A Multitude Of Butterflies Examining Adaptations Of The Butterfly Story In Contemporary Contexts

A Multitude of Butterflies:
Examining Adaptations of the
Butterfly Story in Contemporary
Contexts
JARED ANDREW MICHAUD
Yale University, Class of 2019
Literary Analysis

!1
THE Vietnam War, homosexual extramarital affairs, and the Japanese
geisha. These three seemingly unrelated phenomena all collide when reviewing
the multiple artistic endeavors that sprouted out of Giacomo Puccini’s Madama
Butterfly (1904). This opera, based on the 1898 short story by John Luther Long,
tells the tragic story of a young Japanese geisha and her American naval officer
lover, who fathers her child before returning home. As one of the most frequently
performed operas, Madama Butterfly has interested a variety of artists, spawning
a long list of adaptations from an assortment of mediums including plays,
musicals, movies, comic books, and even rock band albums. Two of these works,
1
David Henry Hwang’s M. Butterfly (1988) and Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel
Schönberg’s Miss Saigon (1989), are of particular interest for retelling the story of
Puccini’s opera in unique ways through different theatrical mediums. Both
shows opened, and also had revivals, around the same time. In fact, in the fall of
2017, one could see both Miss Saigon and M. Butterfly on Broadway and then
travel just a few blocks to the Metropolitan Opera to see Puccini’s masterpiece
that started it all 113 years earlier. However, this original masterpiece has been
scolded, by scholars and laymen alike, for perpetuating stereotypes of Asian
women as weak, submissive, hyper-sexualized, and enchantingly exotic.
Regardless, it remains one of the most commonly performed operas and has
spawned successful artistic endeavors such as Miss Saigon and M. Butterfly. In
2
this paper I hope to examine these two adaptations and their 2017 productions
against Puccini’s original work in order to elicit a greater understanding about
On the show’s history and popularity, see Schwarm; on its multiple adaptations, see Shipman.
1
Ibid.
2
———————————————————————————————————————
The Foundationalist Volume I, Issue I, 2018

!2
the possibilities and practices of adapting problematic storylines for
contemporary audiences.
Though none of the artists invoked in this inquiry created the Butterfly
trope or story themselves, they all had the opportunity to infuse the story with
their artistry in ways that could amplify, subvert, deconstruct, or disregard
certain ideas and themes. Puccini, for instance, has been hailed for the virtuosic
score of Madama Butterfly, vindicating, for some spectators and scholars, the
problematic narrative material that it renders. Feminist musicologists Susan
3
McClary and Judy Tsou have pushed back against this idea and have refocused
the spotlight on the issues perpetuated in Puccini’s musical choices. McClary
details the compositional techniques used to portray Cio-Cio-San as delicate,
inferior, childish, tragic, delusional and longing for Western ideals, ultimately
objectifying her and musically reinforcing the Butterfly trope. McClary also
4
delves into the choices made that depict Pinkerton as loutish, imperialist,
shamelessly patriotic, and sexually predatory. Similarly, Tsou dissects Puccini’s
5
compositional usage of tonality, or lack thereof, in exoticizing and eroticizing
Asian characters such as Cio-Cio-San. She qualifies that Cio-Cio-San is fairly
6
musically developed, but was still created out of the European imagination and
is belittled in her struggle to sing Western tonal idioms and in her lack of a
glorified entrance. In underscoring the problematics of Puccini’s opera, both
7
McClary and Tsou make clear that Puccini’s work reinforces the hierarchical
position of Asian women in the Western imagination, pushing McClary to
See McClary, “Mounting Butterflies,” p. 25.
3
See McClary, “Mounting Butterflies.”
4
Ibid.
5
See Tsou, “Composing Racial Difference in Madama Butterfly.”
6
Ibid.
7
———————————————————————————————————————

!3
suggest that the opera belongs “in the museum of strange cultural practices of
the past.” Though both the 2017 productions of Miss Saigon and M. Butterfly
8
tackle some of the problematics of Puccini’s opera in interesting and innovative
ways, none presents a suitable contemporary adaptation without demonstrating
its own unique problematics.
Boublil and Schönberg’s Miss Saigon is one of the adaptations that sticks
closest to the original storyline, while also maintaining characters who sing. Kim,
a young innocent Vietnamese bargirl, is the equivalent of the Butterfly and Chris,
an American soldier, is the equivalent of Pinkerton. They are accompanied by
Kim’s pimp, the Engineer, and placed into the world of the Vietnam War. In
9
changing the context of the narrative, Boublil and Schönberg appeal to one of the
most painful chapters of American history and the resulting national psyche in a
way that provides the audience with greater accessibility into the story. The
musical has the political potential to put certain untold stories about the Vietnam
War on the stage. Miss Saigon does engage in this discourse by focusing on the
effect that the war, and particularly the American soldiers, had on Asian women
and their children. In the number at the top of the second act, “Bui-Doi,” the
white Americans sing about their guilt and responsibility for these abandoned
children. However, Laurence Connor’s 2014 production, which played on
Broadway in 2017, approached the number with a level of insincerity by alluding
to popular culture motifs. The number’s staging boasts a large video projection
with clips of numerous frightened and saddened children while being
accompanied by tragically triumphant, almost cliché, music. To the
The quotation is from McClary, “Mounting Butterflies,” p. 33.
8
Summary and all following performance analyses are based on the viewing of a live performance; see
9
Boublil.
———————————————————————————————————————

