He is intoxicated by the Oriental woman, and hence the entire story is ensconced in this fantasy. “We need to show that stereotyped version of East Asia,” costume designer Annie Ma explains, because the play is dominated by the character René Gallimard’s narrative, recounting his love story with China opera singer Song Liling as he serves a prison sentence for treason. Butterfly by David Henry Hwang derives its name from the opera and embeds it meta-theatrically, and this upcoming production intentionally exaggerates these orientalist tropes. “We need to show that stereotyped version of East Asia” Asia and the Asian woman are fetishised as ornaments-beautiful, docile, powerless, and disposable: in Puccini’s opera Madame Butterfly, Japanese woman Butterfly becomes infatuated with an American naval officer who abandons her and prompts her suicide. This is China ‘through the looking glass’: exotic, Orientalised, fetishised, subordinate.
Content Note: This article contains brief mention of suicide.
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