HOW CAN a man fall in love with someone without ever realizing — even after 20 years — that his lover is not a woman?
That is the conundrum posed by David Henry Hwang’s play M. Butterfly, which is loosely based on the odd yet true story of a French diplomat, Bernard Boursicot, who fell in love with Shi Pei Pu, a male Peking opera singer who performed female roles — and who just happened to be a Chinese spy. How could he not know that his long-time lover was a man? How did the Chinese actor get away with it?