!4
contemporary American audience member, the staging of this number, matched
with its musical qualities, closely resembles the incredibly popular fundraising
commercials for charities that support neglected animals and children and which
also often feature Sarah McLachlan’s heart-wrenching vocals. The production
10
uses this number to act as a “white savior” and to atone for its wrongdoings to
Asian women by displaying the guilt these Americans feel. Yet by appealing to
11
this popular culture motif, the number’s message is trivialized and feels more
like an attraction than a sincere expression of guilt and apology. Ultimately, this –
dare I call it – cheesy number does not make up for the lack of consideration for
Asian characters by both parties. Changing the context of the Butterfly narrative
offers Boublil and Schönberg the chance to recount the Vietnam War in a new
fashion, but they ultimately fail by running into many of the same problematics
as their source material.
The Asian women in Miss Saigon are portrayed in a very similar light to
those in Madama Butterfly, but with a more physically present sexuality that Eva
Noblezada, who currently plays Kim on Broadway, has characterized as
“demeaning.” The show’s big opening number, “The Heat is On in Saigon,”
12
puts an ensemble of Asian prostitutes on stage who then create sexual heat by
dancing around American soldiers, wearing nothing but bikinis. Celine Parreñas
Shimizu, a film scholar who writes on hypersexuality and race, speaks to the
sense of power that this scene can provide for Asian performers. Asian women,
13
For an example of the motif referenced, see Sarah McLachlan’s BC SPCA End Animal Cruelty
10
commercial, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gspElv1yvc.
For more on the white savior complex in entertainment, see Roìsìn, “Why Hollywood’s White Savior
11
Obsession is Extension of Colonialism.”
The quotation comes from Paulson, “The Battle of ‘Miss Saigon.’”
12
See Shimizu, “The Bind of Representation,” p. 44-49.
13
———————————————————————————————————————

!5
who are both underrepresented in the musical theater business and also often
cast in the small, weak Butterfly trope, have the opportunity to show an
enormous amount of power and anger in this scene – they are given an
opportunity on stage to be large, to take up space, and to embrace their female
sexuality. Noblezada also notes that although it may be demeaning, “this
14
happened to real people,” suggesting that the hypersexuality plays an important
role in telling the truth about the situation for many Asian women during the
war. Though Asian women certainly deserve opportunities for truth, power,
15
and embraced sexuality on stage, these two arguments need further
contextualization. That is, understanding that in musical theater Asian women
are nearly always portrayed as weak, subordinate, sexual objects or are not put
on stage at all can elicit questions about the lack of variety in the representation
of Asian women. These performers often play characters that are either a tragic
16
Kim or a hyper-sexualized bargirl, and even if it is in the vain of recounting
truthful histories, these actors deserve something that moves beyond the
stereotypes. However, Miss Saigon, in the same way that McClary and Tsou
describe Madama Butterfly, does not provide that opportunity.
The character of Kim, though not hyper-sexualized, does not stray from
McClary’s descriptions of Cio-Cio-San as delicate, childish, delusional, and
longing for Western ideals in both the text of the musical and its 2017 production.
One of her first big numbers and one of the most recognizable from the show,
“The Movie in My Mind,” is shared with Gigi, an experienced bargirl. They both
sing about their desire for a G.I. to save them from their lives, to bring them
Ibid.
14
The quotation is from Paulson, “The Battle of ‘Miss Saigon.’”
15
On Asian women in musical theater, see Lee, “Asian Actors Onstage.”
16
———————————————————————————————————————

!6
home, and to help them live the American dream, with lyrics such as “And in a
strong G.I.’s embrace / flee this life / flee this place.” The lush, soaring,
17
melodramatic score that accompanies these lyrics provides another layer of
desperation for the characters by requiring that the performers give an enormous
amount of vocal energy to loudly belt much of the song. Noblezada’s
powerhouse performance opposes stereotypes of weak Asian women, but when
matched with the lyrics, it becomes clear that her vocal strength does not derive
from a sense of confidence or pride but rather from a desperation and longing for
the West. This effect mirrors McClary’s analysis of Cio-Cio-San’s forceful singing
and high, escalating melodies; they represent not only larger-than-life emotions
but also her struggle to attain Western ideals. Additionally, Noblezada’s unique,
18
high, and young timbre, matched with the fact that she was only 17 when she
began playing Kim, provides the character with childlike qualities that resemble
McClary’s description of Cio-Cio-San. In this song, both Gigi and Kim, the
experienced prostitute and young naïve girl, are presented as victims of the war –
Vietnamese women who cannot fight and need an American to save them. In
response, Pulitzer Prize winner Viet Thanh Nguyen describes the show as an
imagination of “the Vietnam War as a racial and sexual fantasy that negates the
war’s political significance and Vietnamese subjectivity and agency.”19
Kim’s victimhood manifests itself in delusion at the height of her
tragedy, paralleling the delusional state McClary describes in Cio-Cio-San’s “Un
bel di.” Kim is beyond shocked when she meets Ellen, Chris’s American wife,
20
The lyrics are from STLyrics.
17
On McClary’s analysis, see McClary, “Mounting Butterflies,” p. 24.
18
The quotation is from Tran, “I Am Miss Saigon, and I Hate It.”
19
On McClary’s description, see McClary, “Mounting Butterflies,” p. 24-25.
20
———————————————————————————————————————

