Watching the production of Madame Butterfly shocked me more than I ever thought it would despite the fact that I had a lot of prior knowledge of the play beforehand. The first thing that intrigued me were the costumes. I thought they did a wonderful job at showcasing the difference between European and Chinese fashion. It was also very relevant to the time period. The traditional Chinese clothes versus the revolutionary Chinese clothes was also made very clear, especially in the scene where the they performed a play where they tore the traditional clothes from one the actors who had revolutionary clothes underneath in order to send a message. That play made think critically about how determined the revolutionaries were in changing the traditional ways of way.
What also intrigued me was the acting. There was a lot of passion in the words of the characters. I could tell Gallimard was in a desperate search for “his butterfly” and he would do anything to find her. The acting also made me think about what Song had really accomplished over the years. He was in fact a man who loved another man. Despite living in China where homosexuality is considered a disease, he devoted his life to theatre and hoped for the best. He lived and carried the burden of never being able to be his true self. What shocked me the most was the court scene. His blunt words and description while having intercourse with Gallimard really surprised me. What surprised me even more was when he took off his clothes in front of Gallimard. It takes great bravery to strip in front of an entire audience over and over again. In the end I was impressed with the bluntness of this production, how it really did not hold anything back. It contained so many more meaningful messages and themes that the original production did not.
