Giacomo Puccini’s opera Madame Butterfly premiered in Milan in 1904. In 1988, David Henry Hwang reimagined its plot in a Tony award-winning play M. Butterfly on Broadway, Puccini’s plot morphed into the story of a French diplomat’s two-decade-plus affair with a Chinese opera singer.
Edrick Young, who plays Song Liling at the current local production of M. Butterfly (runs through March 14 at San Francisco Playhouse), wasn’t aware of the play until he went to Stanford University and joined a theater group Hwang started in 1978, the Asian American Theater Project. Young says that most other members of his cast learned about the play in a critical race or queer studies class.
“It’s interesting to see how it’s been used as this kind of case study of a play, versus us doing it now,” Young said. “We have a story to actually tell, not just analyze, and it’s a very different experience.”
When M. Butterfly premiered in the ’80s, the show’s revelation that Song is a man was a shock to audiences. But Young says that is not so much the focus of this production.
“Doing this play with Bridgette has been really lovely in trying to explore other ideas,” he said. “I think the idea of surprising audiences with the deception and the reveal is not as compelling anymore. What is more compelling to us, and hopefully to our audiences, are the ideas around hope and love and what happens when our bodies are policed by other people, when our identities are weaponized against us.”
Young, who has appeared at the Playhouse in Exotic Deadly: Or the MSG Play, as well as in productions at Marin Theatre, Oakland Theater Project, and New Conservatory Theater Center, says many people have an idea of who Song is. He likens the experience of playing the role to his 2024 turn as one of the leads in Tony Kushner’s Angels in America.
“It feels like a bit of a challenge, but also an exciting opportunity. When I played Joe Pitt, it was like, ‘Oh, I think that people have very strong ideas of who Joe Pitt is supposed to be in this story.’ It’s the same thing with Song Liling,” he said. “This came out almost 40 years ago, and they’ve done a couple productions of it in San Francisco, and 20 years ago, they had a big Broadway revival. People have an idea of what this story is—that this is the Chinese opera singer who was a spy and fooled this diplomat for 20 years.”
The Playhouse is pulling out the stops for this production. Hwang has also written various screenplays and the libretto for The Monkey King, which had a wildly successful premiere at the San Francisco Opera in November, when critics threw around words like “inventive,” “spectacular,” and “thrilling”.
This Madame Butterfly has original music composed by David C. Warner, with the Peking Opera and Puccini’s original as influences. Warner also learned to play some Chinese instruments for the production (!!) and James Ard did sound design.
To further create a unique world onstage, director Bridgette Loriaux infused the play with movement. Loriaux says that having danced with Argentinian aerialists De La Guarda impacted her work.
“The kind of vigorous athleticism with all of the performers really influenced me and inspired me,” Loriaux, who brought her talents to The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time at the Playhouse last season, told 48hills. “It was such a physical act—not just being in the air, but the strength and the endurance and the training that it takes to be in the air.”
“I have an incredible company of actors who are multi-talented—they sing, they act, they can dance,” she continued. “For instance, there’s this moment where Gallimard, who is the main character, is looking through a pin-up girl magazine. And usually in the script, it’s just a pin-up girl that he’s talking to that comes alive through the magazine. I thought it was a beautiful opportunity to create this magazine of women that come to life.”
Young says Hwang originally envisioned M. Butterfly as a musical, and he feels this production pays homage to that. For his character, Young thinks movement shows who he is.
“A big theme in Song’s life is the idea of performance, and what is authentic identity and what is performed identity?” he said. “On the surface, I think we see identity is performed through our clothing, our timbre of voice, our posture, and I feel like Bridgette is really blowing that up with how we move across the stage.”
M. BUTTERFLY runs through March 14. San Francisco Playhouse. More info here.