!7
leading her to beg and plead for Ellen and Chris to take her son so he can have a
better life. In the 2017 production, Noblezada is moving wildly around the stage
and practically screaming through her tears as she details the life she imagines
for her son. Her reaction seems justified – this is the climax of the Butterfly
tragedy – but it certainly portrays her as delusional when contrasted with Ellen’s
physical composure throughout the scene. What does seem unjustifiable is the
lack of development of this moment for Kim; she runs offstage and her next
important moment is her own suicide. This leaves a lack of clarity and conclusion
about Kim’s emotional journey and makes it easier to cast her off as delusional.
One of the most frustrating aspects of Miss Saigon is that the post-
confrontation song that should belong to Kim instead belongs to Ellen, Chris’s
American wife, who was played by a white woman in the 2017 production. Ellen,
who has barely appeared onstage before this, gets the beautiful, heart-wrenching
11 o’clock number, “Maybe,” in which she sings about her confusion and sadness
regarding the fact that Chris loved Kim before he loved her. Though these
feelings are valid, the choice to allow Ellen, a white woman, to occupy physical
and aural space when the story clearly belongs to Kim is impermissible. Kim,
who according to Tim Teeman doesn’t have a character arc because of her
relentless victimhood, is denied the one moment when her victimhood is most
reasonable because the spotlight instead shines on a privileged white woman.21
Even more frustrating is that when Boublil and Schönberg edited their show for
the most recent production, they replaced Ellen’s original song with this new
song, “Maybe,” when they had the opportunity to instead make the scene more
See Teeman, “Sexism, Race and the Mess of ‘Miss Saigon’ on Broadway.”
21
———————————————————————————————————————

!8
focused on Kim. Ellen’s song transitions into a duet with Chris, “The
22
Confrontation,” in which they deal with their own problems of marriage and
trust, and Ellen even describes Kim as acting “insane.” This scene runs on for
23
far too long, focusing on issues of secondary importance, and it becomes
increasingly clear that Miss Saigon was written about white people, by white
people, and for white people.
The erasure of the climax of Kim’s story also exhibits the way in which the
storytellers value their title character and is ultimately part of their larger
commodification of Asian women. Teeman describes the many purposes that
Kim serves for other characters and themes throughout the show, concluding
that, “in the writers of Miss Saigon’s eyes there is nothing left for Kim at the end
of the show.” Similar to the way in which the bargirls are sexually objectified,
24
Kim’s existence is limited to being a plot tool through her consistent victimhood.
Teeman says it best when he claims, “Happiness is never a possibility for her.”25
A similar commodification of Asian women occurred during the original
production process of Miss Saigon. Cameron Mackintosh, the executive producer,
searched around the world for performers for his show, ultimately finding the
most talent in the Philippines. He set up a free Miss Saigon training school in
Manilla, where hundreds of girls would become more fluent in Western musical
theater practices and prepare to be in his show in productions around the
world. Lucy Burns makes it a point to note that the school was primarily
26
focused on building the performers’ physical capacity rather than their theatrical
Ibid.
22
Quote from All Musicals.
23
24
Ibid.
25
On the talent search and training schools, see Burns, “Working Miss Saigon,” p. 126-131.
26
———————————————————————————————————————

!9
knowledge because Mackintosh’s goal was to build his labor force and not to
enrich the students’ minds. In the same way that Kim is a commodity for the
27
tragic narrative, the production has treated Asian women as commodities and
exported their Western-trained talents to aid the team’s business endeavors.
In analyzing these choices about the management of Asian bodies both on
and off stage, Mackintosh, Boublil, and Schönberg can be critiqued for the same
fault that McClary ﬁnds in Puccini’s work: far too little concern with the politics
of the issues in the show’s content. McClary cites Puccini’s greater concern with
28
the conventions of opera – whether to have two acts or three – and she would
likely cite Miss Saigon’s focus on creating an appealing show that would reach
economic success worldwide. The lack of concern about Asian representation is
29
clear not only in the examples previously discussed, but also in the casting
scandal and resulting protests during the original production. Despite their
casting tour around the world, the original artistic team chose to cast a white
man in the leading Asian male role, the Engineer. Furthermore, Boublil and
30
Schönberg used nonsense syllables to represent the Vietnamese language in Kim
and Chris’s wedding ceremony number. The composers may have escaped
31
Tsou’s critique by having their Asian characters sing in the same musical style
and with the same musical idioms as the white characters, but they commit the
same act of othering in their lack of concern with correct language. Though the
lyrics were changed to actual Vietnamese for the 2017 production, the artistic
See Burns, “Working Miss Saigon,” p. 108-111.
27
On McClary’s argument, see McClary, “Mounting Butterﬂies,” p.29.
28
Ibid.
29
See Paulson, “The Battle of ‘Miss Saigon.’”
30
See Shimizu, “The Bind of Representation,” p. 36.
31
———————————————————————————————————————

