " that of "the submissive Oriental woman and the cruel white man." She asks him, and her reader, to reconsider -"Consider it this way: what would you say if a blonde homecoming queen fell in love with a short Japanese businessman? ....................... " (17) However, presumably, Song becomes the American serviceman's Butterfly. Hong illustrates how his confidence, which was weak beforehand, grows because the newfound feelings of superiority that the relationship provides. Yet, as the play progresses, Hwang adds several surprise twists that border on the bizarre to dispel these misconceptions about race aand gender.
Rating:
Summary: Social Misconceptions
Review: M. Butterfly, a play by Henry David Hwang, cleverly manipulates stereotypes about race, gender, and sexuality from the Puccini's Opera, Mme Butterfly. In Mme Butterfly, an American serviceman buys a Vietnamese wife for a price equivocal to pocket change. She is the epitome of the doting, submissive Asian stereotype. The American boasts that, like a Butterfly, the woman is so tame that she'll eat from his hand. During his stint in her country, she bears a baby boy. Yet, soon afterwards, the man is sent back to the United States, leaving the heartbroken wife waiting for his return. Finally, when she realizes that he is lost forever, she commits suicide so that at least her son will have a better life. In a heart wrenching scene, the small boy is retrieved by the American's new wife. Her unfailing love and her sacrifice are glorified. Yet, Hwang challenges this submission by playing upon this first M. abbreviation, using the french Monsieur instead of the opera's Madame. In Hwang's play, Song, an assertive Chinese opera singer, asks the American, and the reader, to reconsider his "favorite fantasy, " that of "the submissive Oriental woman and the cruel white man." She asks him, and her reader, to reconsider -"Consider it this way: what would you say if a blonde homecoming queen fell in love with a short Japanese businessman? ....................... " (17) However, presumably, Song becomes the American serviceman's Butterfly. Hong illustrates how his confidence, which was weak beforehand, grows because the newfound feelings of superiority that the relationship provides. Yet, as the play progresses, Hwang adds several surprise twists that border on the bizarre to dispel these misconceptions about race aand gender.
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