Hwang’s trenchant criticisms of Orientalism-the Puccini opera from which he takes his title being only one of the most flagrant examples of this trend in high art-continue to resonate just as clearly now, while the ambiguities about gender and sexuality-Gallimard is married to a woman-seem particularly relevant. It was an understandably groundbreaking and revelatory play when it opened at the end of the Eighties, but with today’s more widespread knowledge of the nuances of identity, it takes on new subtlety and surprising twists. Butterfly tracks the growing romance between Owen’s Rene Gallimard and Song, who impersonates a woman to win the Frenchman’s love and trust and, eventually, to steal diplomatic secrets from him for Chairman Mao. To be able to have a chance to have a go at the role and to inhabit it is a dream.”īased on a true story, M. “Growing up as an Asian-American consumer but also as an actor myself, I’ve looked up to them. “Both of them have been lighthouses for me,” he says. For the actor Jin Ha, who is now making his Broadway début in Wong’s role as Song Liling in the revival directed by Julie Taylor and starring Clive Owen, those two pioneers have served as inspirations for him his entire life. Butterfly, about the relationship between a French civil servant posted to Beijing and the Peking opera singer-turned-spy he falls in love with, played by BD Wong, who also won for his performance. The playwright David Henry Hwang took home the award for Best Play for M. Before June 5, 1988, there had been zero Asian-American Tony winners, but that night’s ceremony produced two.
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February 2023
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