!10
team is not excused for their lack of honest and accurate depictions and
representations.32
It is important to note that in the case of all of these issues, Asian voices
were not in total agreement. Shimizu interviewed many performers who loved
the power they were able to present onstage as a bargirl, and many Filipinas
loved the opportunity to be trained in musical theater by some of the best names
in the field. Lea Salonga, the first woman to play Kim, became a celebrity
33
around the world, and many individuals were in support of the emergence of
Filipinos on the global theatrical stage. There were even some people who were
34
not opposed to the yellow face used by the white man playing the role of the
Engineer, Jonathan Pryce, because he was such a compelling and talented actor.35
Needless to say, each of these issues pertaining to both the material and the
production of Miss Saigon can spur their own complicated, independent debates.
When all taken into consideration though, it becomes evident that the artistic
team behind Miss Saigon took very little concern to issues of Asian
representation, commodification, and overall imperialism in creating their work.
One area of greater concern for the original artistic team was the white
male protagonist, Chris, once again eschewing concern for their Asian leading
woman. Besides the change of context, one of the biggest modifications from the
Madama Butterfly narrative in Miss Saigon is the attempt to make Chris more
likeable. Schönberg himself notes that “the character of Pinkerton is awful” and
cites the need to update the story and “to improve the human aspect” for
On change of lyrics, see Hetrick, “How This Miss Saigon Honors the Vietnamese Perspective.”
32
See Shimizu, “The Bind of Representation,” p. 41-47.
33
See Burns, “Working Miss Saigon,” p. 108-111.
34
See Paulson, “The Battle of ‘Miss Saigon.’”
35
———————————————————————————————————————

!11
contemporary audiences. Thus, Boublil and Schönberg stripped Chris of much
36
of his agency and replaced it with external problems – his forced abrupt
departure from Saigon and his torturous memories of loving Kim – because they
“didn’t want Chris to be a bastard like Pinkerton – using a girl, leaving her, then
coming back.” This compositional technique leaves Chris carrying out many of
37
the same actions as Pinkerton, but with none of the assertiveness or confidence
that allow audience members to ride him off as a vile character or a misguided
lover. He is instead cast as a loser, as Teeman notes that “Chris never seems like a
hero of any kind. He whines, wheedles, and is broken.” This idea is furthered in
38
the 2017 production by the high, light tenor qualities of Chris’s voice. He never
sings with a force and power as impressive as Noblezada, and in their multiple
duets, he is often drowned out by her powerhouse voice. As a result, Chris lacks
the heroic prowess that Kim yearns for in her ideal American man, leaving their
romance feeling flat, somewhat unjustified, and lacking in chemistry. In trying to
make Chris more likeable, Boublil and Schönberg have not only changed the
dynamics of his relationship with Kim, but have also inadvertently made Kim
seem more delusional for her reaction (suicide) to losing an uncorroborated
romance.
Where Boublil and Schönberg have failed to consider and sometimes have
even exacerbated issues of Asian representation in the choices and changes they
have made to Puccini’s story, David Henry Hwang has made up for it in his play
M. Butterfly. Hwang approaches the challenge of adapting the traditional story
for contemporary audiences not by changing the context and setting, but by
The quotations are from Behr, The Story of Miss Saigon, p. 30.
36
Ibid.
37
38
———————————————————————————————————————

!12
deconstructing the story itself so that it works against all of the issues propagated
in the original. His story instead concerns a French diplomat, Rene Gallimard,
and his 20 yearlong love affair with a Chinese opera star, Madame Song, who
poses as a woman and conceals his male identity in order to gain access to French
intelligence. In the end, Gallimard plays the role of the Butterfly as he realizes
this deception and ultimately kills himself. Hwang takes a story that celebrated
39
Western Orientalist fantasy and subverts it into a critique of racial and gender-
based stereotyping. Gallimard references Puccini’s opera multiple times
throughout the show; he describes his desire to be like Pinkerton and to have his
very own Butterfly, while excerpts of recordings of Madama Butterfly serve as
underscoring. Hwang’s play can then be seen as moving beyond adaption by
evolving the Butterfly narrative in its deconstruction and subversion of the ideas
from the original. Though Hwang, an Asian-American writer, blatantly tackles
issues of Orientalism, imperialism, and misogyny, his play, and Julie Taymor’s
2017 production of it, still occasionally struggle with the same issues that
McClary and Tsou detail about Madama Butterfly.
In his creation of the character Song, Hwang avoids using the Butterfly
trope and instead equips the character with a knowledge of Asian stereotypes to
use as a weapon against white Western men. Song’s ability to trick Gallimard for
many years, as he describes in the courtroom scene, was the result of knowing
both what men wanted and that Westerners were largely confused about the
East. Hwang avoids using the Asian stereotypes that created both Cio-Cio-San
40
and Kim by subverting and exposing them in the relationship between Song and
Summary and all following performance analyses are based on the viewing of a live performance; see
39
Hwang, “M. Butterfly.”
See Hwang, M. Butterfly, Scene 3.1, p. 82.
40
———————————————————————————————————————

