Mint Book Club: May Selection M. Butterfly by David Henry Hwang

May is Asian Pacific American History Month — an umbrella that encompasses way too many people, cultures and amazing books for a one-to-three-books-a-month book club to adequately cover.

This month, I chose three books that deal with the relationship between the East and the West. These books deal with cultures clashing, adjusting and changing. They offer insight into how many of us perceive Asian cultures and the problems with those perceptions.

As always, you’re required to read every book. I’ll know if you haven’t.

M. Butterfly by David Henry Hwang

This one is a play, but honestly, I know you read Shakespeare in high school. Set up a Zoom call and act this one out if you have to, but we should all read more plays anyway.

French officer Rene Gallimard is stationed in China and falls in love with an opera singer. Fast forward twenty years and he’s in prison for treason. Throughout the course of this play Gallimard tells what led to this, how he should’ve seen it coming and why he didn’t.

It’s hard to talk about “M. Butterfly” without giving away spoilers. This play has a lot to say about the relationship between the West and Asia but again, it’s very hard to be specific without giving away the plot. I’ll just say that the relationship between Gallimard and Song Liling (the singer) has much more to it than you’d expect. Trust me.

Read more at The Summer Evergreen

This 30-Year-Old Play About Gender And Asian Identity Is More Relevant Than Ever

Jin Ha as Song Liling. Photo by Matthew Murphy.

When M. Butterfly premiered on Broadway in 1988, audiences were stunned to discover that the central character, Song Liling, was actually a man. Nearly 30 years later, as the revival runs at the Cort Theatre, the cat is out of the bag.

The story of M. Butterfly, which won three Tony Awards including Best Play, is now more well known than the real-life story it was based on — the affair between French diplomat Bernard Boursicot and Peking opera singer Shi Pei Pu. The culture has also progressed, and with it our language and sensitivity surrounding gender identity: The reveal of a character’s gender as a surprise twist, once a feature of M. Butterfly, now seems like a dangerously regressive relic.

That’s something playwright David Henry Hwang was well-aware of when he set about revising his play for a new production directed by Julie Taymor. In revisiting his seminal work, Hwang undertook a heavy rewrite, one in which Song’s gender is addressed early on — and the themes of toxic masculinity and Asian gender stereotypes are as clear as ever.

Read the full story at Buzzfeed.

Behind the Scenes of the Long-Awaited Revival M. Butterfly

M. Butterfly co-stars Clive Owen and Jin Ha, photographed in London.Photograph by Julian Broad.

"The succès de scandale of the 1988–89 Broadway season, David Henry Hwang’s M. Butterfly tells of a French diplomat whose politically ill-advised affair with an androgynous performer in the Chinese opera takes him places he never imagined, including prison. Deftly exploring Western stereotyping of Asians, M. Butterfly won the 1988 Tony Award for best play and ran for an astonishing 777 performances."

Read more at Vanityfair.com