David Henry Hwang's modern classic, M. BUTTERFLY charts the scandalous romance between a married French diplomat and a mysterious Chinese opera singer - a remarkable love story of international espionage and personal betrayal. Their 20-year relationship pushed and blurred the boundaries between male and female, east and west - while redefining the nature of love and the devastating cost of deceit.
Academy Award nominee and Golden Globe Award winner Clive Owen will star as Rene Gallimard in the first Broadway revival of David Henry Hwang's Tony Award-winning play, M. BUTTERFLY, directed by Tony Award winner Julie Taymor.
For the Tony Award-winning play's first Broadway return, Hwang will introduce new material inspired by the real-life love affair between French diplomat Bernard Boursicot and Chinese opera singer Shi Pei Pu that has come to light since the play's 1988 premiere.
The qualities that make Clive Owen such a powerful and enigmatic film actor haven't translated to the stage of Cort Theatre. That's where he's headlining a lackluster Broadway revival of M. Butterfly, the nearly 30-year-old Tony Award-winning American play inspired by the true story of a French diplomat convicted of espionage, who claimed he wasn't aware that his Chinese mistress was actually a man and a spy.
Most theater is a seduction. Bodies and lights, words and clothes, they all tempt us to embrace what's unreal. David Henry Hwang's M. Butterfly, now revived on Broadway, starring Clive Owen, is a play that uses the tools of theater to both celebrate and question how we give ourselves over to fantasy. Nearly 30 years on, it's still clever, tender and formally daring. But Julie Taymor's staging and Hwang's rewrites unbalance the delicate poise between illusion and truth.
1988 | Broadway |
Broadway |
2017 | Broadway |
Broadway Revival Production Broadway |
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