!13
Gallimard. Gallimard is deceived of Song’s true identity and believes her to be
the same as these stereotypical Asian women. When he discovers the truth, these
stereotypes are called into question and the audience has the chance to see the
effects stereotyping has on human lives. In spite of this, Hwang actually appeals
to a different Asian stereotype with Song. Although it is a powerful change from
the original narrative to have an Asian character overcome and conquer a
Western character, it then, as Williamson Chang acknowledges, paints the Asian
character as “cunning, shrewd, manipulative, and deceptive” and the Western
character as “trusting, idealistic, misinformed, and generous.” Additionally,
41
Hsiu-Chen Lin notes that Song, with her “sexual perversion [luring] innocent
white men into danger,” becomes “a stereotypical threat to Western morality and
security.” This same stereotype is utilized for the Engineer in Miss Saigon, who
42
is often greedy, cunning, and exploitative in a way that leads Teeman to
analogize him with a rat. This is evident in simply the Engineer’s main
43
objective of the musical: he will do whatever he can to get to America, even if
that means putting his friends, such as Kim, in danger. Hwang received a lot of
criticism from the Asian American community for relying so heavily on Asian
stereotypes in his play, and even though he was able to subvert some of these
stereotypes through Song’s rat-like behavior, he inadvertently opened up another
can of worms in doing so.
Hwang’s use of a man crossdressing as a woman also raises some concern
for perpetuating certain stereotypes. William Wong notes that many Asian
American men have responded negatively to the play “for perpetuating a
See Boles, Understanding David Henry Hwang, p. 57.
41
Ibid.
42
43
———————————————————————————————————————

!14
stereotype that Asian men are effeminate.” Hwang and Song are both aware of
44
this situation, as Song explains in the courtroom that “being an Oriental, I could
never be completely a man.” Similar to his use of the Butterfly trope, Hwang
45
puts these stereotypes on stage in order to subvert them and craft a larger
message about the state of racial and gender-based stereotyping. The question
then becomes: does putting stereotyped bodies on stage, even if they’re being
used to subvert the stereotypes themselves, actually perpetuate the issue by
presenting them to the audience? This question mirrors the use of sexually
objectified bargirls in Miss Saigon; it is demeaning, but it is the truth, just like the
existence of this stereotype is true. The theater is considered, at least by a certain
group of thinkers, as a temple of truth, where audiences can see humanity
reflected back at them. While maintaining this quest for truth is vital for the
institution at large, theater writers and composers have to walk a fine line when
exposing minorities on stage because audiences are largely white. In many cases,
these audiences are so exposed to stereotypes that a poorly crafted subversion of
these stereotypes could instead be read as a normal portrayal of the minority
character and thus perpetuate stereotypes further. Shimakawa suggests that
reinscribing these stereotypes in M. Butterfly is a “necessary risk” in order to
contradict them, but the risks of Taymor’s 2017 production sometimes actually
minimize Hwang’s subversion techniques.46
Taymor’s production of M. Butterfly is very self-aware of its theater
making, causing New York Times theater critique Ben Brantley to classify the style
See Pao, “The Critic and the Butterfly,” p. 1.
44
The quotation is from Hwang, M. Butterfly, Scene 3.1, p. 83.
45
The quotation is from Shimakawa, “‘Who’s to Say?’” p. 362.
46
———————————————————————————————————————

!15
as “Brechtian.” With its clunky moving walls and visible stagehands, the show
47
doesn’t hide the fact that it is a show and thus fails to pull audiences into its
narrative world. More importantly, Jin Ha’s portrayal of Song contains no deceit
about his true gender, which Brantley ascribes to his “distinctly masculine cast of
a jaw.” While self-consciousness is an effective tool for certain shows, in M.
48
Butterﬂy it is more necessary that audience members are soaked up in the fantasy
of the story because they are “implicated in [Gallimard’s] imperialist project as
well.” Shimakawa speaks about the importance of audiences seeing the story
49
from Gallimard’s perspective in order for them to fall into the same trap as
Gallimard (believing that Song is a woman) and to have their own stereotyping
habits subverted as well. By letting the audience in on the secret that Song is
50
actually a man, Taymor prevents the emotional impact that Brantley claims
accompanies audience complicity in the fantasy of the narrative. Song’s obvious
51
gender and trickery consequently portray Gallimard as delusional and his
suicide as pathetic in the same way that Kim appears delusional for her strange
romance with an American loser. In making this choice, Taymor has made the
show much more about the performativity of gender and the uniqueness of this
narrative than about subverting stereotypes. Though the portrayal and
subsequent ridiculing of Gallimard may also subvert stereotypes of strong white
men, it is not a powerful enough subversion to change the way that audiences
think about Asian women and it still focuses the attention on a white man. The
loss of fantasy in the 2017 production works against Hwang’s reiﬁcation of Asian
The quotation is from Brantley, “Review: Return of the Little Copter That Wowed in ‘Miss Saigon’.”
47
Ibid.
48
See Shimakawa, “‘Who’s to Say?’” p. 360.
49
Ibid.
50
See Brantley, “Review: Return of the Little Copter That Wowed in ‘Miss Saigon’.”
51
———————————————————————————————————————

!16
stereotypes by never tricking the audience into contradicting them and instead
perpetuates them.
Taymor’s choices and the lack of fantasy in her production also affect the
amount of agency allowed to the character of Song. One of the most striking
differences between Taymor’s production and Hwang’s original text was the
removal of Song’s transformation routine that comes between acts two and three.
Understood to be “the dramatic climax of the play, its ultimate coup de théâtre”
by Gabrielle Cody, this moment is key not only in subverting the audience’s
perception of Song, but also in providing Song with the power to command the
narrative, the stage, and the theater itself. Song breaks the fourth wall and
52
offers the audience the opportunity for an intermission. This entire moment is a
power move and displays Song’s ability to control the entire show, from
narrative to house management. This moment shocked audiences in the
53
original production, with gasps galore and patrons disbelieving that the female
Song and the male Song were played by the same actor. Taymor’s removal of
54
this scene inhibits Song from having his climactic moment in the same way that
Kim does not sing the dramatic song after her climactic confrontation. Taymor’s
2017 production of Hwang’s seminal play presents many interesting ways to
actively work against all of the issues that McClary and Tsou find in Puccini’s
opera, but in doing so, a whole new set of problematics arise.
Hwang, Boublil, Schönberg, and the 2017 productions of their work
present different ways to adapt, or even evolve, Puccini’s Madama Butterfly. The
multiple examples previously detailed display that these artists can become so
The quotation is from Cody, “Perpetuating the Misogynist Myth,” p. 26.
52
On artifice and trickery, see Zamora, “Artifice in David Henry Hwang’s M. Butterfly,” p. 45-49.
53
See Boles, Understanding David Henry Hwang, p.58-59.
54
———————————————————————————————————————

!17
wrapped up in their adaptation that the focus of their work can become
somewhat jumbled and lost. Miss Saigon, in telling an epic Vietnam War tale,
struggles to build chemistry between Kim and Chris, to develop Kim beyond a
tragic trope, and to let Kim have her climactic moment. According to James Moy,
M. Butterfly struggles to engage audiences on issues of gender, Asian depictions,
and East/West relations because patrons are more struck by and interested in the
incredulity of the show’s narrative. Hwang deconstructs the traditional
55
Butterfly narrative in order to make an impact on the stereotyping of Asian
women, but in doing so, he creates a cast of mainly men with a narrative focused
around yet another white man. Though it is more of the narrative’s fault than
56
his own, Hwang does not allow Asian female bodies on stage in a show that is at
its root about Asian women. His adaptational choices have limited opportunities
for Asian female performers, whereas those of the Miss Saigon team have
provided many Asian women with musical theater careers. Both Miss Saigon and
M. Butterfly, in production and in text, have consequences to their adaptational
choices which either perpetuate, deconstruct, or contradict McClary and Tsou’s
critiques of Puccini’s opera.
It is, however, not only the adaptational choices – the change of context or
the deconstruction of narrative – that affect the shows’ quality as a contemporary
adaption, but also the medium in which it is crafted. Hwang had originally
intended for M. Butterfly to be a musical, but after realizing the lengthy,
collaborative process that it would necessitate, he settled on a stage play. Avery
57
Ibid.
55
In the production I saw, Clive Owen received extra praise and extra bows, while allow Jin Ha stood
56
awkwardly to the side in his shadow.
This information is found in the afterword to his play; see Hwang, M. Butterfly, p. 96.
57
———————————————————————————————————————

!18
Larson suggests that this choice leaves no room for audience members to become
distracted by the beauty of music and to ignore the multiple problems present, as
often happens in the opera. While this may be true, Hwang’s initial impulse to
58
write a musical seems much more fitting because his characters and his plot are
so over-the-top that it seems as if they should be singing; the suspension of
disbelief that is so common in musical theater is necessary to digest Hwang’s
story. Angela Pao connects the idea of suspension of disbelief with Hwang’s
writing style, suggesting that Hwang would have been more successful at
drawing his audiences into the fantastical world of his narrative if he used the
musical theater form. It seems as if the self-consciousness that impedes on the
59
subversion of stereotypes in the 2017 production is only worsened by the genre
of the text.
The musical theater form works well for the melodramatic characters and
plot in Miss Saigon, and it even serves as an equalizer because all of the
characters, regardless of race, sing in the same style. While these characters are
certainly ones that sing, the musical theater form brings with it an expectation for
entertainment and spectacle that sometimes seems at odds with the tragic,
melodramatic narrative of Miss Saigon. When Chris is suddenly forced to flee
Vietnam, a giant model helicopter flies from upstage towards the audience with
dramatic sound and wind effects, forever branding Miss Saigon as “the musical
with the helicopter.” Furthermore, in “The American Dream,” the Engineer
60
sings about everything he will have in America and is accompanied by flashing
neon lights, dancing Las Vegas showgirls, and even a white convertible that
See Larson, “Adaptation as Deconstruction.”
58
On the suspension of disbelief and Hwang’s style, see Pao, “The Critic and the Butterfly,” p. 5.
59
The quotation is from Brantley, “Review: Return of the Little Copter That Wowed in ‘Miss Saigon’.”
60
———————————————————————————————————————

!19
drives onstage. These two moments are some of the most popular and most
applauded of the show because they provide the spectacle that musical theater
audiences have come to know and love. However, they seem somewhat out of
place in the show; spectacle feels more like a requirement for the musical theater
form and less like a tool to enhance the story’s tragedy. If anything, the use of
spectacle, much like Puccini’s beautiful score, distracts audiences from the
tragedy of the issues at bay: Chris’s departure and the Engineer’s unrequited
dreams. It even trivializes these issues by turning them into fun moments for the
audience; the focus is not on the emotionality or the tragedy of the characters.
Save for the distracting beauty of Puccini’s score, opera has many of the
qualities that work best with this melodramatic and tragic narrative: it draws
audiences into a world of fantasy while also wowing them with the capabilities
of the human voice instead of with fancy stage machinery. Anthony Minghella’s
2006 production of Madama Butterfly that played at the Met in 2017 had a pared
down set and used spectacle to offer a different perspective on the tragedy, with
the large mirror suspended in the air and the puppets flying around the stage.61
Though the Butterfly narrative may be best suited for opera, Madama Butterfly
still faces the many critiques of McClary and Tsou. The adaptations detailed in
this paper, though offering exciting new ideas, are subject to many of the same
critiques. Changing the setting to a historically relevant location and
deconstructing the narrative make the shows more appealing to contemporary
audiences, but both Miss Saigon and M. Butterfly miss the mark in fixing the
problems that McClary and Tsou outline with Madama Butterfly. Their 2017
productions did little to help their written texts, often presenting their own
Based on viewing a live performance; see Puccini.
61
———————————————————————————————————————

!20
problematics, and they both ultimately fell flat in creating a successful
contemporary adaptation that solved Puccini’s problems.
A contemporary adaptation that solves McClary and Tsou’s concerns is
certainly possible, though it may look even more different from the original
narrative than M. Butterfly already does. Each adaptation presented in this paper
is a step in the right direction, though they may only be baby steps. While the
adaptations have only made a small amount of progress, they should not be
banished to a “museum of strange cultural practices of the past” as McClary
suggests for Madama Butterfly. All three shows discussed in this paper should
62
continue to be performed, if only to spark ideas for the progression of
contemporizing this narrative. A greater dialogue and understanding of the
issues that each show presents is necessary from all parties involved with the
creation of new productions: composers/writers in making changes, directors in
staging, actors in portraying, and most importantly, audiences in absorbing
content. While we wait for more contemporaneous stage art, we must be sure
that the art we are involved with does not perpetuate issues of the past. For now,
audience members must be thoughtful in viewing Madama Butterfly, Miss Saigon,
and M. Butterfly so as to transparently witness their problematics while also
appreciating their artistry. It is not only adaptations that can help in
contemporizing offensive material from the past, but also creative
interpretations, and above all, a greater discourse on the issues that pervade
these shows.
The quotation is from McClary, “Mounting Butterflies,” p. 33.
62
———————————————————————————————————————

!21
Works Cited
Behr, Edward, and Mark Steyn. The Story of Miss Saigon. London, J. Cape,
1991. Print.
Boles, William C. Understanding David Henry Hwang. Columbia, SC, Univ. of
South Carolina Press, 2013.
Boublil, Alain, et al. Miss Saigon, Laurence Connor (dir.). Premiere: 21 May
2014, Prince Edward Theatre, London. Viewed: 22 Nov. 2017, New York, Broadway
Theatre.
Brantley, Ben. “Review: Return of the Little Copter That Wowed in ‘Miss
Saigon’.” The New York Times, 23 Mar. 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/03/23/
theater/miss-saigon-on-broadway-review.html. Accessed 27 Nov. 2017.
Burns, Lucy. “‘How in the Light of One Night Did We Come So Far?’ Working
Miss Saigon.” Puro Arte: Filipinos on the Stages of Empire. New York: NYU Press, 2012.
107-138. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/ams.2014.0120. Web. Accessed 11 Nov. 2017.
Cody, Gabrielle. “David Hwang's M. Butterfly: Perpetuating the Misogynist
Myth.” Theater, vol. 20, no. 2, 1989, pp. 24–27.
Hetrick, Adam. “How This Miss Saigon Honors the Vietnamese Perspective.”
Playbill, Playbill Inc., 16 Mar. 2017, www.playbill.com/article/how-this-miss-saigon-
honors-honors-the-vietnamese-perspective. Accessed 7 Dec. 2017.
Hwang, David Henry. M. Butterfly. New York, Penguin Books, 2006. Print.
Hwang, David Henry. M. Butterfly, Julie Taymor (dir.). Premiere: 26 Oct 2017,
New York, Cort Theatre. Viewed: 25 Nov. 2017, New York, Cort Theatre.
Larson, Avery. “Adaptation as Deconstruction.” Serendip, Bryn Mawr College,
15 Apr. 2011, www.serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/lynn/adaptation-
deconstruction. Accessed 22 Nov. 2017.
Lee, Ashley. “Asian Actors Onstage: Lea Salonga, Phillipa Soo Sound Off on
Broadway Representation, Cultural Perceptions.” The Hollywood Reporter, 24 Nov.
2015, www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/asian-actors-onstage-lea-
salonga-842293. Accessed 9 Dec. 2017.
McClary, Susan. “Mounting Butterflies.” A Vision of the Orient: Texts, Intertexts,
and Contexts of Madame Butterfly. Ed. Jonathan Wisenthal et al. University of Toronto
Press, 2006. 21–35. Print.
Pao, Angela. “The Critic and the Butterfly: Sociocultural Contexts and the
Reception of David Henry Hwang’s M. Butterfly.” Amerasia Journal, vol. 18, no. 3,
1992, pp. 1–16. doi:10.17953/amer.18.3.w380674743173pl1. Print.
Paulson, Michael. “The Battle of ‘Miss Saigon’: Yellowface, Art and
Opportunity.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 17 Mar. 2017,
www.nytimes.com/2017/03/17/theater/the-battle-of-miss-saigon-yellowface-art-
and-opportunity.html. Accessed 6 Dec. 2017.
———————————————————————————————————————

!22
Puccini, Giacomo, et al. Madama Butterfly, Anthony Minghella. Premiere: 18
Sep. 2006, New York, The Metropolitan Opera. Viewed: 6 Nov. 2017, New York, The
Metropolitan Opera.
Roìsìn, Fariha. “Why Hollywood’s White Savior Obsession Is an Extension of
Colonialism.” Teen Vogue, TeenVogue.com, 14 Sept. 2017, www.teenvogue.com/
story/hollywoods-white-savior-obsession-colonialism. Accessed 10 Dec. 2017.
Schwarm, Betsy, and Linda Cantoni. “Madama Butterfly.” Encyclopædia
Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, inc., 23 Dec. 2014, www.britannica.com/topic/
Madama-Butterfly. Accessed 7 Dec. 2017.
Shimakawa, Karen. “‘Who's to Say?’ or, Making Space for Gender and
Ethnicity in ‘M. Butterfly.’” Theatre Journal, vol. 45, no. 3, 1993, pp. 349–362. JSTOR,
JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3208359. Accessed 1 Dec. 2017.
Shimizu, Celine Parreñas. “The Bind of Representation: Performing and
Consuming Hypersexuality in Miss Saigon.” The Hypersexuality of Race: Performing
Asian/American Women on Screen and Scene. Duke University Press, 2007. 30-57. Web.
Accessed 10 Nov. 2017.
Shipman, Chris. “The Butterfly Effect: Why Pop Culture Has Embraced
Puccini's Madama Butterfly.” Royal Opera House News, 29 Mar. 2017,
www.roh.org.uk/news/the-butterfly-effect-why-has-pop-culture-embraced-
puccinis-madama-butterfly-like-no-other-opera. Accessed 17 Nov. 2017.
Teeman, Tim. “Sexism, Race and the Mess of 'Miss Saigon' on Broadway.” The
Daily Beast, The Daily Beast Company, 23 Mar. 2017, www.thedailybeast.com/
sexism-race-and-the-mess-of-miss-saigon-on-broadway. Accessed 1 Dec. 2017.
“The Confrontation Lyrics - Miss Saigon.” All Musicals,
www.allmusicals.com/lyrics/misssaigon/theconfrontation.htm. Accessed 7 Dec.
2017.
“The Movie In My Mind Lyrics from Miss Saigon soundtrack.” STLyrics,
www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/misssaigon/themovieinmymind.htm. Accessed 8 Dec.
2017.
Tran, Diep. “I Am Miss Saigon, and I Hate It.” American Theatre, American
Theatre, 14 Apr. 2017, www.americantheatre.org/2017/04/13/i-am-miss-saigon-
and-i-hate-it/. Accessed 1 Dec. 2017.
Tsou, Judy. “Composing Racial Difference in Madama Butterfly: Tonal
Language and the Power of Cio-Cio-San.” Rethinking Difference in Music Scholarship,
Ed. Olivia Bloechl et al. 2015. 214–237. doi:10.1017/cbo9781139208451.007. Print.
Zamora, Maria C. “Artifice in David Henry Hwang’s M. Butterfly: Sexuality,
Race, and the Seduction of Theater.” Nation, Race & History in Asian American
Literature: Re-membering the Body, Peter Lang Publishing, 2008. 33-51. ProQuest
Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/yale-ebooks/detail.action?
docID=3029691. Accessed 10 Nov. 2017.
———————————————————————————————————————

A Multitude Of Butterflies Examining Adaptations Of The Butterfly Story In Contemporary Contexts

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

Similar to A Multitude Of Butterflies Examining Adaptations Of The Butterfly Story In Contemporary Contexts

Similar to A Multitude Of Butterflies Examining Adaptations Of The Butterfly Story In Contemporary Contexts (11)

More from Emily Smith

More from Emily Smith (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

A Multitude Of Butterflies Examining Adaptations Of The Butterfly Story In Contemporary Contexts